ALPINE, Calif. — The name "Duncan Hunter" has been synonymous with San Diego politics going on four decades: Duncan Lee Hunter was first elected to Congress the year Ronald Reagan took office, used his perch to cultivate the region’s vast military complex, then passed the baton to his son and fellow Republican, Duncan Duane Hunter, in 2008.

But with the younger Hunter under criminal investigation by the FBI, this father-son legacy is in serious peril. So the elder Hunter has emerged from retirement to wage an aggressive, behind-the-scenes shadow campaign to save his son and keep their dynasty alive, according to multiple Republicans.


The elder Hunter, 69, has leaned on his network of San Diego contacts to raise money for his son’s campaign — whose war chest, until recently, had lagged behind his Democratic opponents — as well as his legal defense fund. He’s accused the media of trying to “smear” his son. And the father has maneuvered to keep prominent San Diego Republicans from backing other GOP candidates in the race, according to one of those rivals.

“I can’t lie to you… It’s been impossible to raise money; nobody wants to get involved,” said El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells, who’s running for the seat. “The Hunters have a dynasty. People are afraid of retribution. They’re afraid of destroying their own political career or their relationship with the Hunter family.”

The elder Hunter’s efforts could backfire on the party during a midterm election in which Republicans have little margin for error. Under California’s “jungle” primary system, the top two primary vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party. While Wells and other Republicans are struggling to peel off GOP support, two Democrats are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars and stand a stolid chance of qualifying for the run-off.

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That means if Hunter gets indicted after the June 5 primary but before the November general election, a chunk of Republican voters might feel compelled to choose a Democrat instead. In normal years the possibility of a Democrat winning the seat would be laughable: Donald Trump carried this district by 15 points in 2016.

The elder Hunter’s paternal instincts were on full display last week, when a POLITICO reporter knocked on his door to ask him about his son’s reelection and legal troubles. The current congressman is being investigated for allegedly using tens of thousands of dollars in campaign money for personal use, from his children’s tuition to dinners and shopping trips.

Hunter has blamed his wife, who he said controlled the campaign credit card. Separately, POLITICO has reported that Hunter’s associates say he's frequently intoxicated during work hours.

“I’m not going to give an interview to a person of the media who has proven to me from my perspective to not be trustworthy,” the elder Hunter said, standing in his doorway wearing a camouflage baseball cap. “But nice try.”

Asked about his work for his son’s campaign, the retired congressman called himself “just an old guy at his house; not out making speeches.” He did not deny his involvement, though he said POLITICO had no proof beyond what people say.

Party leaders in Washington are hoping that if an indictment comes down, it happens before the June 5 primary, giving them ample time to back a different Republican. But that appears to be wishful thinking: A grand jury in San Diego will continue hearing testimony against Hunter at the end of May and beginning of June, according to multiple sources close with the investigation. Investigators recently started questioning people who had not been contacted during the year-long investigation, according to two people familiar with the situation.

That points to a possible expansion of the probe, and means any indictment likely isn’t imminent.

In the meantime, the elder Hunter is immersing himself in the race. Some Republican leaders have taken cues from him, such as San Diego Republican Chairman Tony Krvaric, who refused multiple times to speak with POLITICO.

“I’m just not comfortable speaking on the subject,” Krvaric said when approached at the California Republican Convention in San Diego last week. Asked if the elder Hunter had asked him not to speak with POLITICO, Krvaric would not answer.

Hunter served in Vietnam before being elected to Congress in 1980 to represent this area filled with Navy and Marine Corps bases. He dove into military-related issues, pushing GOP leaders to invest more money in national defense and eventually becoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Hunter steered earmarks and contracts to shipbuilding companies in the district, winning strong allies who said his help from Washington contributed to a thriving local economy.

Around the time the younger Hunter ran for his father’s seat, he started using his given name, Duncan. He had gone by his middle name, Duane, local residents who know him said.

Some of his critics said it was a blatant attempt to capitalize on his father’s popularity and confuse voters. And Democrats say the “trick,“ as some have called it, worked in the minds of some voters.

Ammar Campa Najjar, a Democratic candidate for the seat, often whips out a picture on his phone of a local billboard with the younger Hunter’s face plastered on it and bolded letters: “DID YOU KNOW? Rep. Duncan Hunter is UNDER CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION.”

“You know what the most alarming part of that billboard is to them?” Campa Najjar said in an interview last week. “The photo. ... They changed his name to Duncan so people thought he was his father!”

Voters who think the two men are the same person appear to be a small minority. But in Alpine, just down the road from Hunter’s house, none of the Republican voters POLITICO spoke with knew the details of the probe or that Wells and several other GOP candidates were running against him.

“That’s news to me!” said retired artist and registered Republican Norm Daniels, a Hunter supporter. “I knew he was under scrutiny for something but I didn’t know what it is.”

Other Republicans who were aware of the probe said they didn’t care. At the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter here last week, a half-dozen residents who’d voted for Hunter previously expressed support for their candidate despite the allegations. Sandra Waits-Focht, a 66-year-old semi-retired caregiver whose son went to school with Hunter, said “you hear all this stuff going around about politicians, but do you believe it? It’s hard to say.”

“I would definitely vote for Duncan Hunter!” she said. And if he were indicted? “I’d still vote for him.”

That's why some local Republicans think, even if Hunter is indicted, he may be reelected anyway.

“People in this district are very leery of ‘witch-hunts,’ and that’s what a lot of people here are equating it to, no matter how real or serious the charges are,” said Matt Schumsky, a San Diego political operative who used to work for the Hunters. “If it comes down to him actually getting indicted, that could hurt his chances a little, but it’s still a very Republican district, even if that makes it a closer race.”

Wells, the El Cajon mayor and candidate for the seat, thinks that faith in the Hunter family will blow up in the party’s face. It’s only a matter of time before Hunter is charged, he argues, and Republicans need to ensure the seat stays in party hands by voting for two Republicans in the primary.

Wells has found himself trying to explain that logic to some unsympathetic GOP voters, who accuse him of splitting the GOP vote.

“Some people get the sense that I’m doing this out of vanity or I’m trying to move up the ladder, and frankly that’s not been my goal,” said Wells. “Somebody has to clean up the pieces.”

It’s an argument that hasn’t caught on as much as Wells would like. He said he saw a “lot of excitement” about his candidacy among local GOP leaders when he first declared his candidacy. But then “we started hearing that he was making phone calls,” Wells said, referring to the elder Hunter.

“People ran away,” Wells said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled Schumsky‘s name.

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