‘San Diegans are mad.' Dueling campaigns tap into angst to pass, kill second home tax measure

With San Diegans soon set to decide whether to levy a tax on partially used second homes, the dueling political campaigns seeking to pass or defeat Measure A are leaning into locals’ frustrations around their quality of life with rhetoric that either promotes populist ideas or pushes fear of government control.

The competing narratives - that rich people are hoarding homes or conversely that the tax measure is government overreach - are being promulgated by campaigns with war chests that have grown substantially in recent days.

The financial advantage is currently weighted heavily in favor of the No on A campaign, which is out-raising the Yes on A campaign by around a factor of five with nearly all of the $1.3 million in funds coming from local, state and national Realtors associations.

The money sets the stage for a potentially lopsided battle of opposing world views splattered across social media platforms and print mailers or expressed at doorsteps, as the campaigns seek to compel the citizenry to vote in the June primary.

The messaging may matter more than the money behind it given the economic realties confronting younger voters, said Carl Luna, a visiting political science professor at the University of San Diego.

“The advantage to the Yes side and the disadvantage to the No side is that all these ads don’t necessarily work as well as they used to because there’s so much noise out there to get people’s attention,” Luna said. “They also have the advantage that San Diegans are mad. There’s a general anti-rich attitude out there, a populist attitude. … I think younger voters have basically given up on the notion (of being rich). They don’t see a path to that. So they’re more tolerant of taxing wealthy interests.”

Measure A seeks to amend the city of San Diego’s municipal code to tax non-primary homes that are vacant for more than 182 days out of the year. The ballot measure calls for an initial annual levy of $8,000 that would rise to $10,000 in subsequent years. Corporate-owned properties would be taxed at a higher rate, with a $4,000 surcharge the first year and a $5,000 surcharge the following year. If approved by a simple majority of voters, the tax would become effective Jan. 1, 2027.

The measure was put forward by San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera and placed on the ballot by the San Diego City Council. The measure was called the Empty Homes Tax before a court ordered the name changed to the Non-Primary Homes Tax. The ballot language states that there are an estimated 5,140 homes not claimed as primary residents, although the city's Office of the Independent Budget Analyst estimates 1,541 to 2,826 second homes would end up being taxed.

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The Yes on A campaign is sponsored by three nonprofits, the Alliance San Diego Mobilization Fund, the San Diego Housing Federation and the San Diego Municipal Employees Association. It is formally titled “Yes on A – Homes for San Diego, sponsored by nonprofit community, labor and housing organizations.”

The campaign sponsors have varying missions, but they are aligned in the belief that homeownership is unattainable for many San Diegans and that the city should create housing policies that tip the scales to favor those who need more assistance.

“Alliance San Diego Mobilization Fund, the San Diego Housing Federation, and the San Diego Municipal Employees Association formed Homes for San Diego to support solutions that expand access to safe, affordable and sustainable housing, strengthen communities, and advance housing stability. Homes for San Diego, joined by two dozen community, labor and housing organizations, supports Yes on A because it offers a concrete solution to the housing shortage and helps fund the essential services that all San Diegans rely on,” Lance Jones, a spokesperson for the campaign, said in an emailed statement. “We believe keeping more than 5,100 houses empty during a housing crisis is wrong; homes are for living, not for hoarding.”

The campaign has raised $292,385 to date.

Primary donors include labor unions, with the local construction worker union and a political action committee affiliated with state home care workers each contributing $50,000. A committee affiliated with the progressive California Donor Table nonprofit added $50,000 to the balance, and the union for city of San Diego employees contributed $45,000. Real estate tycoon and major political donor Lawrence Hess gifted the campaign $25,000. The Alliance San Diego Mobilization Fund put in $25,000.

The Yes campaign has concentrated its spending on digital and text message ads, campaign finance statements show.

The campaign is also going door-to-door with the message that Measure A creates the right incentives to ensure that homes are used for living, said Andrea Guerrero, the Yes on A campaign president and the executive director at Alliance San Diego. The neighborhood canvassing effort, she said, is expected to reach 20,000 residences by the end of the week.

“In a housing shortage, homes should not remain empty. Our housing policies should reflect our values and our interest in making sure that working San Diegans are able to live and thrive in San Diego,” Guerrero told the Union-Tribune. “Right now, the incentives work to favor people holding on to their homes and keeping them empty. We need to change the incentive structure so that homes are used for their highest use, which is for living, not hoarding.”

Conversely, the No on A campaign is aggressively spending on digital ads and print mailers to defeat the measure, targeting residents fed up with tax and fee increases with the message that the measure is a City Hall tax scheme and an affront to property rights.

The campaign’s more than $1.3 million treasury was primarily amassed from $827,800 in contributions from a California Association of Realtors political action committee and $500,000 from the National Association of Realtors. The campaign’s ad buys have been supplemented by polling work and consultancy help, according to campaign finance statements.

The campaign is formally titled “San Diegans Against the Unaccountable and Unaffordable Housing Tax - No on Measure A - A Coalition of Local Residents, Taxpayers, Small Businesses and Housing Providers Sponsored by Realtors.” It is sponsored by the California Realtors Association, the Pacific Southwest Association of Realtors and the San Diego Association of Realtors.

The sponsors are known to back candidates and ballot initiatives that protect property rights and boost housing production.

With the No on A campaign, the sponsors are shining a light on perceived pitfalls. The primary message is that the measure creates a new bureaucracy for government oversight over how residents use their own homes, said Shane Harris, a spokesperson for the No on Measure A campaign.

“Our mission is to educate San Diego voters about the real consequences of Measure A - that it is a massive housing tax requiring homeowners to annually prove to City Hall bureaucrats that they lived in their own home, while exposing residents to invasive enforcement and potential penalties,” Harris said in an emailed statement. “Measure A is not a real solution to San Diego's housing crisis. Once voters understand what this measure actually does, we are confident they will vote no.”

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Measure A disingenuously promises to increase the supply of affordable homes, Karen Van Ness, president of the San Diego Association of Realtors, told the Union-Tribune.

“Any and all monies derived from this tax, this flat tax, aren’t going into a fund for affordable housing, they’re going into the general fund … and that causes it to be highly suspicious because it doesn’t make sense. If this was for affordable housing, then why wouldn’t the money go into (an affordable housing) fund?” Van Ness said. “There is nothing that has been shown on how it will produce even one single unit of affordable housing.”

A two-thirds ballot measure would be needed to earmark the funds for specific projects.

Luna, the political science professor, is predicting a tight race, giving a slight advantage to the Yes on A campaign.

“(The No on A campaign has) got the money, so they’re hoping that their message - that all property owners should be worried about this because of property rights - will penetrate. What works against them is the fact that fewer San Diegans now own property than they used to,” he said.

Ultimately, voter turnout will be the deciding factor, Luna said.

“(For the Yes on A campaign), if you want to win, you’ve got to hope for the right voter turnout, which tends to be in many cases better with a fall election when you get a younger, more progressive crowd who may show up as opposed to the primary,” he said. “You want people who are not as tax-avoiding. Younger voters not owning property right now are less disinclined to vote against a property tax measure, particularly when it’s framed at targeting a handful of wealthy people and businesses.”

Wednesday afternoon, Guerrero, the Yes on A campaign president, and Elo-Rivera made a push for those very voters, fielding online questions from people in an “Ask Me Anything” forum on Reddit.

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This story was originally published May 27, 2026 at 2:39 PM.