Former San Bernardino Second Ward Counclman Benito Barrios’s quest for a political comeback hit a snag this week as Democrats in the county seat are militating toward throwing the entire weight of their party countywide into an effort to oppose his bid to recapture the post he lost seven years ago.
Barrios, a Marine Corps veteran who had parlayed the support he received from conservative backers in the city and hi association with then-up-and-coming San Bernardino political figure John Valdivia to obtain a berth on the council, for a time appeared to have a bright future in elective office, being able to time a run for county or state posts from the relatively strong position of an incumbent council member in the county’s most populous city. A host of calculated moves that turned out to be miscalculations and an a series of what otherwise would have been microscandals that would have had no appreciable impact on his continuing viability as a candidate if they had occurred separately rather than as an accumulation doomed him during the 2018 election cycle.
Now, he and his handlers and advisors consider the 2026 election season to be propitious for his re-entrance into local politics, as the woman who replaced him on the council must stand for reelection once more, having barely overcome a challenge in 2022. Though Barrios this time hopes to have one of the more powerful and influential entities in the San Bernardino community backing him, there remains a cohesive coalition of supporters preparing to go to work in the upcoming campaign for the incumbent.
Moreover, San Bernardino is a solid Democratic city and the Second Ward has the second highest concentration of Democratic Party members of the city’s seven wards. Even though municipal elections are not supposed to be partisan in nature, the overwhelming ratio of Democrats to Republicans in the Second Ward makes it highly unlikely that a candidate actively opposed by the Democratic Party can win in an electoral contest there.
The Sentinel has learned…