Riverside: Lock Dawson re-elected easily

On 5 March, the American city of Riverside in California held a mayoral election, with the big news being the re-election of incumbent Patricia Lock Dawson.

Sacramento: Cofer, McCarty head to run-off

This is Part 4 of 4 on the 5 March California elections. Part three is above.

The facts

The mayoral election was held using a two-round system, with a runoff held on 5 November if no candidate received a majority. The election was nonpartisan, with party affiliations of candidates not listed.

Riverside factfile:

• Population: 315.0 thousand (2020)
• Religions: 71.0% Christianity (43.0% Protestantism, 22.0% Catholicism, 3.0% Mormonism, 2.0% Jehovah’s Witness, 1.0% Eastern Orthodox), 4.0% Other, 25.0% None (2014)
• Ethnicities: 54.7% Hispanic or Latino any race, 27.7% Non-Hispanic White, 7.1% Non-Hispanic Asian, 6.0% Non-Hispanic Black or African American, 3.3% Non-Hispanic Mixed Race or Multiracial, 0.4% Non-Hispanic Native American or Alaskan, 0.3% Non-Hispanic Pacific Islander, 0.5% Non-Hispanic Other (2020)
• Type of government: council-manager city in a federal presidential republic
• Freedom in the World 2024 score: N/A, United States score: 83/100 (Free)

The incumbent, Patricia Lock Dawson, was running again. A former school district board member, she was elected Mayor in 2020. Her sole opponent is small business owner Jessica Qattawi.

Patricia Lock Dawson won 31,833 votes, getting 77.6% of the vote and avoiding a runoff. Jessica Qattawi recieved 9,176 votes or 22.4%.

Analysis

The United States is split into the liberal Democratic Party and conservative Republican Party, with California being a solid blue (Democratic) state for the past three decades, meeting a national trend where urban voters tend towards Democrats: the Golden State has a significant number of big cities and is the most populous in the Union. However, Riverside County, which Riverside is located in has traditionally been a pretty Republican area: after its creation in 1893, the county voted for Republicans nine times in a row (including 1912 where the national Republican William Howard Taft was not endorsed in California and the state Republicans endorsed Theodore Roosevelt, who Riverside County voted for), finally voting Democrat in 1936 in Franklin D. Roosevelt (Franklin Delano Roosevelt)’s second landslide: of FDR’s four landslide victories, 1936 was the only time Riverside County voted Democratic, and they did not again until another landslide by Lyndon B. Johnson (Lyndon Baines Johnson) in 1964. In the three-candidate election of 1992, where independent Ross Perot put forth a serious challenge, Riverside County voted for the Democrat Bill Clinton, but reverted to the Republicans in 1996. Democrat Barack Obama finally flipped it blue in 2008, and it has gone Democratic four in a row (Joe Biden won 53.0% in 2020), now being a Democratic county which can still go Republican on a good night for the red team. The city of Riverside is probably significantly more Democratic than Riverside County, however.

Barack Obama finally flipped stubborn Riverside County to the Democrats

Ronald O. Loveridge was elected Mayor in 1993, and won five terms. The open election in 2012 was won by Democrat Rusty Bailey, who served until 2020. Patricia Lock Dawson won in 2020 despite coming second in the runoff. She was considered the moderate candidate, with Jessica Qattawi the progressive. In areas where the Democrats are the only force, the battle often is between centrist ‘moderates’ and more left-leaning ‘progressives’, and in this case, Lock Dawson won easily in an area that is still not completely deep blue and where she has incumbency bonus and popularity.