As we continue to assess the lay of the land of Republican primaries in “safe” GOP or competitive seats, today we turn our virtual magnifying glass on the 68th Assembly District. This district is located in the center-west of Orange County. (See the map here.) It includes all or part of the following cities: Stanton, Garden Grove, Westminster, Fountain Valley, and Costa Mesa. The seat is currently held by my friend going back to college days, Republican Assemblyman Van Tran. Tran is departing the Assembly after his third allowable term, and is running hard for Congress, where he is challenging incumbent Democrat Loretta Sanchez.
By the numbers, the seat has been considered safe Republican. There are 90,496 GOP voters (41%), 72,992 Democrat voters (33%), and 47,166 Decline to State and other voters (26%). In the Democrat tidal wave of 2008, Tran beat his Democrat opponent by 10,000 votes — 71,943 to 61,095. There is a Republican registration program currently working in the district which should bolster these numbers.
Unlike many of the districts that we will review in the coming weeks, the 68th has one candidate 
who, at least up to this point, has really dominated the Republican field, drawing thus far only token opposition. Conservative Allan Mansoor (pictured right) is the strong front runner for the GOP nomination. Mansoor by profession is an Orange County Deputy Sheriff. He also is the very popular Mayor of Costa Mesa. Mansoor has gathered up quite a broad list of endorsements from the political, activist and donor communities. In this district, besides Tran who has not endorsed, the most significant endorsements to get, which Mansoor has done, are those of Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and State Senator Tom Harman. Iconic Republican donor George Argyros, whose vast business empire is headquartered in Costa Mesa, has endorsed Mansoor.
On the ideological spectrum, you’d certainly have to place Mayor Mansoor comfortably on the most conservative end. Strongly pro-life and pro-family, one of Mansoor’s major endorsements has come from the vaunted Family Action PAC, which was founded as an ideologically conservative counterpoint to New Majority.
Two major issues have propelled Mansoor to the spotlight in California politics – fighting illegal immigration and the pervasive influence of public employee unions. On the former issue, Mansoor championed a city-level policy requiring police to screen all those admitted to city jail for their residency status. On the latter, Mansoor has long been an activist and a leader on the issue of “paycheck protection” (he is helping to champion a new paycheck protection measure that is aiming for the November 2010 ballot). The concept of paycheck protection is that a union member’s dues should not be used for political purposes without the express consent of the union member. In 2005, Mansoor not only signed the ballot argument for that year’s paycheck protection measure (one of the four unsuccessful ballot initiatives championed that year by Governor Schwarzenegger) but he also was featured in television commercials.
Which brings us to the question of whether the state’s public employee unions will “let” Mansoor stroll into the California State Legislature. Mansoor, from their perspective, is a marked man. Not only is he a leader on defunding the organized political efforts of the unions – but Mansoor himself, as a Deputy Sheriff, is himself a public employee!
In a district as conservative as the 68th it would be difficult for the unions to field a “pro-labor” Republican. That said, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them try to fund an effort to elect a primary opponent to Mansoor just to keep him out of Sacramento. Their problem is that there isn’t another candidate (of any significant) running against Mansoor – and by my judgment Mansoor has crossed a threshold of support where it is very unlikely that a credible primary challenger will surface (though as we say in this business, nothing is impossible). Especially since Mansoor is doing a very capable job of raising funds. On his last disclosure (now going back a few months), Mansoor had raised $153k – a testament to a hard-working candidate and a strong effort by his fundraising consultant Beth Holder of AimPoint.
Even though this has been a Republican seat, it will be interesting to see if the unions try to pile on Mansoor in the general election. You can be 100% certain that they will survey this district to see if there is any chance of an upset – they will not be anxious to have Mansoor in Sacramento.
At times, because this district is currently represented by a Vietnamese American, it’s easy to think of this as a ‘Vietnamese seat’. This isn’t exactly true. It is correct that Little Saigon is
centered in the 68th. In a GOP primary, according to my data elves, about 15% of the likely voters will turn out to be Vietnamese. Would this 15% vote as a bloc? They have a history of doing so, for a Vietnamese candidate, and while this is certainly helpful to a Vietnamese candidate it’s not entirely a game changer, particularly for a candidate like Mansoor who has notable Vietnamese supporters. Mansoor’s nominal primary opponent is Vietnamese – Long Pham, a recently elected member of the Orange County Board of Education, and a nuclear engineer by profession. Pham has raised no funds to speak of, to date.
Mansoor’s consultants in this race are Duane Duchiara and Jason Roe of Revolvis. Duchiara was the strategist of State Senator Tom Harman’s narrow but high-profile special election win over Diane Harkey. I asked Duane for an insightful comment about his candidate in this race, to which he said, "Mayor Mansoor is a strong campaigner, with deep roots in the community. When he isn’t working, he’s walking door to door. That’s the kind of determination that will keep this seat Republican in November.
There are still months between now and the close of filing, but unless something drastic changes on the political landscape for AD 68 – we’ll all be calling Allen Mansoor an Assemblyman next December.
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