Weekend Open Thread: “Lo’ Retta Blues” En Fuego in 3rd Supe Race

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OJB still has Loretta’s 2004 Christmas Card on file, so why not use it to illustrate this “en fuego” campaign? Ho ho ho!

In an election where one sole Democrat is running against so many Republicans that hardly anyone’s even talking about Debra Pauley and Katherine Daigle, it seems likely that Loretta Sanchez will be elected as the County’s newest Supervisor on Tuesday. (Ryan Cantor reminds me that it’s a “first past the post” race, with no runoff.) From what I can tell, the activity level of local Democrats in this election is “Abnormally High.” (I have no idea what Republicans are doing.)

Irvine Mayor Don Wagner and former Anaheim Councilmember Kris Murray are the two Republican front-runners. Wagner is the RPOC-endorsed candidate, but Murray has refused to get out of the race — and frankly, with all of the absentees mailed by now, it’s too late for her to show party loyalty now. (The prospect of selfish Kris being the GOP’s spoiler makes OJB happier than we can express.)

Here are the absentee ballots requested, by party:

DEM 74,669
REP 81,126
AI 5,726
GRN 656
LIB 2,079
P-F 485
Misc 71,071
Daily raw count of vote-by-mail ballots mailed 235,360

Here are the absentee ballots returned, by party, as of 6 p.m. Sunday 3/10:

Current Total Ballots Returned
Permanent vote-by-mail ballots 39,937
Single application vote-by-mail ballots 1,274
Military and overseas ballots 51
Total vote-by-mail ballots 41,262
Vote-by-mail ballots returned by party (all of Orange County)
DEM 13,413
REP 18,406
AI 736
GRN 90
LIB 221
P-F 38
Misc 8,085
Daily raw count of vote-by-mail ballots returned 41,166
Raw count of vote-by-mail ballots opened to date 0
Raw count of vote-by-mail ballots scanned to date 0

Here are the overall registration numbers for the Third Supe District:

Current Registration Counts:

Total active voters 1,596,205
Total inactive voters (what are inactive voters?) 362,026
Secretary of State report of registration (02/10/2019) 1,591,543
Statewide 17,660,486
Military and overseas 8,028
Party Counts
DEM 532,448
REP 543,205
AI 40,835
GRN 4,852
LIB 14,145
P-F 4,170
MISC 3,773
NPP 452,777

As for voter registration: as of January 7, following what looks like a minor purge of inactive voters, total registration in OC was at  1,577,845; currently (3/10), it’s at 1,596,274, of which the 3rd District’s share is 341,809.

(Before anyone panics, the ROV explains that this purge is in accord with state law, and would come after the election, and removes voters if (1) “Our office receives mail returned from the voter’s address that is not deliverable” or (2) “The voter does not participate in any election in the previous four years, and has not updated or confirmed their voter record.”)

This is our Weekend (and Week’s) Open Thread. We’ll probably have a separate post to announce the results, but they don’t seem likely to be unexpected. And for once, we can say — thank you, Kris Murray!  Do whatever it is you want to do here, within reasonable bounds, so long as it doesn’t involve San Juan Capistrano. Seriously.


About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)