I don’t know about you, but I could use a break from looking at the OC political results, don’t you? So we’re instead going to look at some other political results in our state — ones we haven’t reported on. (But yeah, some of them will still be about OC in part, because that’s just how we are.)
U.S. House Control Hinges on California — Maybe OC!
According to the New York Times, 23 U.S. House seats remain to be called. Of those 23, 13 are from California. Of those 13, 3 — Porter’s, Steel’s, and Levin’s — are in OC, more than any other county.
Our Big Sister County
- You may have heard that Los Angeles’s Sheriff Alex Villanueva is currently having his ass kicked by former Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna, currently 58.4% to 41.6%. We don’t have a fresh take on that here; we just like looking at that result. Los Angeles has had a terrible run of Sheriffs for a while, and we hope that Luna will break that cycle.
- You’ve probably also heard that Karen Bass has come roaring back out of a deficit and now leads developer Rick Caruso by about 4,400 votes, with 50.38% to his 100%-50.38%. (See how easy two-person races are?) This is a sliver out of the more than 575,000 votes already counted, but there does seem to be a blue-shift going in, despite the supposed aversion of conservatives to casting mail-in ballots (which doesn’t seem to work in California). Bass is among the best Democrats we have — and Caruso would fit right in in Orange County Democratic circles.
- And here’s something to know: remember Josh Lowenthal, who ran for Assembly a OC’s upper coastal district? You know, the son of former Rep. Al Lowenthal? Well, he’s beating his opponent, from the Long Beach City Council, by about 20%. If you worked on his campaign in the past, now’s a great time to say hi!
- In AD-67 — get used to that number, because it’s Sharon Quirk-Silva’s new district and it’s looking more and more like she’ll be representing it — she’s beating her opponent Soo Yoo in her own territory by 5-1/2 points, or about 750 votes. For a while, Sharon was losing in her home county are well, but how she’s up here by 1,100 votes, or 1,8%. So that’s a nice almost 1900-vote lead so far. We’re not calling it, by we’re winking and nodding.
- In LA, Jay Chen is beating Michelle Steel by 10%, a bit over 1,400 votes. So he doesn’t have to get all the way to even here!
- This measure is passing by a 2:1 vote:
LOS ANGELES CITY GENERAL MUNICIPAL ELECTION – MEASURE LH: AUTHORIZATION FOR ADDITIONAL LOW-INCOME HOUSING. PROPOSITION LH. Shall a measure authorizing public entities in the City of Los Angeles to develop, construct, or acquire up to 5,000 additional units of low-income rental housing in each Council District to address homelessness and affordable housing needs, subject to availability of funding and City development requirements, be adopted?
A set amount of new low-income housing per council district could make sense here too, right?
- Know who’s getting the lowest percentage of the vote of any Democrat in a predominantly LA-based district? Lisa Calderon. One one mostly LA-based Assembly other district is lower, but there a Republican is winning.
Statewide Races
- Of the nine races are currently listed as “Close Contests” (within a 2% margin) on the Secretary of State’s site, two — Katie Porter’s and Sharon Quirk-Silva’s — are based in Orange County. Jay Chen is about 3% away from becoming the third.
- Democrats lead all of the statewide races: Gov. Newsom with 58.0%; Lt. Gov. Kounalakis with 58.3%; Sec. State Weber with 58.6%; for Controller, Cohen with 54.0% against Lanhee Chen; for Treasurer, Fiona Ma with 57.6%; Atty Genl. Bonta with 57.7%; Insurance Commr. Lara with 58.4%, Supt. of Public Instruction Thurmond with 63.0%; and Sen. Alex Padilla with 59/5%. We can conclude that if anyone should be running for President in 2024 out of this group, it should be Tony Thurmond!
We may add to this list of non-OC stories, and maybe offer some updates, over the courts of the upcoming week.
This … is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about that, or whatever else you’d like, within reasonable bounds of decorum, decency, and discretion.
As you say, if Democrats somehow manage to keep a majority, it’ll mostly come down to California. And one race just outside of OC I’ve been paying a lot of attention to is the Riverside County race between corrupt Ken Calvert, who’s been in Congress THIRTY YEARS, and Will Rollins. Rollins was actually ahead a couple days ago, now Calvert is ahead 50.6%, or 65, 105 votes, to Rollins’ 49.4% or 63, 507 votes. And last I checked most ballots are still outstanding.
#1, we need to keep the House. #2, Calvert really sucks by any measure. I’m painfully aware of him because I tried to help Bill Hedrick beat him back in 2010 (reminiscent of when I tried to help Debbie Cook beat Dana Rohrabacher back in 2008 but it took another decade.) I’m painfully aware of him because his district used to include our Far South County (SJC, SC, DP)
I even went with my pal Aria Ghafari to a July 2010 Tea Party because he was gonna speak there (and also to see what a Tea Party was like.) Here’s the story I wrote after Calvert finally showed up late, it’s pretty funny:
https://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2010/07/calvert-in-extremis-the-king-of-pork-goes-a-teabagging/
Included in that story is a link to a video made by FOX NEWS! exposing Calvert’s abuse of earmarks. I thought that video would help us more than it did…
So, I’ll be watching this one closely.
PS Democrats have been picking up House seats unexpectedly, and we only need two more to keep our House majority. And Kornacke mentioned the above, Calvert-Rollins, as one of the more conceivable victories, along with another close California race, Valadao vs. Salas.
Sorry, Chief, but that ain’t even remotely true.
The New York Times (and I do realize that most people can’t get past the paywall) has called 211 races for Republicans and 204 for Democrats. Looking at some that they haven’t called, it seems fair to say that we have seven pretty much in the bag: Peltola of Alaska; Harder of CA-9 (+13, but only 47% counted); Bera (CA-6, +12 but only 52% counted); Costa of CA 21 (+9, with 75% counted); our Mike Levin (+5, 71%); our Katie Porter (+3, 72%, but trending very favorably); and Golden in Maine-2 (+3 but 95% counted.)
That would put us at 211 apiece, with each side needing to win 7 of the 13 remaining races for control.
Three Dems have leads between 0.7% and 1.8%; those all seem likely due to the “blue shift” of, mostly, procrastinators.
Three Pubs (including Boebert) have leads of under 0.5%; they also seem likely for the same reason.
The problem is: where does that 7th win come from?
Jay Chen probably isn’t going to make it up at the rate he’s going — but there is another consideration I’ll be writing about next week that makes it wise for the NYT not to have called his race.
In CA-3, Kevin Kiley only leads Kermit Jones by 6 with 53% counted, so that’s possible.
In CA-22, David Valadeo only leads Rudy Salas by 5% with 53% counted; same but more so, as you noted.
But the two most likely decisive Dem wins now have Republicans ahead by about 1.5%. One of them, in NY, has a 1.6% lead with over 95% of the vote counted, so we can probably discount that. (I don’t know why the NYT hasn’t.)
And the other one is, indeed, Ken Calvert, who leads Will Rollins by 1.4% with only 67% counted. I’d love for it to be Jay as the decisive House-clinching victory, but Rollins seems more likely.
(Oh, and however many Dems we elect, we have to make sure that they all live until the new Speaker of the House is chosen. Sorry to end on a down note, but what is, is.)