It was supposed to be difficult.

Some people even said, “Joan’s in trouble.”

The 2020 redistricting that removed about 10,000 voters from Isla Vista could have spelled serious political trouble for Santa Barbara County Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann.

Instead, Hartmann breezed to re-election, not only winning but grabbing 58% of the vote in a three-way race.

How did she do it?

Mary Rose, a longtime political consultant who has worked with an array of top-shelf political candidates, drew up the plan.

“Mary is unflappable,” Hartmann told Noozhawk. “She knows what it takes to win an election. Someone can have big signs all over the place. Signs don’t vote. People can say a lot of things in an election. She keeps her focus on what is important.”

For more than four decades, Rose has been the silent force behind many successful political campaigns. She has worked for Hartman four times, but her resume includes big leaguers throughout the decades.

She worked for former state Sen. Gary Hart and State Superintendent of Public Schools Jack O’Connell, helped Gloria Ochoa pull off an epic upset over David Yager for the First District county supervisor’s seat, Janet Wolf, Walter Capps, Harriet Miller, Sheila Lodge, Hal Conklin, Gerry deWitt and Kristen Sneddon.

She was behind Measure V, a ballot measure for construction improvements, and the Santa Barbara Firefighters for Better Government, among many others.

Many ingredients were necessary to win the Hartmann campaign seemingly so easily, but at the top of the list, Rose said, was the candidate.

“She didn’t make it about her,” Rose said. “She made it about helping the community, and that’s really what an elected official should be doing — hearing what the community wants and then trying to address those needs.”

However, even the strongest candidates can lose if they don’t have a great team behind them.

In an interview with Noozhawk, Rose explained her strategy and how she was able to pull off a victory in March, avoiding a November runoff.

Losing Isla Vista, she said, wasn’t that big of a deal.

“Isla Vista was not what it had been,” Rose said.

Historically, she said, the densely packed community adjacent to UCSB had been students and lower-income families. However, many of the families were driven out by increasing rent costs, and the students became less engaged.

Increasingly, students remained registered to vote at their parents’ homes, anyway.

“It was never this monolithic turnout, and it had been dwindling,” Rose said.

The Third District gained Lompoc and the conservative parts of Goleta, she said. Shortly after the redistricting, Rose said, Hartmann went to work.

“We worked on introducing her to people,” Rose said. “We did mailers to the new parts of the district, and we just told them, ‘She’s there. She’ll answer your questions.'”

She also got involved in fundraising and advocacy for the Lompoc Theatre project and connected with community activists on issues of gun violence. She put out a survey asking constituents what they cared about.

“Our first canvas through Lompoc was not about Joan running for office; it was about Joan the supervisor wanting your opinion on things,” Rose said. “She was looking for issues.”

One of the early intriguing questions about the race was whether Frank Troise, a Republican, could pull off an upset because the Third District lost Isla Vista.

He received an early endorsement from the Santa Barbara County Deputy Sheriffs Association and the Santa Barbara County Republican Party.

“I am not sure how he gained traction with them,” Rose said. “I don’t think it was easy to find a candidate.”

Rose said she was initially concerned that donors would give money to the Republican Party to fund Troise. She said oil companies did so when Bruce Porter challenged Hartmann in previous races.

“I kept wondering, ‘What are they going to do?'” Rose said.

However, the Troise campaign never really gained momentum.

Then, Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne jumped into the race.

“I, at one point, thought she would do better than Frank, but when she didn’t raise any money,” Rose said, she changed her mind.

Osborne’s entry into the race didn’t quite add up either, Rose said.

“I was somewhat surprised, because it probably means she gives up her seat running for mayor,” Rose said. “And I think she was thinking, ‘Oh well, if I don’t get into the runoff, I can still run again.’ I think she hurt herself politically.”

In the field, Rose dispatched volunteers and paid staffers to talk to Republicans. Since Democrats have a registration advantage in the Third District — 43.2% to 28.3%, respectively — one political tactic is to try to turn out only registered Democrats who are likely voters.

Even though Hartmann is a Democrat, she said supervisorial races should be nonpartisan.

Another one of Rose’s campaign secrets? She’s a numbers person and has a master’s degree in business administration from California Lutheran University.

“I probably am still one of the few Democratic consultants who comes from not always an issue first, but from a business management first,” Rose said. “How are we going to raise the money? What are the resources we are going to have? Who are the people we are targeting? How do we frame a campaign?”

She said it’s not always “here’s an issue, let’s run after it.”

Rose, who moved to Santa Barbara in 1974, said “campaigns are a business.”

Like a business, a campaign needs startup money, resources, staff and volunteers, she said.

Another key factor, Rose said, was the role that the Democratic Women of Santa Barbara County played. The group is an official Democratic Club but is independent of the Santa Barbara County Democratic Central Committee.

On election night, Hartmann first attended the party held by Democratic Women at the Leta Hotel in Goleta. It was one of the first times there was a party for Democrats separate from the official party celebration.

“It is emerging as a solidly Democratic organization, but what they really are doing is bringing new people into the party,” Rose said. “They are bringing new people in, and they are talking about things Democrats care about that aren’t party politics, per se.”

The Democratic Women helped Hartmann’s campaign, Rose said.

“They raised money, they brought volunteer resources, they were helpful,” Rose said. “Independently, they did ads that we weren’t going to be able to do.”

Pat McElroy, a retired fire chief for the City of Santa Barbara, said Rose is always successful and that she doesn’t seek the spotlight.

“When she worked with us at the Firefighters for Better Government, we trusted her implicitly,” McElroy said. “She was very careful with how we used our funds. She helped us with but never tried to dominate our messaging.”

McElroy noted that she was a key part in the San Marcos Foothills Preserve and the campaign that saved the Douglas Preserve, formerly the Wilcox property.

“She has been a constant in local politics for several decades,” McElroy said. “She flies below the radar of most people in Santa Barbara, but she has been an incredibly effective figure in local political campaigning.”

McElroy said Rose “appropriately has her candidate, or the cause, enjoy the victory.”

“In this last Third District supervisor’s race, from the outside, you would have thought that Mary has nothing to do with the race,” McElroy said. “I think that bothers some of Mary’s friends more than it bothers her. She is a pro. All she does is win.”

What’s next for Rose? She’s working with Jett Black-Maertz, who is running for First District on the Santa Barbara City Council, and more campaigns are on the way.

One thing is clear. She enjoys being behind the scenes and letting her candidate experience the glory.

“I had a mentor who said racehorses shouldn’t be jockeys and jockeys shouldn’t be racehorses,” Rose said with a laugh.