Just a year ago, Councilman David Alvarez was a relative unknown.
The soft-spoken San Diego native regularly showed up at events and press conferences without staffers, and usually left without facing a single reporter.
As a councilman, he struggled to push forward even a modest ordinance to create a foreclosure registry amid a tense relationship with former Mayor Jerry Sanders. (It ultimately prevailed.)
But the mayoral race, where he was buoyed by his own compelling personal narrative and millions of dollars from labor groups, has catapulted him to a contender getting attention from the New York Times and President Barack Obama.
Neither was enough to propel him into the mayor’s office. Republican challenger Kevin Faulconer decisively defeated Alvarez Tuesday.
But the groundswell that emerged to support his candidacy – high-profile national Democrats parachuted in for campaign appearances, and more than 600 volunteers gathered the Saturday before the election walking door to door to rally voters on his behalf – marks a sudden transformation in Alvarez’s nascent political career.
It’s a reality even Alvarez himself likely couldn’t have imagined just months ago.
As a teenager, David Alvarez once heard another student ask of Barrio Logan, “Why would anyone want to live here?” Soon after, he attended his first community meeting. “I just felt like there was something really wrong and nobody was fixing the wrong,” Alvarez said.
Read MoreWhile Trump and other GOP presidential candidates push for a giant wall between the United States and Mexico, San Diego is literally building a bridge. In San Diego, Alvarez said, Republicans have changed. Although he is frequently critical of Sanders’s mayoral tenure and unsuccessfully ran against Faulconer for mayor, Alvarez agrees with their stances on the border. “We have a common goal,” he said.
Read MoreFour months after increasing water rates, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday approved a program to help poor water customers pay their bills. "Water is a human right," Councilman David Alvarez said. "We need to be focused on providing this ... to every person, so that everybody can have access to it and everybody can afford it."
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