By Arturo Castañares
Editor-at-Large
San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond surprised political observers when he suddenly switched districts on Friday in his run for the United States House of Representatives.
Desmond, who will be termed out of office this year as he finishes his second four-year term on the Board of Supervisors, has been raising money for his congressional race against incumbent Mike Levin in the 49th Congressional District. Levin is a Democrat.
Jim Desmond
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However, Proposition 50, the voter-approved state ballot Measure passed in the November 2025 Special Election, changed congressional district boundaries to help Democrats in swing seats, cutting Desmond’s home out of Levin’s district.
Instead, Desmond’s home is now within the 48th Congressional District, where incumbent Congressman Darrell Issa was expected to run for re-election for his fourth term. Friday was the deadline for candidates to file to run for office, and Issa did not file to run. Assemblyman Carl DeMaio was rumored to have been considering entering the race against Issa, but he issued a statement on Friday announcing he would not run.
Desmond has served on the Board of Supervisors since 2018, and had previously served 12 years as San Marcos Mayor and 2 years on the San Marcos City Council, all of which are within the 48th District. Desmond’s previous home, where he and his wife raised their kids, was also within the 48th District.
In 2020, Desmond retired as a Captain for Delta Airlines after having been a commercial airline pilot for 34 years. Demond previously served in the US Navy.
Issa had been facing several Democratic candidates running to challenge him, including San Diego City Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert and perennial candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar. Neither von Wilpert nor Campa-Najjar lives within the 48th District.
Under federal law, congressional candidates must live and be registered to vote within their home state, but not necessarily in the district where they run; however, allegations of being a “carpetbagger” usually hurt outside candidates. Carpetbagger refers to Northerners who moved into the South to run for Congress during the Reconstruction Period after the Civil War, carrying their belongings in cheap bags made of carpet material.
Campa-Najjar has run for office in three previous elections, including two failed campaigns for the 48th District in 2018 and 2020, and a campaign for Mayor of Chula Vista in 2022. During his previous runs for Congress, Campa-Najjar referred to himself as a “Jamuligan” claiming he grew up in Jamul, where his mother and her husband live.
Ammar Campa-Najjar
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When Campa-Najjar was running for the 48th in 2020, he posted a social media message of him at his mom’s home in Jamul, with the caption, “What a novel idea, a candidate running for Congress who can actually vote for himself.” During that race, both Darrell Issa and Carl DeMaio were living and registered to vote outside of the district so they could not vote for themselves.
But during his race for Mayor, Campa-Najjar claimed he grew up in a condo owned by his grandmother in the eastern area of Chula Vista. Campa-Najjar lost to Councilman John McCann after videos of Campa-Najjar were released showing him living in San Diego with his girlfriend, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, during his mayoral campaign.
Campa-Najjar later registered to vote at Jacobs’ new home in the Kensington area of San Diego, where she also lives and is registered to vote. That home is within Jacobs’ 51st District, which she represents, but not within the 48th. He does not list a current job, but he in an Ensign in the US Navy Reserves, and a graduate student at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where his also a teaching assistant.
As of last week, Campa-Najjar was still registered to vote at that address.
Councilwoman von Wilpert still lives within the 5th San Diego City Council district she represents, which is not within the 48th District. She was first elected in 2020 and re-elected with no opposition in 2024. She is midway through her second term and would leave a vacancy if elected to Congress. Von Wilpert will be termed out of the City Council after her current term.
Marni von Wilpert
Von Wilpert is an attorney who previously worked in the San Diego City Attorney's office.Â
Neither von Wilpert nor Campa-Najjar could vote for themselves unless they moved into the District and registered to vote there.
California election laws require voters to use their “domicile” as their address for voting. Domicile has been interpreted to mean the home where you live permanently, using several factors to determine the validity of the intention to live there, including whether car registrations, insurance, and bills are sent to that address.
Desmond had already raised over $1 million for his congressional race before switching districts, while Campa-Najjar reported raising over $820,000 by the end of 2025, and von Wilpert reported nearly $520,000 in contributions through the end of December.
There were 14 candidates who announced their intentions to run for the 48th District, including California Board of Equalization member Mike Schaefer. The Registrar of Voters did not release an updated list of candidates who qualified to run by the 5:00 p.m. deadline on Friday.
Under California law, the filing deadline is extended for 5 business days in races where the incumbent does not file to run for re-election. Issa did not file on Friday, so the final deadline to file to run in the 48th District will close at 5:00 p.m. on March 13th.
