Winning. Calexico resoundingly ousts town’s first transgender mayor and a council ally.
The good folks of Calexico by a 74% margin removed the town scourge.
What makes the landslide numbers against Ureña and Manzanarez more impressive is Republicans only make up 27 percent of the heavily Democrat city’s population.
Nearly 74% of voters in the April 16 special election supported the recall Raúl Ureña, according to early results released by the Imperial County registrar of voters Wednesday night. Ureña, who uses all pronouns but prefers “she,” publicly came out as transgender after taking office, becoming a target for harassment online and in person.
Nearly 73% of voters supported the recall of Councilmember Gilberto Manzanarez, another outspoken young progressive.
In a previous interview with The Times, Hurtado, a member of the City Council from 2010 to 2018, called Ureña and Manzanarez “toxic” left-wing activists. She said they dismissed downtown merchants’ concerns about crime, public drug use and rampant homeless encampments, focusing instead on what recall proponents saw as more frivolous projects, such as installing charging stations for electric vehicles that most people in town cannot afford.
