Mayor Todd Gloria Bounces Back In Polling For The San Diego Mayoral Race

According to a new San Diego Tribune poll released on Tuesday, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria (D) jumped back to a large lead over police officer Larry Turner (I) in the 2024 San Diego Mayoral race 47% to 31%, halting Turner’s recent surge in support.

Back in 2020 Gloria, then an Assemblyman and briefly the Mayor of San Diego from 2013-2014, received 56% of the vote total over City Councilwoman Barbara Bry. However, his tenure received a mix reception over the next 4 years, capped off by a rise in homelessness and encampments in the city, despite a ban on tents on public property and homeless encampment crackdowns. A proposed sales tax hike, Measure E, to fund infrastructure repairs this year only further incensed residents going into the Mayoral campaign.

Despite all this, Gloria remained the most popular candidate at the beginning of the year. In the March primary, Gloria received 50% of the vote with Turner, the next closest candidate, only getting 23%. A survey in May even had Gloria off to a big lead for the general, 40% to Turner’s 32%, with 28% undecided. However, that’s when Turner began turning things around.  Turner began railing Gloria on transportation issues, in addition to the usual homeless and housing issues in the city. By mid-September, a poll found that support for Gloria had dropped to 37%, support for Turner went up to 33% and that undecided voters were even more numerous as well – now 30%. Turner was now at the margin of error.

Preliminary polling after the debate at the beginning of the month also found the race to continue to be close. But for Gloria, it was his turn to turn things around. After the September poll, Gloria shifted to the cost of living in the city. He also enticed more voters who were leaning into Turner by embracing some of his stances and common complaints about him. This included taking more hard-lined stance on public safety and a tougher stance on homelessness and encampments. That, plus a more electric second debate performance managed to not only stop Turner’s advance, but bring back many voters who had shifted towards undecided during the summer. The second debate specifically had Turner say that in order to balance the budget, he would cut back on police benefits and stop new hires in the SDPD, causing many voters who were leaning Turner to reverse course and the San Diego Police Officer’s Association to begin to back Gloria.

Gloria Bounces Back

The surprise backing of the SDPOA of Gloria over a fellow officer wound up changing up the race even more. The San Diego Tribune poll on Tuesday found that Gloria now has 47% support, with Turner dropping to only 31%, with 19% of voters left undecided. While Turner has large leads for conservative voters and still leads amongst independent voters, Gloria bounced back considerably and took back the lead in other demographics. Gloria also leads amongst early voters. The poll found that 16% of San Diegan voters have already cast their ballots by mail or early voting, with Gloria leading 52% to 43% already.

While the margin of error of the poll and the high number of undecided voters still give Turner an outside chance of winning, especially with two weeks remaining for him to change the minds of voters, the poll showed that Gloria now has more than a good chance at reelection next month.

“That big September dip in support and Turner starting to dig in at him in debates really shook the Gloria campaign,”  explained Rachel Lewis, a San Diego County pollster, to the Globe on Wednesday. “But Gloria came back a lot better than expected. In particular, him hanging his attitude on public safety and Turner suggesting those police cut backs, which he later walked back on, during the debate did a lot for Gloria.

“You’re right in saying that a lot can still happen in two weeks, but Turner would need a really strong finish in San Diego right now. He’ll probably do better than Bry did in 2020. But beyond that, it will be a daily battle of Gloria holding off Turner to keep a comfortable cushion of support until the 5th. Early voting shows this right now. Not as good as 2020, but still ahead by several points.”