The San Diego office for a California Republican candidate for Congress was broken into and damaged this week and left with smashed monitors, water-damaged computers, and severed power and fiberoptic cables.
Carl DeMaio, who is openly gay,
told Politico he will not let the setback affect his campaigning ahead of next Tuesday's primary in the race for the 52nd Congressional District seat.
"What happened last night frankly was appalling, but we're committed … we're going to get our message out," DeMaio said.
Dave McCulloch, DeMaio’s campaign communications director,
told NBC San Diego not much was left untouched by the perpetrator.
"Almost every cord inside the entire office — phone cords, communications, network cords, power cords — appears to have been cut," McCulloch said. "We are extremely disappointed someone would do this just six days before an election, specifically targeting our communications and electronic equipment."
Police responded to the scene at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, and they believe the person entered through an adjacent office, reports NBC San Diego.
"We're not going to speculate on who or what or why, we've got a campaign to run and Tuesday is a big day for us," McCulloch said. "We're more concerned with getting Carl's positive message reform out there. While our phones were down and Internet was down, instead of having our volunteers make phone calls we sent them out to walk the streets of Poway."
Wednesday evening, DeMaio Tweeted a photo that showed his office was back in business.
DeMaio will face three other candidates — incumbent Democrat Scott Peters, and Republicans Kirk Jorgensen and Fred Simon — in Tuesday's election. The two with the most votes will earn a spot on the November ballot.
DeMaio, 39, served one term in the San Diego City Council from 2008-2012.
Information from Reuters was used in this report.