With Democrat 1^St District OC Supervisor (former Assemblyman) Lou Correa running for the 34^th Senate District, it is worth speculating on who would run for his supervisorial seat if Correa won.  

Republicans failed to rally around one good candidate for the senate seat.  Electoral favorite Assemblyman Van Tran decided to seek re-election so Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher is left to face off with conservative anti-illegal alien activist Lupe Moreno.

Correa is mid-term running safe, so there would be no race for supervisor unless Correa won the Primary (vs. Assemblyman Tom Umberg) and then beat the Republican in a district that gives a less than 2% registration advantage to Democrats today—and will be even or GOP plurality by November.

If Correa was to win the Senate seat, there would be an automatic Special Election for his seat.  We owe that to Measure V a countywide ballot initiative authored by lobbyist Steve Sheldon, put on the ballot by now-Assemblyman Todd Spitzer and campaign managed by yours truly.  This troika masterminded the measure to make sure when Spitzer left the Board his seat would not be appointed by the then-Gov. Davis but rather go to the voters.

Now to the contenders for supervisor.  Correa won over now-former Garden Grove Mayor Bruce Broadwater a Democrat, who is more conservative than Correa.  Broadwater is now out of office but could still rally some support.  In the same race before the run-off was now-out of office Santa Ana Councilman Brett Franklin and Councilman Kermit Marsh of Westminster, both good guys, neither was able to pull enough nickels out of the donor jug to make a real campaign.  But either could make another try.

It is important to note that the First Supervisorial District was drawn to be a Democrat in the last redistricting, but under the leadership of OC GOP chairman Scott Baugh that has CHANGED.  The seat is now 39% Rep. v. 38% Dem. and signs continue to trend toward more GOP registration there.  This 1^st Sup. seat represents a huge opportunity for conservatives who have been frustrated by the current board of supervisors votes for big union pensions.

Santa Ana Councilman and rising GOP star Carlos Bustamante is on the short list of possible sup. candidates as is termed-out Garden Grove Councilman Mark Leyes.  Assemblyman Van Tran would be a favorite for the seat if he ran.

All this speculation is moot if Correa loses.  But only until 2008 when Correa is up for re-election.  Since his Democrat base will have been seriously eroded from under him, he would likely face a Republican challenge.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 6th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.