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Orange Juice Blog hereby dubs any recount between South County El Pollo Loco baron Sidhu and the Irvine Mayor in AD-68 as: “Buh-BAWK CHOI”!
The chatter of the evening — after the new returns (with more than a third of the initially outstanding ballots counted) came in — is that, in CA-46, Bao Nguyen has passed ahead of Bob Peterson in the race for a spot in the runoff against Lou Correa, who will be the favorite in the race, but perhaps not the entirely prohibitive favorite against Bao. This was predicted here last week when Friday’s results came out; I just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly or so strongly. (Then again, I didn’t expect the Registrar of Voters’ office to count 59,000 ballots by today. What is Neal Kelley feeding the people there, Adderall soup?)
But the more significant development may have occurred in AD-68, where Irvine Mayor Steven Choi has just burst past Anaheim Hills former Councilman Harry Sidhu by a margin of … 32 votes. (I love it! Recount territory! Gather the forces!) Whichever prevails will probably be the favorite in the race against largely unknown Democrat Sean Panahi. (Choi would, anyway. I’ve spent the weekend trying to convince myself that Panahi could beat Sidhu; Choi would be a more difficult opponent.)
Meanwhile, an arguably even more significant development is taking place in the OC Board of Education Area 1 race –as it determines who will control the majority of a board rather that likely languishing in the minority of a legislature. Robert Hammond had been leading Beckie Gomez by 1,864 votes, or 3%, at the end of the day Friday. At the end of Monday’s count, Hammond is up by only 461 votes, or 0.7%. That’s 1,400 votes lost in one day. If that trend keeps up, Hammond will have fallen behind Gomez by lunchtime Tuesday!
Up here in the tri-county districts of the frozen north, Philip Chen is now just 700 votes ahead of Mike Spence in race to take on Gregg Fritchle in AD-55, while in SD-29 Josh Newman maintains a lead of 3,750 votes over Sukhee Kang in the race to face off against Ling-Ling Chang.
And, in the 1st Supes District, Michele Martinez joins Sharon Quirk-Silva and Karina Onofre as Latinas who weren’t expected to lead their non-Latino opponents in their primaries, but at this moment do. You get the feeling that maybe Latinos are voting heavily this year?
Then again, as we look at trends, 70% of the remaining ballots to count are provisionals — and we have very little idea what will happen with them this year. About 1/8 of the outstanding vote each is paper ballot and timely postmarked late arriving absentees, and just under 5% were absentees turned in at the polls.
Statewide, Hillary Clinton still leads Bernie Sanders by 12% — it’s only 8% in OC. For U.S. Senate, Kamala Harris still leads Loretta Sanchez by more than double statewide., 40.5% to 18.3%. In her home base of OC, Loretta leads by about 4,000 votes, or 0.7%.
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Finally, here’s Today’s Episode of WHAT’S LEFT TO COUNT?
Total Ballots Left to Count
Total estimated number of ballots to count (after Election Day): 219,075
Total estimated number of ballots counted (after Election Day): 131,639
Total Estimated Left to Count: 87,436
Vote-by-Mail Ballots Left to Count
Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots to count: 58,000
Total vote-by-mail ballots counted: 58,000
Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots left to count: 0
Provisionals Left to Count
Total estimated number of provisionals to count: 61,370
Total provisionals counted: 0
Total estimated number of provisionals left to count: 61,370
Vote-by-Mail Ballots Returned at the Polls Left to Count
Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots returned at the polls to count: 74,677
Total vote-by-mail ballots returned at the polls counted: 70,639
Total estimated number of vote-by-mail ballots returned at the polls left to count: 4,038
Election Day Paper Ballots Left to Count
Total estimated number of election day paper ballots to count: 11,200
Total election day paper ballots counted: 0
Total estimated number of election day paper ballots left to count: 11,200
Eligible Vote-by-Mail Ballots received after Election Day Left to Count
Total estimated number of eligible vote-by-mail ballots received after Election Day left to count: 13,828
Total eligible vote-by-mail ballots counted: 3,000
Total estimated number of eligible vote-by-mail ballots left to count: 10,828
*Whoa…still time for Joe Dunn. Lots of votes to count yet.
Bao +700