Scott Peters mulls bid for San Diego mayor

Centrist Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), San Diego’s first council president, is considering running for San Diego mayor in 2020, his spokeswoman confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday.

Before coming to Congress, Peters served on the San Diego City Council from 2000 to 2008. He was elected by his peers in 2005 to become the city’s first council president after San Diego changed its leadership structure to a mayor-council form of government.

{mosads}“We are looking at it,” said MaryAnne Pintar, Peters’s San Diego-based chief of staff who also has managed his past campaigns. “Given that the primary is in March 2020, a lot of people will be looking to make an announcement early next year, which means we will need to make a decision in the next couple of months.”

He also served as a commissioner for the Unified Port of San Diego.

Other Democrats eyeing a potential bid for the mayor’s office include City Councilwoman Barbara Bry and state Assemblyman Todd Gloria, who previously served on the city council and is a protégé of Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.).

Peters won a San Diego-area seat in Congress in 2012, and was reelected to a fourth term in the House last month. He toughest race came in 2014, when Peters narrowly beat former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, a Republican, 51.6 percent to 48.4 percent, after a bitter campaign.

But if he decides to formally jump into the mayor’s race, Peters’s 52nd Congressional District seat will become a target for Republicans as they try to regain the House majority in 2020.

Peters recently endorsed fellow California Democrat Nancy Pelosi to be the next Speaker of the House. He is a member of the centrist New Democrat Coalition and will serve as one of four vice chairmen for the group.