By DAVID GARRICK, The San Diego Union-Tribune‍

The history of mayoral runoffs in San Diego indicates Councilwoman Barbara Bry may have a legitimate chance to upset Assemblyman Todd Gloria this November, despite Gloria’s decisive first-place finish in last month’s primary.

There have been 10 runoffs in the 16 mayoral elections San Diego has held over the last 50 years, and the person finishing first in the primary has been defeated in the runoff half the time.

Gloria supporters could argue his chances are better than some previous primary winners because he finished so far ahead of Bry – 41.5 percent to her 22.9 percent with a margin of more than 80,000 votes.

But Donna Frye got an even larger percentage of the vote in the 2005 mayoral primary — 43.1 percent — and still lost to Jerry Sanders in the November runoff that year by nearly 25,000 votes.

Five out of 10 is a ratio that may surprise some people, said Tom Shepard, a longtime local political consultant who is handling Bry’s campaign.

“People who don’t have a historical perspective on mayor’s races in San Diego would assume Todd Gloria is the odds-on favorite,” said Shepard. “But they would potentially be wrong.”

Bry’s campaign has argued that she has a better chance to get the 80,000 votes that went to Republican Scott Sherman in the primary because she is viewed as more moderate than Gloria on business regulations and on new housing in single-family areas.

Some say the mayor’s race may be shaped significantly by the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus pandemic, which has created a budget crisis for San Diego by sharply reducing revenue from sales tax and hotel tax.

Bry, who was first elected to council in 2016, argues that her years of business experience would make her more appealing in a financial crisis.