A First Look at 2016’s Unsettled Races, Through Wednesday Nov. 9’s Results

.

.

.

This post covers ONLY THOSE RACES THAT WE COULD NOT CALL ON ELECTION NIGHT.  For races that we believe were settled on election night, refer to this earlier post — as well as to the most recently updated version of the Registrar of Voters results page.

Here is a list of the races covered in this post:

1. CA-49
2. SD-29:
3. AD-65:
4. Rancho Santiago CCD Seat 5:
5. South OC CCS Seat 4:
6. Brea Olinda USD, 3rd Spot:
7. Irvine USD, third spot
8. Santa Ana USD, third spot
9. Buena Park Elementary, Seat 4
10. Centralia Elementary, Seat 3
11. Ocean View Elementary, second spot
12. Westminster Elementary, second spot
13. County Supervisor, District 1
14. Anaheim District 1
15. Anaheim District 3
16. Brea Treasurer
17. Costa Mesa Council, third spot
18. Fullerton Council, third spot
19. Garden Grove, District 6
20. Laguna Beach Council, second spot
21. Lake Forest Council, second spot
22. Los Alamitos Council, second spot
23. Newport Beach, District 5
24. Placentia Council, third spot
25. San Clemente Council, second spot
26. Seal Beach, District 2
27. Villa Park Council, BOTH SPOTS
28. Yorba Linda Council, third spot
29. Rossmoor Community Services, third spot
30. Midway City Sanitary, second spot
31. El Toro Water, third spot
32. Yorba Linda Water, Melton Recall replacement
33. MWDOC Division 4
34. Measure GG
35. Measure OO

We keep track of WHAT’s LEFT TO COUNT right here at the top so that we can be aware of how and when it changes.  All that changed for today was that 1265 Early Ballots were counted.  That category isn’t incuded in this list because I don’t think that it’s been nearly as a big deal before this year.

If you look at the results page — like this one — you’ll see this at the very top of the main data column:

ALMOST EVERYTHING is either a precinct ballot or a vote-by-mail (“VBM”) ballot  — but not everything!

The numbers in the chart below are for “Ballots Counted after Election Day.”  Ballots counted BY ELECTION DAY includes VBM ballots that arrived early enough that they could be processed in time to be included in the Registrar’s big first data dump on Tuesday evening at 8:05 p.m.), and  — with the cutoff of when ballot arriving before Election Day, and which is what much of the rest of the categories below deal with)

That leaves:

• “VBM ballots left to count” (included in the “VBM Ballots” row above)
• “Provisional ballots left to count” (included in the “Precinct Ballots” row above
• “Vote-by-Mail ballots left at the polls” (I think that these are VBM Ballots, even though they are collected at precincts)
• “Election Day Paper ballots left to count” (clearly these are “Precinct Ballots”)
• “Eligible Vote-by-Mail Ballots received after Election Day Left to Count” (again, probably VBM)

But the ballots at the Early Voting stations, at the Registrar’s Office and elsewhere (such as Anaheim City Hall) — WHICH ARE GREAT — are neither VBM ballots nor precinct ballots.  They are the “fungus” that is neither animal nor vegetable.  And so, like fungus, they get their own line.

And that’s what increased yesterday, as 1265 of them were counted, which is why you saw some change in the numbers but not a whole lot.  We learned something about early voters too: they are strongly pro-Hillary.  She got 911 Presidential votes out of those 1265 ballots and Trump got 282.  (Johnson got 23, Stein 23, and LaRiva 4.)  So when people try to get rid of early voting, you know EXACTLY who they are trying to Un-Help!

Here’s the Nov. 9 “Left to Count” posting, identical to the Nov. 8 one.

Total estimated number of ballots to count (after Election Day): 410,480

Total estimated number of ballots counted (after Election Day): 0

Total Estimated Left to Count: 410,480

Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots to count: 95,806

Total vote-by-mail ballots counted: 0

Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots left to count: 95,806

Total estimated number of provisionals to count: 108,000

Total provisionals counted: 0

Total estimated number of provisionals left to count: 108,000

Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots returned at the polls to count: 184,174

Total vote-by-mail ballots returned at the polls counted: 0

Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots returned at the polls left to count: 184,174

Total estimated number of election day paper ballots to count: 22,500

Total election day paper ballots counted: 0

Total estimated number of election day paper ballots left to count: 22,500

Total estimated number of eligible vote-by-mail ballots received after Election Day left to count: 0

Total eligible vote-by-mail ballots counted: 0

Total estimated number of eligible vote-by-mail ballots left to count: 0

So much for the preliminaries — on with the show!

CA-49

This race covers two counties.  In San Diego County, Douglas Applegate leads Darrell Issa by 67,673 to 59,984, a margin of 7,689 votes.  But in ORANGE County, Issa leads Applegate by 33,700 to 22,031, a margin of 11,969 votes — for an overall lead of 4,280 votes.  Democrats should have dropped almost everything else to pour resources — especially human resources — into beating Issa — but we couldn’t because we had a bunch of Santa Ana cronies to promote instead.

[PREVIEW:  Issa in OC, now 34,140.  Doug in OC now 22,333.]

SD-29:

Below after the names you’ll find the total votes; then breakdowns for (respectively) OC, LA, and SB (San Berdoo) counties; and then the % of the vote, as of the 5:00 reports on 11/9:

AD-65:

Sharon has 50.8% — and it’s just going to keep going higher as we go on.  But we’re not calling it yet because we’re not yet calling anything that that’s close and we want to be even-handed.  (But, psssst!, Sharon’s going to win!)

Rancho Santiago CCD Seat 5:

Name, Count, and Percentage:

Very likely Alvarez, unless it’s just Asian or Republican ballots remaining — but still too close to tie a bow around it.

South OC CCS Seat 4:

Damn, that’s close!  We’re not going to touch it anytime soon.

Brea Olinda USD, 3rd Spot:

Hobby and Todd ran on the same slate, so that’s pretty sad for them to now be competing.  But without their being honorable, Kraft probably would have beaten them both for that last spot.

Irvine USD, third spot

This looks likely to go to Carroll, of course — but, again, we’re being cautious.  (PREVIEW:  She has pulled slightly further ahead in Thursday’s report, but I haven’t checked where those ballots came from.)

Santa Ana USD, third spot

Decent day for Cano.  (Preview:  Thursday was worse.)

Buena Park Elementary, Seat 4

No explanation for holding back on this one requred.

Centralia Elementary, Seat 3

This one is on the bubble of being called, but there’s some evidence suggesting a late move towards Trinkle.

Ocean View Elementary, second spot

Late ballots could affect this one — Vern’s article on Westwell got a lot of hits.

Westminster Elementary, second spot

This looks like it’s probably over, but at this point it’s a fight within the Vietnamese community during a contentious year (with Janet Nguyen at odds with Andrew Do), and I won’t even pretend to understand it.

County Supervisor, District 1

Six points is about where I’d usually draw the line here, but I’m leaving this up for a while.  Vietnamese voters make extensive and effective use of VBM ballots, given their very organized political machine.  Latino voters, except when Pulido is involved, are less effectively organized and thus more likely to vote later and, crucially for this race, to use provisional ballots.  I recognize that most other writers think that those factors are all baked in to these results and therefore have already called it; I suspect that they’re right in the result but am not yet confident enough to agree that it’s over.

Anaheim District 1

Hey, I’d love to be able to call District 1 based on these results, but I’m not going to.  It’s way too close — and with late voters being disproportionately Latino it’s possible that they’ll vote for the guy with Sudden Mexican Syndrome over the woman who is far more Latino-identified — except for her name.  This one will stay on the NOT SETTLED list for quite a while.  Sorry, my friends; just keep the faith for now!

Anaheim District 3

This one is not the least bit over, but one thing is crystal clear — if Brandman wins this, it will be because her or his people convinced “ghost candidate” Jennifer Rivera and his Moreno-hating (actually more Moren0-campaign-manager Al Jabbar-hating) friend to get into the race and split the Latino vote.  Otherwise he loses by a mile.  I don’t know who Robert Nelson pulled from more — my guess is that it was slightly more from Moreno — but I do not begrudge his being in the race because he actually ran a race rather than just running to blindside another candidate.  One reason for optimism here is that my guess is that Brandman’s flame burned lower towards the end and Moreno’s stayed constant.  By the way, Disney, this is PART of why you’re a Latino-hobbling company, you and your “less than 40% despite a half-million or whatever behind him” current leader.  We won’t know how this one went until we see provisionals at the end — which will be trench warfare between lawyers and probably will not begin until late next week — to see how many Latino voters Disney’s goons will try to disenfranchise.  (Pissed?  Good!  Let’s all watch Disney closely until the develop a sense of shame!)

Brea Treasurer

Rick Rios shuttered his website, but did not exist the race, after his drunken hit and run half a month before Election Day.  A third of the voters had already sent in VBMs early — and the news took time to spread.  Rios took about a 450-vote lead in VBMs and extended it about 75 in the ballots counted thus far — but late VBMs may be less kind.  Then again, the Spanish-surnamed candidate may do well in provisionals.  If Rios wins, it will be because Brea suffers from poor press coverage:  Can you imagine what would have happened had he been running in Anaheim, Fullerton, Garden Grove, or Irvine?  (TV spots?)

Costa Mesa Council, third spot

As some of you — particularly some of the nastier somes of you who like to keep a close eye on me and never forget anything, although you might mangle it in memory — two years ago I kept expecting and cheerleading for a late charge by Jay Humphrey that never arrived.  So I’m going to avoid doing that this year.  I’ll just say that this one does not appear to be over — and in a year when voters have already lowered the boom on the Righeimer years, it would not be surprising to see Humphrey join the rest of his slate on the dais.

There’s some good reason to think that, at a minimum, Humphrey will outpoll Mensinger.  At the time when “older VBMs were released Tuesday at 8:05 p.m., Mansoor had 5,019 votes (16.5%), Mensinger had 4,783 (15.8%), and Humphrey had 4,612 (15.2%).  By 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, Mansoor had added another 5,197 votes, Mensinger 5,019, and Humphrey 5,139.  But finishing close behind Mansoor won’t get Humphrey onto the dais — though he may be the leading Democratic candidate in 2018, when Righeimer is up and Mensinger might want back on.  [PREVIEW:  Yesterday was slightly kinder to Mansoor than to the two candidates chasing him.]

Fullerton Council, third spot

Given that he, like his wife, is likely to do better in the vote tally as the days wear on, it would be quite surprising if Jesus Silva didn’t take the final spot on the dais.  This would make him the swing vote between the Whitaker+ Sebourn faction and the Fitzgerald + Chafee faction.  He’d be much less tied to Fitzgerald and Chafee than Jan Flory was — although not on the other side either.  Bargaining with everyone but Fitzgerald for an order of Mayoral succession that went Chafee, Sebourn, Whitaker, Silva would be a smart way to start off his career.  And trying to convince Silva to be on their side of various issues, rather than ripping off his face, would be a smart move for the resurgent FFFF, because — let’s remember — Silva did have the guts to endorse Dr. Moreno over Brandman in Anaheim District 3.  It cost him in his own race — but it didn’t cost him enough to lose!  And now the people who shot at him — and, frankly, were probably rooting for Bennett — have to live with having shot at him and missed.

Garden Grove, District 6

Kim Bernice Nguyen is leading this race for two reasons: she was the candidate of the Lou Correa machine (to the extent that Correa has an actual machine) and Claudio Gallegos steered her through the process of pretending to have drawn the maps he created that were selected to be used this year.  This is especially obscene because it was Montoya who had the guts to bring the lawsuit to force districting — but the more obscene the maneuver the better for some OC Democrats’ taste.  Nguyen’s percentage lead since the “older VBMs” report has dropped from 28% to 14-1/2%, but she’s lost fewer than 100 points in her margin.  The reason that this is still not called is the possibility that, in screwy Garden Grove, the late and provision ballots may differ substantially than those counted previously, due to the differences in organization between the Latino and Vietnamese communities.  Certainly one must favor Nguyen, but I’m not quite ready to close the book on this one yet — even though I wouldn’t make book on it.

Laguna Beach Council, second spot

This is just sad.  Verna Rollinger was a great public servant for many years as City Clerk, and she would be a great addition to the City Council.  It’s still possible that she could catch Dicterow, but not all that likely.  [PREVIEW: No new Laguna Beach votes were tallied in Thursday’s release of data.]

Lake Forest Council, second spot

Almost nothing has been counted since the final Election Night Update at 2 a.m. Wednesday morning.  Can Adam Nick overtake Southern California Air Quality Control Board bane Dwight Robinson?  Sure.  Will be?  Keep reading OJB for coverage, because this one’s probably going to the wire!

Los Alamitos Council, second spot

Richard Murphy’s lead over Dean Grose is not insurmountable, but it is delicious!

Newport Beach, District 5

Herdman taking the plurality makes it a lot harder for Glenn to catch up on Lowrey.  But we’ll keep watching.

Placentia Council, third spot

Close race, huh?  Don’t expect it to stay that way.  Rhonda Shader had 300 fewer votes than the two men she’s battling with when the Old VBMs came out, which suggests that among voters who voted later in the process, she has the momentum.  Could be wrong, of course!

San Clemente Council, second spot

Swartz and Bane have both lost steam after the Older VMBs came out.  Baker has been gaining.  [Preview: they added almost the same exact number of votes to their totals on Thursday.]

Seal Beach, District 2

It’s very close, but Winkler was almost 10% ahead when the Older VBMs came out, so Moore clearly has the momentum.

Villa Park Council, BOTH SPOTS

Pitts has made up almost 3% on Rossini since the Older VBMs came out, so I’d expect Pitts to come in first followed by Rossini.  In raw number terms, though, this one is pretty wild.

Yorba Linda Council, third spot

Right now Haney looks likely to beat Young, but not much has been counted since the end of Election Day.

Rossmoor Community Services, third spot

I have a 2000-word essay handicapping the race between Maynard and Kalish for the final spot, but it’s only available off-line for $150.

Midway City Sanitary, second spot

Neugebarger has picked up 3,129 votes since Older VBMs came in.  Nguyen has picked up 2,137.  I tend to like Neugebarger’s chances here.

El Toro Water, third spot

Very little has happened here, which doesn’t help Freshley’s odds of a comeback.  The percentage margin is falling but the raw vote total margin is stable.

Yorba Linda Water, Melton Recall replacement

Not that much of a lead for Nederhood, but so far it looks extremely stable.

MWDOC Division 4

Finnegan has gained 15,060 more votes since Older VBMs ended; Rowe has gained 15,839.  So the trend is going Rowe’s way, but not likely enough so to reverse the result.  We’ll keep watching.

Measure GG

Yes has gained 3,380 votes since Older VBMs came out.  No has gained 3,860.  I don’t think that this is going to pass.  But we’ll keep watching this Garden Grove measure.

Measure OO

San Clemente’s Hotel tax increase was up by 433 votes when Older VBMs came out.  Now it’s up by only 118.  But, it would be surprising if later voters were as likely to get this far down the ballot as earlier ones, so it might still just squeak by.

Friday morning, we’ll get to Thursday’s results!