TURMOIL IN THE NORTH! In SD-29, Ling-Ling In, Tim Shaw Out, and Does This Mean Young Kim is Worried?

The rug is pulled out from under Tim Shaw’s feet while “lightweight” Ling-Ling Chang takes over in the SD-29 race  — recruited, perhaps to help endangered Royce fave Young Kim?

As in Game of Thrones, so in Orange County: the North is in turmoil!  Ling-Ling Chang is switching contests!

Ling-Ling Chang, who was elected to the state Assembly just seven months ago, isn’t wasting any time in seeking to advance her political career.

The Taiwan-born, self-described “tech geek” announced Friday that she will run next year for the state Senate seat being vacated by Senate Republican leader Bob Huff, who is being forced out by term limits and is running for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Huff is endorsing Chang after initially backing one of his aides, Tim Shaw, as his successor. Shaw dropped out Friday as Chang announced for the 29^th Senate District seat and endorsed her as well.

The pathway had been cleared for La Habra Councilmember Tim Shaw to take over Senate District 29 for his boss, Minority Leader Bob Huff (against whom I ran in 2012, losing by a surprisingly low — even to me — 10%.)  Former AD-55 Assemblyman Curt Hagman won’t run because he now has a possibly longtime job on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.  Other Republicans who have been mentioned include Philip Chen of Rowland Heights’s to Diamond Bar’s Steve Tye to Yorba Linda’s Craig Young, Placentia’s Jeremy Yamaguchi, and some others from south of the 91, but none of them seemed likely to get into the race and take on both the Royce and Huff machines.  But now, Ling-Ling’s switching to the Senate race and no Republicans are going to run against her.  She’ll likely face one of the two announced Democratic candidates, former Irvine Mayor Sukhee Kang and former Brea Mayor Brett Murdock, who are both gathering support for a seat that is trending blue.

Shaw didn’t announce it today, but he is now expected to run to replace Chang in AD-55.  The problem for him is that those guys who didn’t want to run against Shaw in the 870,000 population Senate District would instead face him in race half that size and fought entirely on familiar turf.  It’s also one where the expected Democratic contenders are likely to be less daunting than Kang or Murdock.  (To be honest, at this point there’s no Democrat from AD-55 who’s run for Congress or State Legislature since redistricting except for me and Gregg Fritchle.  We two are of course fearsome, but have tended to be underfunded.)

Why make the switch now, when Shaw has already been endorsed by everyone short of the ghost of Richard Nixon?  That’s a really interesting question!  Someone apparently saw something, most likely in the polls or focus groups — but what?  Here are some possibilities.

1) Perhaps Shaw is seen as an appreciably weaker candidate, especially among Asians:  AD-55 is already close to, if not exceeding, a plurality Asian District, but all of those voters are also in SD-29.  Fullerton, though, is also trending much more Asian — and Chang would have a better shot at them than Shaw, especially if Kang is nominated. This raises the question of why you’d put the weaker candidate in the district where they’d have to run twice as often. My guess is that they think that the Republican advantage in AD-55 is enough to keep Shaw in office for a while, whereas Chang would be better able to hold SD-29 in 2020 if she wins in 2016.

2) Perhaps they want Chang to be a bit further away from the voters:  In today’s “Nooner” column, Scott Lay says: “Speaking of Ling-Ling Chang, Don Wagner carries on the tradition of hazing freshmen members by calling her a lightweight on the Assembly Floor. Check out the video at 1:02:00.”  The only problem there is that, according to sources I’ve heard from both major parties, Chang apparently does have a reputation as a lightweight in the Lege.  (So, very funny, Asmb. Wagner!)  And then there’s the magical matter of her Harvard degree — should be there by this year, as I recall! — that the “tech geek” had claimed but doesn’t actually seem to have, you know, obtained.  But how likely is that to come up this year?  Shaw might be considered more likely to be able to withstand constant scrutiny.

3) Perhaps it’s not about either of their numbers — but is instead about Young Kim.  In a Presidential year, it’s far from clear that Young Kim would be favored over Sharon Quirk-Silva in AD-65 — and Royce probably cares a lot more about Kim than Huff does about Chang, especially given that Huff is going to be busy trying to take over Mike Antonivich’s LA Supervisor’s seat in northern LA, where he’s likely to get lots of quality time with Antonivich’s former aide Phillip Chen, who lost to Chang in the 2014 primary thanks largely to some really nasty tactics from the Huff team.  The way to get Kim to win, they may presume, is to get as many Asians to the polls as possible.  Chang being in SD-29 guarantees at least one Asian in the general election, and possibly two, if Kang beats Murdock.  Shaw being in the race means that either one Asian in the general election, or even none, if Murdock beats Kang.  Meanwhile, if Murdock (who speaks good Spanish) gets the nomination, he probably boosts the Latino vote, which also helps Quirk-Silva at the expense of Kim.  So it’s possible that this entire change is just the GOP playing the politics of race yet again by aiming for more Asian and fewer Latino voters in AD-65.

This sort of jumping tracks without apparent cause is a little embarrassing — and for Shaw it’s probably mortifying, as it exposes him as most likely disposable in the eyes of his own political machine.  (Good luck running against Tye and/or Chen, dude.)  But, if it had to happen, it’s very likely best for the Republicans for it to have happened sooner rather than later.  The question for those of us not including in the GOP inner hive is — WHOSE NUMBERS came in so much worse than expected that, after a substantial distance down the previous path, this switch had to happen at all?