{"id":160568,"date":"2025-08-20T07:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T07:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/160568\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T07:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T07:57:11","slug":"will-rodriguez-kennedy-again-elected-chair-of-sd-county-democratic-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/160568\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Rodriguez-Kennedy (again) elected chair of SD County Democratic Party"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/THREE-RIVALS.png?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/THREE-RIVALS.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-339092\"  \/><\/a>Lori Salda\u00f1a, Sara Ochoa and Will Rodriguez-Kennedy obeyed timekeeper Indroneal Banerjee (bottom right). <\/p>\n<p>Will Rodriguez-Kennedy was elected chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party on Tuesday in an emotional Zoom meeting of the party\u2019s Central Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Rodriguez-Kennedy, who stepped aside as party chair in May 2022 amid sex-assault accusations, defeated former South Area Vice Chair Sara Ochoa 37-27, with three votes going to last-minute candidate Lori Salda\u00f1a, the former Assembly member.<\/p>\n<p>No charges were brought, and a lawsuit by Rodriguez-Kennedy\u2019s former boyfriend was dropped.<\/p>\n<p>A half-hour into the meeting, San Diego City Council member Marni von Wilpert \u2014 already announced as a <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofsandiego.com\/politics\/2025\/03\/17\/marni-von-wilpert-announces-candidacy-for-state-senate-in-district-40\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">state Senate candidate<\/a> in District 40 \u2014 said she was \u201cstrongly considering\u201d a race to unseat GOP Rep. Darrell Issa in the 48th Congressional District.<\/p>\n<p>Becca Taylor was elected chair in January 2023 to succeed Rodriguez-Kennedy after he stepped down. Taylor lost her life in a motorcycle crash in July 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Taylor was succeeded by Kyle Krahel-Frolander (who quit the chair role to run for county supervisor in the North County) and then by Ross Pike, who ran Tuesday night\u2019s 3-hour meeting.<\/p>\n<p>After defeating a motion to delay the chair election (by a vote of 51-16), all three candidates made opening and closing statements and took questions. In the end, 17 members opted to abstain by not casting a vote, according to a chart posted on the Zoom.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/DEM-CHAIR-VOTE.png?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/DEM-CHAIR-VOTE.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-339102\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Then, with the three rivals put into a waiting room, the Central Committee debated the merits of each candidate, who would serve as chair until January 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Pike warned against any negativity or they would be muted. He didn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n<p>This story will be updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lori Salda\u00f1a, Sara Ochoa and Will Rodriguez-Kennedy obeyed timekeeper Indroneal Banerjee (bottom right). Will Rodriguez-Kennedy was elected chair&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":160569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,93111,93112,93113,3549,63308,7264,93114,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,93115],"class_list":{"0":"post-160568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-chair-election","12":"tag-lori-saldana","13":"tag-marni-von-wilpert","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-san-diego-county-democratic-party","16":"tag-sandiego","17":"tag-sara-ochoa","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-will-rodriguez-kennedy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}