Holding a wide lead her opponent acknowledged she could not surmount, San Diego City Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe is set to become San Diego County’s first Black woman supervisor, and a key Democratic vote on a board that has had an even partisan split for six months.
The outcome of Tuesday’s election for the vacant District 4 seat won’t be official until the remaining ballots have been counted in the coming days. But on Wednesday, Republican opponent Amy Reichert conceded the race as early results showed her trailing by 22 percentage points.
The nearly 700,000 residents of the heavily Democratic district, which stretches from Clairemont to Spring Valley, have not had a supervisor since Nathan Fletcher resigned in May following allegations of sexual misconduct.
Montgomery Steppe will become not only the first Black woman ever to serve on the county Board of Supervisors but also the first Black person elected to the body in over four decades — since Leon Williams became the first in 1982.
“While the results may indicate that victory in this election remains unattainable, my resolve to enhance the prosperity of San Diego County remains resolute,” Reichert said in conceding Wednesday, a year after losing the same seat to incumbent Fletcher.
She told The San Diego Union-Tribune she was grateful to have met so many San Diegans from all walks of life who deeply care about the county’s future.
“I’m not going anywhere, and I will continue to serve San Diegans — no political office title is required to love people, to serve people and alleviate suffering,” she added.
Montgomery Steppe was unavailable for comment Wednesday. She had said Tuesday evening that she’d be taking the following day off from the campaign.
“It’s a bit overwhelming to think now what the job actually is, and so I’m just excited for what’s to come,” Montgomery Steppe told the Union-Tribune late Tuesday just after the first results were released.
At stake in this special election was not only the District 4 seat but also control of the five-member Board of Supervisors, which is currently split between two Democrats and two Republicans.
Fletcher’s election five years ago represented a major turning point for the board, long dominated by Republicans. He became the first Democrat elected to it in years when he defeated former District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis for the open seat in 2018.
Mesa College political science professor Carl Luna doesn’t expect Montgomery Steppe’s election to have a huge partisan impact on the board, which already had a Democratic majority before her predecessor resigned.
But he does expect her to bring a more progressive tone and an orientation toward social justice to the board, as well as a voice of her current City Council constituency, especially those in southeastern San Diego.
Montgomery Steppe began to share some of her plans at a gathering of her supporters on election night.
“It’s time for us to create a quality of life for every single person who wants to live here and who wants to thrive here. And it’s time to center the people in the policies and in the culture and in the bureaucracy,” she told the crowd assembled at UDW Hall Tuesday.
She added afterward that she was eager to get to work and to figure out which county policies are working — and which aren’t — and to make a plan to fix them. “I’ll be working to earn the trust of the people,” she said.
Although thousands of ballots must still be counted, Montgomery Steppe’s apparent victory came as no surprise to many observers, least of all her supporters — many of whom were already crowning her the victor Tuesday night.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber called her the county’s “hope and dream of the future.”
“She has already demonstrated her ability to win in this city, and to be the kind of leader on the City Council that made us so proud, standing up and fighting, having the courage to stand by her conviction even in the midst of difficult times,” Weber said.
County Board of Supervisors Chair Nora Vargas said no one has more integrity or more heart. “Together we’re going to move the county forward, because our communities deserve only the best,” she added.
Under California law, the registrar has 30 days to certify election results, but election officials expect the process to conclude sooner this year. They expect to give their next results update Thursday evening.
That timeline means Montgomery Steppe will likely be sworn in by early next month and serve through January 2027.
This would leave her seat on the San Diego City Council vacant and force the city to hold a special election next year to replace her.
The council can’t appoint a replacement for Montgomery Steppe due to San Diego’s election rules, which require special elections — and prohibit appointments — when an elected leader leaves office more than one year before their term ends. Montgomery Steppe was reelected to the council just last year to a term that ends in December 2026.
Shortly after she is officially declared the winner in the county supervisor runoff in coming days, the city council will hold a public hearing to officially call a special election — likely timed to coincide with the March 5 primary.
If no candidate in the special election gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the city must schedule a runoff among the two top finishers. That runoff would have to take place within 90 days, so it could not be combined with the November general election.
Whoever is elected would serve the remainder of Montgomery Steppe’s current term.
People mentioned as likely candidates for her current seat include city staffer Chida Warren-Darby, activist Shane Harris and Montgomery Steppe’s chief of staff, Henry Foster.
Staff writer David Garrick contributed to this report.
