It’s scary to be an American right now as Donald Trump and Elon Musk run amok in Washington. But we here in San Diego can be a little less scared than our friends and family elsewhere in the country because we live in a Blue county in a powerful Blue state.

But San Diego could become scarier if the Republican candidate wins the April special election to fill a vacant seat on the San Diego Board of Supervisors. If the Republican candidate wins that seat, the Republican Party will control the county board of supervisors, bringing a MAGA regime to San Diego. To prevent this, we must do two things: 1) Turn out the Democratic vote, and 2) vote only for Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, the endorsed candidate of the San Diego Democratic Party, despite more than one Democrat being running in the election. Otherwise, we split our vote and risk a Republican taking the seat in the Primary. If that happens, we will have a MAGA County Board of Supervisors.

If you live in District 1, please vote for Aguirre. And if you don’t live in District 1, please talk to friends and family there and encourage them to vote for Aguirre.

Act fast — the election ends Tuesday, April 8, in five days!

The county board of supervisors has a broad scope of authority: It manages a significant budget for services and programs, disperses federal funds, manages social welfare programs such as CalFresh, Medi-Cal and the foster care system, and it oversees local government and law enforcement for unincorporated areas of the county.

Aguirre will make a great supervisor. As mayor of Imperial Beach, she has an impressive array of accomplishments. She has been a champion in the fight to clean up the South County sewage crisis, securing $600 million in federal funding. She has helped make life more affordable by lowering utility rates and adding moderately priced homes. She achieved gains in public safety and disaster response, fighting homelessness, and overall quality of life for all San Diegans — not just the rich. And, of course, she has worked to protect our values — Aguirre is pro-choice; she favors keeping local law enforcement focused on fighting crime, not doing the federal government’s job on immigration enforcement; and she opposes federal cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, elder care and Social Security.

There are other excellent Democrats in this race. But Aguirre is the San Diego Democratic Party’s endorsed candidate, and we all must get behind one candidate to help her achieve more than 50% of the votes in this special election.

If the Republicans win the board, we can expect to see cuts to social services, including homeless aid and mental health benefits. Republicans will enact economic policies that help the rich and hurt the middle class and poor.

We’re already seeing Republicans doing damage in San Diego. As County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer points out in a recent newsletter, extreme federal service reductions aren’t a distant Washington fight; they will directly impact all of us in San Diego, cutting healthcare, housing, and homelessness benefits and increasing the cost of living.

“Slashes to healthcare?” Lawson Remer writes. “It means bigger crowds and longer waits the next time you’re in the emergency room.”

She adds, “Elimination of federally funded housing vouchers? It means local homelessness will increase as more of our neighbors won’t be able to make rent in high-cost San Diego.

“Cuts to Medicaid? It means fewer beds in the County for unhoused people having a mental health or substance abuse crisis on the streets.

“Reductions in the national food assistance program known as SNAP? It means kids in our community who we see every day — children of our friends, neighbors and coworkers — will have less to eat.”

50,000 people could lose access to job training and financial assistance, 400,000 San Diegans may no longer receive food assistance, and nearly 900,000 residents could lose Medi-Cal healthcare coverage, Lawson-Remer writes.

A Republican majority on the San Diego Board of Supervisors would make the damage we’re seeing from Republican policies much worse.

In contrast, Aguirre will help make the county better for everyone, not just the rich. It’s that simple. We need to restore the Democratic majority to the board. If you live in District 1, please get out and vote for Paloma Aguirre. And if you live outside the district, get your friends and family in District 1 to vote for the endorsed Democratic candidate, Paloma Aguirre.

The district includes Chula Vista, Imperial Beach, National City, and some communities in the City of San Diego, including Barrio Logan, East Village and Golden Hill. It also includes the unincorporated areas of Bonita, East Otay Mesa, Lincoln Acres, Sunnyside and La Presa.

Eligible District 1 voters have already received ballots in the mail; they must be returned no later than Tuesday, April 8. You can mail the ballot in through April 8, drop the ballot in one of 29 official ballot boxes throughout the district, or vote in person starting Saturday, March 29. Find locations of drop-off boxes, in-person voting locations, and more information on SanDiego.gov and more background on the election on the KPBS Voter Hub.

A version of this article appeared in the April edition of the Progressive Voice, the newsletter for the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club. I’m a board member at large for the club.