We’ve been needing an open thread, AND a post-primary piece, so here it is: The biggest winners AND biggest spenders in OC’s and California’s 2026 primaries were two crypto billionaires funneling their money as “Grow California”, allied with “California Leads,” a front for Meta and Google.
As Politico reports, these tech interests spent RECORD MILLIONS on downballot Cali legislative races, and won themselves 11 races out of 12. Here in the OC, they’ve saddled our most Democratic region with their trustworthy “moderates” while crushing two progressives (yes, Ada was at least progressive.) What could big tech / A.I. be expecting from this great expenditure & victory? We can only imagine.
David & Mark, ready to go to work for their new bosses Chris Larsen & Tim Draper!
All the great grassroots enthusiasm behind Jessie Lopez was no match for the $4 million in vicious attack ads from these two tech PACs (along with other greedy destructive interests) and David P sprinted past Jessie (accompanied by Republican Mayra who’ll go on to lose this heavily Dem district, but at least kept Jessie out.) As we warned, David is bad on nearly every major issue, out of step with regular folks on nearly everything he’ll be voting on, but we kept running into voters who’d say “Wasn’t there something dirty about Jessie Lopez? I don’t remember what it was.”
So the people lost what would have been a champion of rent control, universal healthcare, police accountability, and the environment; and instead got a servant of Big Tech, Big Oil, corporate landlords, and the charter school industry. The saddest part, maybe, was that the Democratic Party of OC and California was ten toes down on the wrong side. The big money side. I guess that’s what we can expect for now, the Party versus the People.
It was a little more complicated in AD 67, but for every TV ad we saw trashing Jessie, there were just as many pro-Pulido ads trashing Ada Briceno put out by the exact same special interests (mainly Big Tech.) That they trashed Ada as ruthlessly as Jessie almost made you want to back Ada, despite all the things she did as DPOC chief. But now that district is stuck with a truly dismal choice between Big Tech Pulido and the even worse Republican Paulo Morales. Sucks to be us.
Two Rare Rays of Light
Somehow through this unprecedented rampage of Big Money, a couple of honest progressives managed to squeeze through: Supervisor Vince Sarmiento (re-elected at a whopping 63%), and Jane Kim for Insurance Commissioner. Did they do something especially smart, or did the special interests just neglect to crush them? Well, for now, let’s just congratulate Vince and Jane, rare rays of light in this dismal primary!
Is anything really gonna change in the coming weeks?
Sometimes it seems we’re just kept in suspense, in distended hope, for no reason, by folks who find that in their interest. I highly doubt at this point:
- That Steyer will make it into second place so we can have a D-on-D gubernatorial election. That’d mean him picking up 6 points. All my Becerra-loving friends should be happy. The guy who “put in his time” and “whose turn it is” will be sitting in the Governor’s mansion for the next eight years. I just hope he distinguishes himself somehow, and stands up to special interest when he should.
- That Ada can still make up 5 points and take Pulido’s place against Morales. That Katrina can pick up 4.4 points to avoid a runoff with the useless Diane Dixon. That our preferred equalizer Cody Petterson can make up 3 points to get back in that race. That Karen Bass’ progressive challenger for LA Mayor can pick up 6 points to knock the MAGA clown Spencer Pratt out of that race. All of that seems very unlikely but I would love to be wrong.
Looks like we’re left with two rotten candidates for Lt. Governor – crooked Democrat Fiona Ma and former Dem / charter school zealot Gloria Romero. I hate to see either of those ladies get that nice foot-in-the-door post, good thing Lt Gov doesn’t really do much. (Greg thinks Fiona’s triumph is my fault for not re-posting all our old negative material about her, especially her being Gerry Serrano’s pension-padding tool. Like that woulda made a difference.)
Down in barbarian land, Chris Kluwe remains our progressive hope for November. And I’m not feeling too inspired to write right now, but we do need an open thread. I gotta get back out there and get more signatures for rent control in Anaheim, we’ve got till the end of July…
There is some chatter in Irvine amongst a faction of DGI members supporting Katie Porker for a mayoral run in Irvine.
She got less votes in the county than foreign agent Farrah did when she lost to Wagner for the D3 supe seat. Will someone put her back in the barn already.
Huh. She might be an okay Irvine mayor I guess. I bet she’s too vain to take on something that modest though.
And on second thought a Mayor should have better interpersonal skills.