Otay Water District and working as a realtor with the firm Big Block Realty. The other two were Chula Vista Parks Supervisor Daniel Schreck and educator Arthur Kende. Schreck, who had worked in Chula Vista's government for twenty-five years and was currently the Chula Vista Parks Supervisor, was the only challenger with municipal government experience. He positioned himself as a government insider but a political outsider. Arthur Kende, who had taught at San Diego Jobs Corps for the previous eight years, was the youngest candidate, at age 36, and the only one without government experience. Kende campaigned as a candidate who wanted cut through bureaucratic "red tape". Castelum campaigned as a conservative opposed to "big government" and "political correctness", and an enemy of the organization Planned Parenthood. Gastelum also campaigned against the city's status as a sanctuary city. Anti-muslim tweets by Gastelum from 2017, which he refused to apologize for, attracted attention. The tweet in question read, "Let's pressure our legislature to create a list of so-called #MuslimBan to prevent #SubHuman #Scum from #USA to #MAGA". Of those challenging Salas, Gastelum had the strongest name recognition, largely due to the controversy that this 2017 tweet had generated. An issue in the race was the city's growing pension costs. Salas' opponents all criticized the economic problems of the city. Chula Vista generated the second-lowest per capita tax revenues in San Diego County due to population growth having occurred faster than revenue growth. Consequentially, city services had not kept in pace with demand. Salas went into the first-round of the election having vastly out-fundraised her opponents. Having, respectively, placed first and second in the first-round of the election, held June 5, Salas and Castelum advanced to the second round. Salas had received 62.48% of the first-round vote and Gastelum had received 16.98%. Both Schreck and Kende were eliminated. In the second-round of the election, Salas bore the endorsement of the San Diego County Democratic Party, as well as the endorsement of San Diego Democrats for Equality. Salas won the second-round of the election by a landslide, receiving 71.86% of the vote to Gastelum's 28.14%. Personal life Salas has two adult children. Salas resides in Chula Vista, California. Electoral history City council State Assembly 2006 2008 State Senate Mayor Barajas received 7 votes as a write-in in the runoff References External links Democratic Party members of the California State Assembly San Diego State