GLBT community favorite Mike Aguirre garnered the vast majority of the votes in the race to be the next San Diego city attorney. With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, Aguirre had captured nearly 46 percent of the votes, just shy of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff, by the end of election day Tuesday, March 2. Leslie Devaney was in second place with less than a 2 percent lead over Deborah Berger Tuesday evening, before all of the absentee ballots had been counted.

Aguirre, a private attorney and former federal prosecutor, appealed to voters by presenting himself as a political outsider; he also has been outspoken in his support for the GLBT community as well as other minority groups, and has been an open critic of City Hall. During an appearance on “The Rick Roberts Show” one day before the primary, Aguirre was forced to fend off attacks from a caller for his association with the GLBT community.

“One of the things I look forward to as city attorney is to be a strong advocate for fundamental civil liberties and civil rights,” Aguirre said, in a phone interview with the Gay & Lesbian Times following election day. “I expect that the kind of tactics that were used on Monday [during the radio program] — we may see those again unless we are really strong at insisting that those kinds of tactics be denounced. They have nothing to do with anything other than peddling hate and division.”

As a part of the attack, the caller on the radio show also criticized Aguirre’s endorsement by the Gay & Lesbian Times. Aguirre stood his ground though, proudly touting his endorsement from the Times.

“Mike Aguirre worked very hard to win the vote of the San Diego Democratic Club and the GLBT community at large, and his campaign had an awful lot of supporters from our community,” said Steven Whitburn, SDDC president. “I know that our community is going to rally around his candidacy in the general election.”

Both of Aguirre’s competitors in the race work in the city attorney’s office. Devaney, who Aguirre will most likely face in the November runoff, is City Attorney Casey Gwinn’s second in command. While Devaney did pick up some endorsements in the GLBT community, Berger was seen as Aguirre’s true competitor for the GLBT vote. Berger even split the San Diego Democratic Club’s endorsement votes, earning an acceptable rating for both herself and Aguirre, with neither gaining the club’s outright endorsement in the primary.

“I think that Deborah Berger ran an extremely effective campaign,” Aguirre said. “She was a very, very strong candidate and we were contesting who would lead the forces of reform, and I was lucky to come out ahead. But she kept me from getting the [San Diego Democratic Club] endorsement because she ran such a strong campaign, so I am hopeful that I can find a way to appeal to her supporters. Because if her supporters support me and we keep the base from our campaign, I think that’s an overwhelming majority in favor of change and reforming the city attorney’s office.”

Aguirre has already begun to receive endorsements from people who were supporting Berger, including State Senator Dede Alpert. Aguirre had not spoken with Berger at press time, but he was hopeful that he could gain her support in the November runoff.

“Certainly while Mike Aguirre attracted a lot of support from the GLBT community, Deborah Berger also had supporters in our community,” said the SDDC’s Whitburn. “Leslie Devaney, on the other hand, attracted very little interest from the GLBT community, so going forward in the general election, it is probably going to be an easy call for the GLBT community to support Mike Aguirre in this race, and I think that does simplify things for the community.”