Mary Salas

Early life and education Salas' father, is one of 9 children of Felix and Urbana Casillas, who once lived in the La Punta adobe, after moving to the United States, through El Paso, from Mexico. Salas was born in 1948 in Chula Vista.

Salas earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in social work in San Diego State University.

Salas led many efforts to support historic preservation.

With both Salas and Padilla running, the election marked the first-time that two incumbent Chula Vista City Council members had run for mayor. The election was also historic in that all three candidates running (Salas, Padilla, and Petra Barajas) were Hispanic, guaranteeing that the city would elect its first Hispanic mayor.

Salas collected some big-name endorsements. She was also endorsed ahead of the primary by the editorial board of the La Presna San Diego newspaper.

Throughout the campaign, Salas and Padilla criticized each other for accepting campaign contributions from different real estate developers.

Voter turnout was significantly lower in the 2002 election than it had been in the previous two elections.

Salas joined the Sweetwater Authority Board of Directors in 2006.

California State Assembly

Salas was elected to the California State Assembly in 2006, defeating Jean Roesch. She represented the 79th district which includes the communities of National City, Coronado, Imperial Beach and parts of Chula Vista and San Diego. Salas was appointed Chair of the Committee on Veterans Affairs in 2007. She also served on the following standing committees: Jobs, Economic Development, and the Economy; Water, Parks and Wildlife; and the Committee on Health. She was re-elected in 2008. In 2010 she campaigned for California State Senate but lost narrowly to Juan Vargas.

Mayoralty Mary Salas was sworn in as the first Latina Mayor of Chula Vista, California on December 9, 2014. She was sworn in for a second term in December 2018.

Election campaigns 2014 Having run unsuccessfully in 2002, Salas made her second attempt at the mayoralty of Chula Vista in the 2014 election. This was the first mayoral election to take place in Chula Vista following the passage of a 2012 proposition which amended the city charter to require mandatory candidate runoffs, meaning that, even if a candidate obtains more than 50% of the vote in the primary, a second round of the election would be held between the top-two finishers. Municipal elections in California are officially non-partisan.

The election was an open-race, since incumbent mayor Cheryl Cox was term-limited. There were two other candidates running. One was Jerry Rindone, who had been a member of the Chula Vista City Council from 1990 through 1998 and again from 2000 through 2008, as well as the vice chairman of Metropolitan Transit System, a member of the San Diego County Board of Education from 2008 through 2012, and president of Chula Vista Chamber of Commerce in 2013.

In the first round, Salas placed first and Rindone second, thus the two advanced to the second round.

Salas had three opponents. One was Hector Gastelum, a Republican serving as a member of the Otay Water District and working as a realtor with the firm Big Block Realty. Gastelum also campaigned against the city's status as a sanctuary city. Anti-Muslim tweets by Gastelum from 2017, which he refused to apologize for, attracted attention. The tweet in question read, "Let's pressure our legislature to create a list of so-called #MuslimBan to prevent #SubHuman #Scum from #USA to #MAGA". Of those challenging Salas, Gastelum had the strongest name recognition, largely due to the controversy that this 2017 tweet had generated. as well as the endorsement of San Diego Democrats for Equality.

Salas won the second-round of the election by a landslide, receiving 71.86% of the vote to Gastelum's 28.14%.

Votes % Votes % Mary Salas

Jim Cartmill

Dean Archibald

Scot William Davenport

Michelle Castognola

Archie McAllister

2008

State Senate

Mayor 2002 Chula Vista mayoral election CandidateFirst roundRunoffVotes%Votes% Steve Padilla 10,519 47.3 18,978 53.8 Mary Salas 10,699 48.1 16,286 46.1 Peter E. Barajas 996 4.4 7 0.0 Barajas received 7 votes as a write-in in the runoff

2014 Chula Vista mayoral election CandidatePrimary electionGeneral electionVotes%Votes% Mary Salas 9,808 44.07 19,995 52.87 Jerry R. Rindone 8,638 38.82 17,827 47.13 Pamela Bensoussan 3,732 16.78

2018 Chula Vista mayoral election CandidatePrimary electionGeneral electionVotes%Votes% Mary Salas (incumbent) 24,572 62.48 54,062 71.86 Hector Gastelum 6,676 16.98 21,175 28.14 Daniel Schreck 4,408 11.21 Arthur Kende 3,547 9.02