Wow. Republican Lynn Daucher squeaked by Democrat Lou Correa, winning the 34th State Senate District by 13 votes! You can bet there will be a recount there, and I am sure that Correa’s allies will assert that he was deprived of victory by some kind of Republican dirty tricks campaign. Of course, it was Correa who engaged in such shenanigans when his campaign seemed to have convinced turncoat Republican Otto Bade to run as a last minute write-in candidate against Daucher. No se puede! Congratulations to Ms. Daucher!
Pat Bates also won her hotly contested battle with Cassie DeYoung, in the Fifth Supervisorial District. And Tan Nguyen lost to Loretta Sanchez in the 47th Congressional District. Feel free to go back to the Democrats now Tan!
In Brea, Daucher ally Ron Garcia won a seat on the City Council, while OC GOP endorsed Steve Vargas bottomed out at second to last place. Congratulations Ron!
Congratulations also to Lucille Kring, who won a seat on the Anaheim City Council. Bill Dalati, the candidate who came under fire and ended up switching to the Democrat Party, lost badly and I assume his political career is over.
In Garden Grove, Dina Nguyen led all night, but ended up losing to Harry Krebs, as he and Bruce Broadwater prevailed. Not sure what to make of that, but congratulations to my fellow Republican Harry!
In Irvine, the OC GOP did not fare that well as its mayoral candidate, John Duong, lost to Beth Krom. However, at least Christina Shea won a seat on the Council.
In Costa Mesa, the conservative Republicans, Mayor Alan Mansoor and Wendy Leece, prevailed over the “Return to Reason” slate. Hysteria, I am sure, will be the order of the day in that town today.
In Santa Ana, Mayor Miguel Pulido won, but his slate did not do well. In Ward 2, Michele Martinez prevailed over Evangeline Gawronski, denying Pulido puppet Tino Rivera the victory. Rivera came in third out of four candidates. Gawronski led in the early balloting, and lost by only about 300 votes. In Ward 6, Sal Tinajero prevailed over Pulido puppet Jennifer Villasenor, with a lot of help from George Collins, who no doubt cost Villasenor the victory. The only Pulido candidate to emerge victorious was David Benavides in Ward 4.
I took a lot of heat from my former co-blogger Tim Whitacre for recruiting a team of Republican candidates to run for the city council in Santa Ana. He invested all of his political capital in the Pulido slate, and presumably will now have to answer to the OC GOP Central Committee for backing Democrats over our endorsed Republican candidates. I am proud of my team – Gawronski almost won, Collins cost Villasenor a victory, and Gordon raised no money and still got almost 25% of the vote. I am sure that Gordon’s success will mean that Pulido will face several well-financed opponents in two years. Watch how quickly he will see the writing on the wall and choose to retire instead.
Not so fast, Art! Provisional ballots haven’t even been counted yet, and neither have the absentee ballots that were hand-delivered yesterday. Daucher’s “13-vote win” may very easily evaporate before we even start talking about recounts!
Art,
Let’s count alll the votes before you claim victory for Daucher. A 13 vote lead at this point is not a win, even if you’re doing Kool-Aid shots.
Also, on the local front, the perks of incumbancy prevailed in many races. Congratulations to Pam Keller for breaking through in Fullerton.
Hey Pedroza,
“Final Election Results” are not in.
It will be about a week before all the votes are counted. I suggest you take a tranquilizer to hold off your euphoria. Remember back in ’96 when Noji was ahead of Nativo the day after the election, only to lose to him once all the provisional and election day absentee votes were counted. Given the current state of affairs, wouldn’t you agree that was a sweet victory?
Victory for Daucher? I think NOT!
CQT96
Let’s hope it’s a repeat for Noji and Aguinaga beats her out.
He is just saying that so that when it’s official he can say he “predicted” it. Don’t you guys already know this?
Of course Art knows that it’s not over till it’s official.
It would be funny if Lynn beats Lou by a few votes.
I was going to vote for Lou, untill Otto as a write in poped up.
Some times even ringers can work against ya
Daucher has a very good chance of pulling this out – but let’s see what happens. Either way, Correa has to be shaken to the core. He took the race for granted and may well have paid for it.
Lou is not shaken by anything. He knew this was going to be a tight race and he knew that Lynn and the money pumped in behind her would make her a formidable opponent.
Lou has won races and lost some. He took one for the team when Umberg couldn’t keep his morals in check. Say what you want about him in terms of votes, but Lou is a good person (as is Lynn) and they would both work hard for the 34th.
And if anyone is to blame for the lack of voter turn-out in the 34th, the blame can be laid upon the feet of Jose Solorio who did absoultely NOTHING to turn out his base. He was too busy sucking up to Pulido…