Sam Abed: “My goal is to keep the 50th District Republican”

July 18, 2019 News 0

Escondido TimesAdvocate

“I got out of politics and I thought I’d enjoy my real estate business very well and making good money, but things have changed in the last few months on the national level and also on the local level,” says former Escondido Mayor Sam Abed by way of introducing why he decided to run for the 50th Congressional seat now held by Republican Duncan Hunter Jr.

The mayor of the largest city in the 50th District was defeated for a third term last November in an election where his opponent won by a whisker—and which, to a degree, owes its result to Duncan Hunter’s legal problems. Abed points out that the badly weakened Hunter was so wounded by the federal charges of embezzling his own campaign funds for personal expenditures that local Democrats smelled blood. They mounted a no holds barred, all hands on deck effort to unseat him with Democratic challenger Ammar Campa-Najjar. That talented, charismatic young politician was buoyed by a legion of enthusiastic volunteers who hit the streets with a very strong ground game that almost swamped Hunter. That wave did overwhelm many other right wing candidates in North County, including Abed. 

Abed attributes his defeat to that effort, and to the dexterious employment of ballot harvesting statewide. Two weeks after election day—after most of the massive number of provisional ballots and absentee ballots that swamped registrar of voters offices all across the state had been counted—the GOP’s political landscape in the Golden State looked like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. … read more…  

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