Two weeks ago, Terry Baxter began an unusual get-out-the-vote campaign in Isla Vista. While Democratic Party volunteers were handing out official county voter-registration forms all over I.V. and the UCSB campus, Baxter, an experienced conservative operative, was handing out warnings: Stranger danger! Don’t fill out those paper forms, she cautioned students. Register on your iPhone. You are giving your identity to a stranger.
This was a new twist on an old fight: the race for the 3rd District seat on the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. For almost half a century, those elections have been divided between a progressive-leaning candidate, often living in the south of the district, and a conservative-leaning one, living in the north. The 3rd District covers the largest area of the county, spanning from Isla Vista over the mountains to the Santa Ynez Valley and up to Guadalupe. This year, the two candidates vying to replace outgoing Supervisor Doreen Farr both hail from northern cities: Joan Hartmann, the progressive, lives in Buellton, and Bruce Porter, Baxter’s candidate, resides in Santa Ynez. But the political divide remains the same, and the fiercest battleground centers in Isla Vista.
Isla Vista has been the hotbed of county politics since 1971, when 18-year-olds got the right to vote. That radioactive climate has only intensified since UCSB’s population grew to more than 23,000 students. Today, more than a third of the votes in the 3rd District rest in I.V. That supervisor’s vote often determines policy on the county board. Today the board is divided between two liberal supervisors representing the 1st and 2nd southern districts and two conservatives from the 4th and 5th in the north. The 3rd District seat tilts the majority.