MIMI WALTERS FORMALLY ANNOUNCES; RELEASES SLEW OF ENDORSEMENTS

After the surprise announcement last Thursday by Congressman John Campbell that he would not be seeking re-election in the heavily GOP 45th Congressional District, in the heart of Orange County, I quickly pulled together an early analysis on the political landscape in that seat which I published on Friday.  In it I shared that State Senator Mimi Walters had told me that she was “all in” in a campaign to succeed Campbell.  Well I have been keeping in touch with the Senator and her campaign team over the past few days.  Today she makes her entry into the Congressional campaign official, with a column published on the FlashReport on why she is running for Congress.  Walters shared with me a slew of her key Orange County endorsements to date including Congressmen Ed Royce and Darrell Issa, D.A. Tony Rackauckas, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, Supervisors Pat Bates, Shawn Nelson and Janet Nguyen, Senate GOP Leader Bob Huff, Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, and some local city council members – Christina Shea from Irvine, Robert Ming and Linda Lindholm of Laguna Niguel, and Frank Ury of Mission Viejo.  Very strong out the gate for Senator Walters…

SUPERVISOR JOHN MOORLACH LAUNCHES BID FOR CONGRESS

In what might be best describes as an “exploratory effort” at this stage, conservative Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach called me late yesterday to share with me that after discussing it with his family he has decided to explore a run for the 45th Congressional District seat.  Specifically Moorlach said that he would be spending the next month out meeting with folks and working to raise funds, with a goal of trying to put over $100,000 into an account.  If he can do this, Moorlach says he’s all in.  Moorlach.  Moorlach’s decision to seek the House seat seems to have ended speculation about what the termed out Supervisor would do at this point — he’d been actively looking at either a run for County Auditor-Controller, or a run for State Assembly (if Assemblyman Allan Mansoor pulls the trigger and announces a bid for Supervisor).

ONCE IN A GENERATION
As I have said on many of occasions, Congressional seats come open just once in a generation, and so I expect many more names to surface for the 45th District.  Given that filing for the office doesn’t take place until next year, this will be a long campaign for everyone involved.  It also means that we won’t really know the full field for many months to come.  I have heard from several other potential candidates who are looking at a run.  And of course prominent area politicians, such as Supervisor Todd Spitzer and Irvine Mayor Steven Choi, have not ruled out running for the seat…

NEW POLLING RESULTS
Finally, respected political pollster and strategist John Lewis, who along with Matt Holder, run the Lewis Consulting Group, have given me permission to release the results of a quick survey they did over the weekend in CD 45, testing some of the potential candidates for for name ID as well as in some head-to-head ballot match ups.

The big takeaway from the polling data is that most voters do not know or do not have an opinion about the key candidates tested at this early stage.  Tested in the survey are Walters, Supervisor Todd Spitzer, Assemblyman Don Wagner, County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh, as well as a slew of Democrats.  Oh, and in case you wondered how fertile this district is for Republicans, 62% of voters disapprove of the job being done by President Obama.

You can read more about the survey here (and see the frequencies and cross-tabs, for you polling wonks).  It is worth noting that Supervisor Moorlach was NOT tested in this particular survey.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013 at 7:53 am and is filed under Blog Posts.