Photo: Ammar Campa-Najjar with then-Chula Vista Mayor Mary Casillas Salas
Credit: Campa-Najjar campaign
By Arturo Castañares
Editor-at-Large
A former candidate for Chula Vista Mayor continues to use an address in the City nearly three years after losing the election, despite being exposed for actually living in San Diego during and after his campaign.
Ammar Campa-Najjar lost his campaign for Mayor in November 2022 to then-Councilman John McCann by a margin of 52% to 48%.
Official campaign finance reports filed this week show Campa-Najjar donated over $17,000 to his 2022 Mayor’s campaign committee between July and December 2025 to help retire over $33,000 of debt he owed after the election.
Campa-Najjar campaign finance statement. Filed Feb 2, 2026
Campa-Najjar used $5,500 of the new contributions to make payments for political consulting to Margin Victories, a company owned by Jehoan Espinsoza, a longtime ally and front for convicted felon Jesus Cardenas.
Cardenas and his sister, then-Chula Vista City Councilwoman Andrea Cardenas, were convicted in 2024 of two felonies each for grand theft of state and federal funds.
Espinoza, who previously lived with Andrea Cardenas, has continued to work on campaigns with Cardenas even after his felony conviction.
Campa-Najjar lists a Chula Vista address as his residence on his most recent campaign finance form, which he signed under penalty of perjury on January 12th.
Before the 2022 election, McCann exposed videos of Campa-Najjar living in San Diego at the Bankers Hill condo of his girlfriend, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs. Candidates for local office must be registered to vote and live within the jurisdiction in which they are running.
The videos, reviewed by La Prensa San Diego, showed Campa-Najjar arriving at Jacobs’ condo at night and leaving in the daytime over a period of more than 30 days leading up to the election, as well as pictures of packages addressed to Campa-Najjar delivered to Jacobs’ condo.
La Prensa San Diego interviewed Campa-Najjar when he claimed he lived in an East Chula Vista condo occupied by relatives, including his aunt and uncle, and an adult cousin, but he refused to meet at the condo to show his living arrangements.
Seven people, including Campa-Najjar and his mother, were registered to vote at the 3-bedroom condo at the time.
Campa-Najjar, 36, claimed he lived with his grandmother at the same address when he attended Eastlake High School, but in previous campaigns for an East County Congressional district in 2018 and 2020, he claimed he was a “Jamuligan” who grew up in the East County community of Jamul, where his mom and her husband live.
Campa-Najjar social media post in 2019 claiming he lived in Jamul.
After losing the Mayor’s race, Campa-Najjar changed his voter registration address to a home owned by Jacobs in the Kensington area of San Diego and continues to use that address now.
Last August, Campa-Najjar announced he would run for Congress against incumbent Darrell Issa in an East County district that does not include either Jacobs’ home or the Chula Vista condo.
Jacobs is running for re-election in her own district, which includes her Kensington home.
Candidates for Congress and members of Congress only have to live within the state they represent, not necessarily their own district, but not living within their districts opens them up to criticism of being a “carpetbagger”; a derogatory term used against Northerners who moved to the South carrying their belongings in cheap carpet bags to run for office during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War.
Some critics have labeled the perennial candidate “Ammar Carpet-Bagger,” a play on his name that reflects his multiple address changes during his campaigns. Campa-Najjar is currently registered to vote at Jacobs' Kensington home and, therefore, could not vote for himself in the upcoming election.
Campa-Najjar lost his campaign for Congress in 2020 to Issa, who had previously represented a North County district from 2000 to 2018 before deciding not to run for re-election.
In 2020, both Isaa and Campa-Najjar were challenging incumbent Congressman Duncan D. Hunter, who was under criminal indictment for campaign finance violations. Campa-Najjar had previously lost his first run for Congress to Hunter in 2018.
Hunter was eventually convicted, but pardoned by Donald Trump before he reported to prison.
During both of his congressional campaigns, Campa-Najjar used his mom’s address in Jamul as his residence.
In his 2020 campaign, Campa-Najjar criticized Issa for being a “carpetbagger” because he didn’t live in the district.
After losing that election to Issa, Campa-Najjar launched a campaign committee and raised money for a State Assembly race using an aunt’s address in Bonita, but quickly ended that campaign before deciding to run for Chula Vista Mayor.
Campa-Najjar has run for office in four of the last five election cycles using four different addresses.
In 2023, Campa-Najjar received a direct non-line officer commission to the US Navy Reserves and is currently an Ensign, the lowest commissioned officer rank in the Navy.
In August, La Prensa San Diego sent Campa-Najjar a request for comment and information related to his latest campaign, including asking for clarification on whether he would still live with Jacobs outside of the seat he is seeking, and asking for details on what work he has done in the last two years outside of his Naval Reserve duties, but he did not respond.
Campa-Najjar lists his occupation as "Officer, US Navy" although it is a part-time Reserve position, and he does not list any other employment or income.
Since September, Campa-Najjar has referred to himself as an "educator" and that he "teaches" at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C, although he is a graduate student and teaching assistant, not a Professor.
Last week, Campa-Najjar sent out a fundraising email claiming he raised more money than Issa and the other candidates in the current race, including San Diego City Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert.
Von Wilpert, a lawyer and former Congressional staffer, has received some Democratic Party club endorsements, even though Campa-Najjar has secured the support of Jacobs and several of her congressional colleagues, including Scott Peters, Mike Levin, and Eric Swalwell.
In the last quarter of 2025, Campa-Najjar raised $357,000, compared to Issa’s $320,000 reported this month.
In November, von Wilpert received 53.8% of the vote in a local Democratic Party straw poll meeting.. Campa-Najjar received only 19.6% of the vote. The endorsement decision will next be taken up at the Party's State Convention in late February.
In the 2022 race for Chula Vista Mayor, Campa-Najjar out-raised McCann and held a Democratic Party voter registration advantage of two-to-one, yet he lost the election to the Republican candidate.
Campa-Najjar legally changed his name before his 2018 campaign from Ammar Yasser Najjar to Ammar Joseph Campa-Najjar to add his mother’s maiden name and to reflect his conversion to Catholicism.
His middle name at birth was shared with his father, Yasser Najjar, who was a high-ranking diplomat for the Palestinian Authority, including serving as their Ambassador to Norway and later to Albania.
Campa-Najjar’s grandfather, Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, was a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and friends with its leader, Yasser Arafat.
Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar is alleged to have been a planner of the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches, in addition to one German policeman. Al-Najjar and his wife were assassinated in Beirut in 1973 by Israeli operatives, led by future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
The Martyr Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, opened in 2000 in the Gaza Strip and named in his honor, was destroyed in late 2024 by Israeli military operations.
As a child, Campa-Najjar lived in Palestine with his parents and younger brother before returning to San Diego, where his parents had first met. His mother is a San Diego-born Latina.
The 2026 Primary Election will be held on June 2nd and the General Election on November 2nd.
