A long-simmering dispute over the local Republican party’s endorsement in an Assembly election has prompted accusations among party members, a shake-up of its leadership and a scaling-back of its support for its preferred candidate in the contentious race.
The San Diego County Republican Party this week agreed to a deal to resolve the conflict, with Paula Whitsell stepping down as chair and the central committee voting unanimously to name Corey Gustafson to succeed her.
The deal also will limit Assembly candidate Andrew Hayes’ benefits as an endorsed candidate and prevent the party from helping him financially in the race.
“I’m excited to get our party back to winning around San Diego County and beating Democrats, but to me, the most important thing of what came out of the meeting was the unity,” Gustafson, a small-business owner and former congressional candidate, told The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Whitsell did not respond to requests for comment.
In the race for the open 75th Assembly District seat, the central committee of the county GOP last year voted to endorse Hayes, an aide to state Sen. Brian Jones. The district, which spans inland North County and East County, is one of the state’s most Republican-leaning, according to the local party.
But in last month’s crowded six-person primary, his fellow Republican Carl DeMaio, a former San Diego City Council member and congressional candidate, finished first by a comfortable, 24-point margin.
Party officials say that Whitsell moved at an executive committee meeting last week to reconsider the party’s endorsement of Hayes, who had narrowly secured the second spot in the November runoff.
She told that smaller group that the Hayes endorsement applied only to the primary and called for a new vote, in a move some members objected to and called unprecedented, party officials said. Santee Mayor John Minto said he had never seen such an effort to pull an endorsement in his decades on the committee.
The effort reignited conflicts within the GOP, and Whitsell resigned Monday as part of a deal to settle them. In a news release sent that day, the party reaffirmed its endorsement of Hayes as its “only official endorsed candidate in the 75th.”
The next day, it clarified that its endorsements last through the entire election cycle, culminating in the Nov. 5 general election.
Some party members objected to how Whitsell had tried to reopen the endorsement issue when she called for a special executive meeting rather than take her proposal before the entire central committee as the party’s bylaws require.
Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey also charged in a Saturday email to the central committee that Whitsell was also coordinating with DeMaio directly in violation of party bylaws.
Another email sent to the central committee over the weekend and signed by half a dozen local Republican leaders — including Bailey, Minto, Jones and Rep. Darrell Issa — also criticized her actions, calling them “underhanded manipulation.”
“I think you lose the value of the party and you lose the value of the endorsement process if we just decide that we can take that endorsement away for any other reasons other than some serious, ethical or legal violation,” El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells, who also signed the email, told the Union-Tribune on Wednesday. “It sets up a precedent, which may very well weaken the party into the future.”
Amid the conflict, Whitsell also removed former San Diego City Councilmember Scott Sherman from the executive committee. He said other party members told him that was because he had voted against her motion.
“I was her appointed person to the executive committee, so it was within her prerogative to do it,” he said, but called it unexpected and “kind of unusual.” He said Gustafson told him he would be reappointed.
Whitsell’s resignation — announced at the start of Monday’s central committee meeting — was part of the deal struck to resolve the endorsement dilemma, members of the central and executive committees confirmed.
Whitsell, a small-business owner in South Bay, had succeeded longtime local Republican Party Chair Tony Krvaric in 2020 after a controversy over a 30-year-old video featuring images of him along with pictures of Adolf Hitler and swastikas. Krvaric disavowed it as a smear campaign.
“I’m grateful for Paula’s service to the party, and I look forward to working with the new chairman,” Hayes said. “I’m proud to be endorsed by the Republican Party of San Diego because they know I’m the only candidate in the race who is endorsed by the police and firefighters who keep our communities safe, I have a proven track record of defeating tax increases, and I will work to secure our border to stop the flow of fentanyl into San Diego County.”
Although Hayes kept his endorsement in the deal, he will not be promoted by the party or appear in its official Republican voter guide. By Tuesday, the 75th Assembly District race had been removed completely from the list of endorsements on the party’s website.
Endorsed candidates can raise additional funds that are funneled through the party and can coordinate with the party on how that money is spent, such as to pay for mailers and other promotional materials or even directly transferred back into their campaign. However, as part of the deal, Hayes must forgo the use of party funds.
DeMaio also had to drop his endorsement request.
“I will take the support of the voters over the failed insiders at the Republican Party any day of the week,” DeMaio told the Union-Tribune. He said the local party “has a serious credibility problem with the voters when it comes to its endorsements, and that is why the voters rejected the endorsement in the primary and handed me a landslide mandate in the March primary.”
DeMaio has repeatedly told the Union-Tribune that it doesn’t matter who he faces in November, as his true opponent will be state leaders — an attitude that gave some party members pause when considering endorsing him.
“He’s many times very inflammatory in his comments,” Minto said. “We have a difficult time being in the minority as Republicans in Sacramento without having somebody … driving a greater wedge between Democrats and other Republicans that do work well with their colleagues on the other side of the aisle.”
Although Gustafson said Hayes is the party’s endorsed candidate because he will stand for Republican values, he is excited to see two Republicans competing against each other.
“We want more of those opportunities around the county where we have two Republicans in the (runoff),” Gustafson said.
