# San Diego City Council, District 2 Compare records and positions simply between Nicole Crosby or Richard Bailey for San Diego City Council, District 2 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat on San Diego's 9-member City Council. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. - Jurisdiction: City of San Diego - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/san-diego-council-2 - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: October 6, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 95 out of 100 (Very strong), across 5 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Nicole Crosby** — Deputy City Attorney - **Richard Bailey** — San Diego Business Owner A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Richard Bailey and Nicole Crosby advanced from June's seven-candidate primary — the cycle's most crowded San Diego council field — for an open coastal seat covering Ocean Beach, Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, the Peninsula and Clairemont (per KPBS and the city clerk's roster). San Diego's charter sends the top two to November in every council race. The winner holds one of nine seats on the San Diego City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and the land-use decisions behind the district's biggest fights. The term is four years. The district's live issues are the coastal ones KPBS's explainer catalogs — backlash over accessory dwelling units, short-term rentals, the Midway Rising redevelopment, and what "neighborhood character" should mean for housing growth. The runoff pairs a former mayor of a neighboring city running without a party against a labor-backed deputy city attorney. ## Richard Bailey A business owner and the former mayor of Coronado, running with no party preference — KPBS notes he is a former Republican. His stated platform is "attainable housing growth" and repealing new fees and taxes, and he led the field's fundraising at over $200,000 with strong business backing (per KPBS). **Strengths:** Executive experience running a city, as mayor of Coronado, plus the field's largest reported fundraising (per KPBS). **Trade-offs:** His mayoral record is another city's; District 2 voters are being asked to hire an executive from outside the city he would help govern. **Keep in mind:** He dropped his Republican registration to run without a party (per KPBS); weigh whether that reads as independence or as positioning. His platform here rests on KPBS reporting. ## Nicole Crosby A deputy city attorney with a prosecution background, endorsed by labor. Her stated focus is affordability and safety, including gun-violence prevention; she raised roughly $27,000 in the primary (per KPBS). In her Vote411 questionnaire she describes growing up in a working family, being the first in it to attend college, and earning a law degree and a master's in tax law. She lists terms as president of the Holmes Elementary PTA and the Clairemont Town Council, and work as a prosecutor in the City Attorney's office since 2014, where she says she helped set up its Gun Violence Response Unit. Her three stated priorities are rebuilding trust in local government by auditing the city budget and halting policies the affected neighborhoods have not vetted; working with county and state partners on one-, five- and ten-year plans for streets and infrastructure; and fully staffing fire and police departments to improve emergency response times. On climate she stresses the Tijuana River pollution crisis, stormwater upgrades, wildfire and heat preparedness, and tracking progress on the Climate Action Plan. For the long term she describes a housing plan that pairs rental assistance with limits on corporate home purchases, short-term rental changes, "gentle density" and audits of Housing Commission results. **Strengths:** Prosecutor in the City Attorney's office since 2014, plus Clairemont Town Council and PTA leadership, by her own account; her plan starts with auditing the city budget. **Trade-offs:** A staff-level record rather than elected office, and primary fundraising roughly an eighth of her opponent's (per KPBS). **Keep in mind:** The results she cites, including the Gun Violence Response Unit as a state model, are her own account in a candidate questionnaire, not verified independently here. ## Sources 1. [San Diego City Clerk — 2026 election information (November runoff rosters)](https://www.sandiego.gov/city-clerk/elections/city/electioninfo) 2. [San Diego County Registrar of Voters — certified June 2, 2026 results](https://sdvote.com/results) 3. [KPBS — San Diego City Council races explainer, Districts 2, 4, 6, 8 (Apr 30, 2026)](https://www.kpbs.org/news/politics/2026/04/30/2026-primary-election-san-diego-city-council-races-explainer-districts-2-4-6-8) 4. [City of San Diego eFile — public campaign-disclosure search](https://efile.sandiego.gov/public/search/campaign/by-name) 5. [League of Women Voters -- Vote411 voter guide, 'City of San Diego City Council Member, District 2' race (statewide All Races list): each candidate's self-submitted ballot designation and campaign contacts, plus answers to the League's questions -- top three priorities, qualifying background, climate-change actions, and a long-term challenge. Answers on file from Nicole Crosby. Capture in data/nov-2026/sources/vote411/san-diego-council-2.json.](https://www.vote411.org/plan-your-vote) ## The rest of the ballot San Diego City Council, District 2 is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "San Diego City Council, District 2 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/san-diego-council-2 (sources last retrieved October 6, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.