While the rest of the nation, indeed some of the rest of California, experienced something near a Revolution yesterday, in Orange County it was business as usual, with well-funded, lying, debate-avoiding incumbent Democrats beating progressive populist Democrats, and Republicans stanching the Blue Tide in many of their usual redoubts.

One thing we’ve observed lately, nationally (and sometimes even here recently) is that massive campaign spending and advertisement doesn’t always seem to convince voters, in fact it sometimes turns them off – look at the half a billion Musk just wasted in Texas! But here in the OC, ESPECIALLY in Anaheim, big money is still decisive.

BUT. I’d like to start off with some RAYS OF LIGHT!

The Best News!

SANTA ANA kept, and GREW, its progressive majority, with the victories of Isuri Ramos & Sandra De Anda over putzy business Dems Gio Chavez and (incumbent) Phil Bacerra! Now (counting Thai Viet Phan as a half-progressive) Council has gone from 3½ progressives out of 7 to 5½ out of 7! They’re gonna drive Mayor Valerie crazy. (Speaking of Mayor… I don’t think Shimell will be catching up with Valerie but he’s moving in the right direction, and if that continues, I’ll add him to the “Too close” list. Actually he was 13% behind Tuesday and now 5% behind Wednesday…)

(Good old Ben won re-election too!)

JANE KIM, the only progressive on the statewide ballot, the only D-on-D statewide race, has won and will be fundamentally reforming our state’s insurance industry. Yeah, I know that’s statewide, and I know that she lost Orange County to the big money guy, but her peeps did text me last night that our Anaheim Democrats fundraiser in Little Arabia really did help them, so I will take this as an OC victory!

How bad could it be when these fine folks won:

• Hieu Nguyen beat Joe Dovinh in Garden Grove
• The brilliant David Johnson is now a Westminster Councilman
• Ben Davis brought Huntington Beach from zero good Councilmembers to ONE. (Update Wed – Ben was 4th out of top 4, but uh-oh, some fellow called Brian Thienes is catching up with him… maybe there’ll be NOTHING good in HB)
• Brandy Romero took Orange District 1 by storm!
• These endangered school boards kept their sane majorities: Orange USD, Newport-Mesa USD, PYLUSD (although Buckley didn’t win.) CAPO made little progress.

Hieu and Brandy bringing the cute. To Council.

Speaking of Orange, I think their voters did the right thing rejecting the shitty charter their Council gave them, but approving the two revenue measures – I hope the new Council will be more responsible than most past Orange Councils – Slater, remember what you once stood for! (Arianna didn’t make it.)

And Irvine approved Ranked-Choice Voting! Combine that with the last-place showing of Sukhee Kang, and it was a bad day for Dan Chmielewski, Patrick Shrader & Larry Agran!

The Worst News!

Last night Chris Kluwe was AHEAD of Gracey Van Der Mark – now THAT was exciting, worth a celebration itself! Apparently the days of late-coming votes being Democrat or progressive are over, it’s not that predictable any more. And Gracey rallied and is now ahead of Chris by 1.6%. Damn, that will be embarrassing if coastal OC sends Gracey to the assembly. Not sure this is reversible but we will keep checking!

And the OTHER progressive Democrat assembly candidate, Jessie Lopez, is even farther back, in another apparent victory for Big Money and Lies – when all is said and done it’ll be at least 10 million Big Tech, Krypto & Big Oil spent to get David Penaloza in and smash the dangerous Jessie. Or am I mourning prematurely? Some tell me I am. Tuesday night Jessie was at 46.3%, 7.4% behind David – now on Wednesday night she’s gained 1.7%, and is at 48% – 4% behind David. That’s a pretty good leap, can it continue? Jessie has always been the Comeback Kid, it’s true. Oh me of little faith! I may switch this over tomorrow to the “Still Really Close” category.

Anaheim – Elia, Germaine & Roberto. Three races in Anaheim – council and school districts – that a lot of us were REALLY excited about, really believed in, put in hours & days & months of time on… but the big money and incumbency crushed us. Last I hear, between the police union and hotels, (didn’t write it down but) hundreds of thousands were spent to help Natalie and crush Elia. And the best candidates did NOT win for Anaheim Union High School District.

Mission Viejo lost their only decent Councilmember, Cynthia Vasquez. And her running mate Lacko didn’t make it either. Stanton’s Donald Torres went down to defeat.. (although in that case, HIS chosen running mate Marlon-Ray DID triumph.)

San Clemente made an all-weenie sweep, with Knoblock, Enmeir and Camp. And condolences to Rancho Santa Margarita which is once again all Beall Puppets.

Very sad to see Thu-Ha WAY behind Klopfenstein for Garden Grove Mayor.

And the CAPO School District still sucks MAGA-Charter-Culture Wars.

Still Really Close – keep checking back!

Supervisor – Katrina has won re-election, but in District 4 Tim Shaw is still slightly ahead of Connor Traut! (By 721 votes.) I don’t love either of them as Supervisor, but I did want to see the Democrats FINALLY have a majority on that Board. Let’s see if the wunderkind catches up. UPDATE Wed. Now wunderkind is ahead by 176. So maybe Connor and the Dems have it.

State Senate 36, the coastal district. Democrat Chris Duncan is ahead of sleazy MAGA Republican incumbent Tony Strickland by only 0.4%. Actually he’s losing in the OC, and having his bacon saved by the LA portion of the district – Artesia, Cerritos & Hawaiian Gardens where folks are less retarded. Let’s see if that holds, if these fine LA towns can keep this district sane. UPDATE Wed. Duncan has grown his lead a FRACTION – but in the right direction.

Aliso Viejo. We had two great Democrat candidates ready to try to take the Council back from a real gang of corrupt MAGAts. Steve Van Der Porten didn’t make it against malignant incumbent Max Duncan. But the other challenger, Marie Tsaasan, is pretty damn close – just TEN votes behind Republican follower Garrett Dwyer! Let’s keep our fingers crossed. What would Trump say? “I need you to find me … ELEVEN VOTES. That’s ALL we need.” UPDATE Wed – 14 Marie votes were found – now she’s ahead by 4!

How about that plucky Democrat challenger Paula Swift, in the 70th assembly district? On election night she was up above her assembly opponent, Republican incumbent (and communist) Tri Ta – Paula was at 50.03. Then later she sank down to 49%. NOW, on Wednesday night, she’s gone back up to 49.5%. She could make it? It used to be predictable that Democrats’ and/or the more progressive candidate’s voters would pour in late, but nothing is predictable any more! WILL KEEP CHECKING.

For Westminster Mayor we’ve really been rooting for Carlos Manzo, since we heard him on Joese’s show. Election night he was in second place, 3.5% behind Charlie Chi Ding Dong; now on Wednesday he’s slowly creeping up – to just half a percent behind, 111 votes behind. Carlos could pull this off! Here’s hoping…

On the Rancho Santiago CCD we would like to see our friend Beatriz Mendoza beat the MAGA Daisy Tong. But Beatriz is behind – Tuesday at 45.5%. But Beatriz is gaining – Wednesday she is at 47.7%. We’ll keep a close watch.

In Irvine it’s a big deal if Watchdog Democrat Melinda Liu beats MAGA Agran ally John Park. She was ahead of him Tuesday 40% to 37.5%. Wednesday she is a little behind, 38.55% to 39.5%. We are seeing things go up and down spastically. So maybe Melissa will win!

For Tustin Mayor, Democrat Letitia Clark was winning on Election Day, at 50.3%., against Republi-tard Austin Lumbard. She fell behind Wednesday, to 49.3%. Maybe Letitia can bounce back up. She seems like someone who could do that! Ok, that’s all for now.