This year’s elections in Coronado have been steeped in controversial endorsements and character accusations, but candidates for mayor and city council say this is distracting from the city’s key issues. Dozens of paid political letters have been published in the island’s local newspaper. An email with the current mayor’s endorsements has come under legal scrutiny. And Coronado residents’ and candidates’ acrimonious comments on social media have taken the race down a heated path. But candidates for mayor and city council say this kind of divisiveness isn’t what voters want and doesn’t represent the majority of Coronado residents. Instead, they should be focusing on key issues facing the city of about 19,000. Those include Coronado’s efforts to comply with state housing mandates, its dynamic with the U.S. Navy and other government agencies and the ongoing challenges of the Tijuana River sewage crisis and resulting beach closures. There are also infrastructure projects and residents’ concerns over traffic and e-bike safety. “If we’re focusing our time on what makes Coronado important and what’s important to Coronado, we’re not going to have as much time for a lot of this partisan divide,” said Andrew Gade, who is running for City Council. He has not been endorsed by a political party. He’s one of six candidates running for two open seats, along with Mark Fleming, Christine Mott, Laura Wilkinson Sinton, Amy Steward and Mark Warner. And three men are running for Coronado mayor, all of them current council members — Mike Donovan, John Duncan and Casey Tanaka. Tanaka and Donovan face term limits, but Duncan is only halfway through his council term. If elected, the city would need to determine how to fill his seat, whether through a special election or through a council appointment. The San Diego County Democratic Party has endorsed Sinton and Mott for city council and included Tanaka on its voter guide. Duncan, Fleming and Warner have the endorsement of the local Republican Party. But candidates running for mayor and city council in Coronado don’t include their party affiliation on the ballot, and many local issues don’t divide neatly along party lines. Local campaign signs sign in the front yard of a home on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 in Coronado, CA. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune) Coronado has historically had a Republican voter registration advantage — but with a less pronounced conservative tilt in recent years, the shift in its electorate may lead to more contentious races. As of the end of September, it had 3,550 registered Democrats and 4,198 registered Republicans. Another 2,617 voters did not state a party preference. In 2020, Joe Biden narrowly beat Donald Trump there by a little over 730 votes, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the city in decades. In 2016, Trump won Coronado over Hillary Clinton by fewer than 200 votes. “For a long time it was known as this very conservative bastion, and I think that’s changed,” said Mott. “I think we’re becoming more and more of a purple place, with new folks moving in with new perspectives. And perhaps that’s why the old guard is reacting so strongly.” For the most part, the nine candidates aren’t fighting with each other directly. Instead, their supporters are taking to media sources and online spaces. Both direct critiques and endorsements of candidates have appeared through opinion pieces in the Coronado Eagle and Journal, and a website has been created specifically to oppose Sinton. An independent expenditure committee called the Community Leadership Coalition, and funded largely by the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, has spent about $2,880 on mailers in support of Duncan, about $1,900 to oppose Sinton and $1,260 to oppose Tanaka, per reports it filed with the city this month. Local campaign signs sign in the front yard of a home on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 in Coronado, CA. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune) The candidates’ own campaigns are raising and spending more, though. In the mayoral race, Duncan has pulled in $29,000 in donations this year, gave his own campaign a $15,000 loan and has spent nearly $36,000. Tanaka has raised $14,000 in contributions all year and spent just over half of that. And Donovan has raised around $8,000 and loaned his campaign $15,000. Among the candidates for city council, Sinton has raised more than all of her opponents, with a little over $14,200 in donations; Steward is just behind her with about $12,500. Residents with strong opinions on candidates and local issues will get into fights on social media, such as in the comments section of the Facebook group Coronado Happenings, denouncing each other’s character and politics. But some of the disputes have gone beyond online squabbling. Earlier this month, Mayor Richard Bailey sent out an email with his local endorsements, warning voters not to vote for Mott and Sinton. The email included a seal with the city’s crown symbol, which Mott and Sinton said made it appear that the endorsement came from the Mayor’s Office. The two candidates contacted the state attorney general and filed a complaint with the city, alleging the email violates California election code and Coronado code. The complaint was sent to the city’s special counsel for review, the city manager told Mott in an email. Bailey, who has served an eight-year term as mayor, said he sent the endorsement list on behalf of himself, not the mayor’s office. The email was sent from his personal account. Mayoral candidate Mike Donovan, who is not endorsed by a major party, says he’s noticed an increase in partisanship over the last decade but says it’s “ratcheted up” in recent years. “I’ve never asked for any endorsement from a political party,” he said. Bailey endorsed Duncan for mayor and Fleming and Warner for city council, all three of whom also have the support of the Republican Party. The three candidates were also included in a voter guide from the RMNNT, a conservative political organization with ties to Awaken Church, which has been trying to establish a campus in Coronado. All three say they have asked the organization to remove their names from its voter guide and say they have no connection to it. The RMNNT did not respond to requests for comment but as of Friday had not removed the candidates from the guide. “I want nothing to do with those people,” Warner said. “They’re welcome to their opinions, but I don’t agree with them.” Warner and other candidates — including Mott, Sinton and Gade — say these kinds of endorsements and promotions can be political distractions, with candidates having to spend time responding to attacks rather than talking about actual issues. Local campaign signs sign in the front yard of a home on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 in Coronado, CA. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune) All nine candidates cite the Tijuana sewage crisis as one of the city’s most pressing concerns. Coronado beaches are frequently closed due to poor water quality, and the crisis has prevented naval training on multiple occasions. The city’s housing allocation is also top of mind. After the city’s years-long dispute with the state over 2021 mandates on local housing goals, a settlement reached last year requires Coronado to add 912 new homes in the coming years. While the city has worked to mitigate the shock of adding nearly 1,000 new units to the island, there are still details for city leaders to finesse. Candidates also cite traffic safety as a top concern as well as infrastructure improvements to the city’s stormwater system, which was impacted by the winter storms this past January. For all the rancor, candidates hope those issues will win out once the election is over and a new mayor and council take office. “People are so divided at the national level that it filters down to the local level,” council candidate Steward said. But she says she sees a strong community in Coronado, pointing to people who volunteer at the hospitals and Rotary Club and local events like the Coronado Island Film Festival that bring residents together. “We all know each other and like each other and work together,” she said, adding that after Nov. 5, she thinks “this divisiveness will kind of fade away.”