Marco Verdugo edged past Bart Miesfield to take the lead in the three-way race for Chula Vista city attorney, according to unofficial results released Thursday by the Registrar of Voters.
Verdugo had 9,682 votes while Miesfield had 9,410. Dan Smith Diaz had 5,757 votes. Miesfield had a slim advantage over Verdugo on Election Night, but that evaporated as the vote count continues.
There are still hundreds of outstanding ballots. The Registrar said the next update will be on Nov. 22.
Verdugo is an attorney with a private firm that represents the cities of Coronado and Solana Beach. He previously served the same role for the city of San Diego. Miesfeld was the city’s last appointed city attorney from 2008 to 2010 after first joining the City Attorney’s Office in 1998 as a deputy. He is a lawyer in private practice. Smith Diaz runs a criminal defense law firm in downtown Chula Vista. He started his law career as a federal public defender and also owned a pedicab company.
If no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast, a runoff will take place on March 5.
Whoever wins serves through December 2026 and replaces acting city attorney Jill Maland, a lawyer with an outside firm the city hired in February to fill the position until voters elected a new city attorney.
The special election was held because Simon Silva, a former Chula Vista deputy city attorney, died before he could take office. The Democrat was the top vote-getter in the June 2022 primary and was set to face off against Smith Diaz, but Silva died in September of that year after a lengthy battle with cancer. His name remained on the ballot due to election codes and he won with controversial support from the San Diego County Democratic Party.
