Orange County had no Congressional contests…

Orange County State Senate races included just one to speak of…the 34th Dem Primary with Assemblyman Tom Umberg v. County Supervisor Lou Correa. Correa won with an 18% margin. Correa owes a big thank you to Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata. This means Republicans get another shot at taking back Correa’s sup seat sometime next year in a Special Election. Correa will face off against Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher who won the GOP nomination.

Orange County State Assembly races included GOP Primaries in the 72nd (Duvall a GBWA client trounced Siminoff a Nygren client). In the 67th (Silva a GBWA client beat McGill and Harman a Coronado Communications client).

In the 69th Dem Primary (Solorio won with a HUGE margin over Alvarez).

OC Treasurer John Moorlach won a seat on the county board of supervisors. Former Assemblywoman Pat Bates fought off a over 2.5 MILLION dollars to be the top vote getter over her very wealthy self-funded opponent.

Sheriff Mike Carona pulled off a 50.9% victory over three rivals. This is an impressive win for the consulting team of Sen. John Lewis… Read More

Updated: 7:00 p.m.

Tuesday’selection in San Bernardino County was characterized by a staggeringly low voter turnout, despite the dogged efforts of many campaigns to stir voters’ interest. Countywide, voter turnout was abysmal at 21.97%. Democratic turnout narrowly exceeded that of Republicans because of several competitive legislative and statewide primaries.

The highest profile candidate in the county, Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmus, is running for the countywide office of Assessor. While he made a strong showing with 46.2 percent of the vote, he wasn’t able to avoid a runoff against 12-year incumbent Donald Williamson, who received 33.68 percent of the vote. The main factor forcing a runoff was the presence of two additional candidates on the ballot. Two appraisers from the Assessor’s office filed papers to run after the incumbent had announced his retirement. But when Williamson filed for re-election at the last minute, it was too late for his two subordinates to get out of the race. The result: Williamson’s underlings pulled almost 20 percent of the vote, making a… Read More

This morning, Steve Schmidt, the Governor’s Campaign Manager, released the following exlusive statement to the FlashReport in response to yesterday’s election results:

Today, Governor Schwarzenegger will kick off the general election campaign by traveling through California and talking to voters about his vision for moving California forward. The Governor’s optimistic, hopeful campaign stands in stark contrast to Phil Angelides’ Democratic primary campaign of anger, negativity and policies that would set California back. Now is the time when California voters will begin to see even more sharply the clear choice they will have in November. It will be a choice between the pessimism and typical politics of Phil Angelides, and the bold leadership of Governor Schwarzenegger. … Read More

Oakland voters go to the polls today to choose their new mayor. I’m betting that it will be a run-off between City Council President Ignacio DeLaFuente and former Congressman Ron Dellums. I’d love to see DeLaFuente get enough votes to prevent a run off, but I’m guessing that there are enough wackos in my city to help Dellums make it into a November run off.

In the last days of the campaign, I received several phone calls in support of DeLaFuente, including one from the current mayor, Jerry Brown. But the most fascinating political marketing call I received was this message left on my phone over the weekend. It was a woman’s voice reading the following script:

“Ron Dellums left office 8 years ago to become a… Read More

There are loads of hot races here in Orange County, and with our 21st Century Registrar of Voters doing his utmost to feed our appetite for results it shouldn’t be too late an election night (barring another Diane Harkey/Tom Harman-esque squeaker).

I’m running the traditional predictions contest on OC Blog, but I’ll post my own prognostications on the competitive races here:

2nd Supervisor District: OC Treasurer John Moorlach trounces government union proxy Dave Shawver by 20 points.

5th Supervisor District: Pat Bates edges Cassie DeYoung out for first place (both in the low 40s), but it goes to a November run-off.

67th… Read More

Deal or No Deal?… I said I would get some flak for blogging the Horn-Thompson Supe Survey a few days ago. John Nienstedt, of the very credible (unlike, perhaps, the anon numbers I posted) Competitive Edge Research & Communication, sends alongthis appropo missive:

Barry, Barry, Barry: Yeah I’ll give you some flak. Last I checkedThompson’s employment designation isn’t "businessman," its "regionalbusiness administrator." Why does that matter? Because no self-respectingpollster (or pollster who deserves respect) would screw that up.

So bear with me now: backing the unsures out of Q3, this poll is sayingthat Thompson should win with 65% of the vote. Now, the margin of samplingerror on that question for a sample size of 377 (taking into account thatwe’re backing out the unsures) is plus or minus 4.8%. That means that, if Thompson gets less than 60% of the… Read More

Today is election day! Have you remembered to vote? I’m going to go vote right after I finish up this commentary.

There is a practice within the main stream media to pretty much stop election coverage in the final couple of days before the election, with some notable exceptions. I think that the idea behind this is that at a certain point, it becomes too late for anyone to contest or disagree with the analysis of a newspaper or a TV station, and that it may just seem a bit unfair to weigh into races in the final days/hours. That said, there are a few stories on the main page worth a read, on individual races. Today we have featured a column from Sacramento Bee ace columnist Dan Weintraub, who pens a piece on what the various ‘hot spots’ are around the state, providing a ‘guide’ to follow election day results. Definitely worth a read. In the "Golden Pen" today is a must-read column from the Wall Street Journal’s Brendan Miniter on the lessons of the Congressional District 50 special election. An excerpt:… Read More

I’ve checked the parking lot a few times today at Richvale Elementary and NOBODY is showing up to vote. I’m very concerned that Nor Cal voters are not engaged. Phil and Steve are boring my voters to death! Oh, wait a minute……. er, I forgot, Richvale, Pop. 250,is now entirely a mail-in precinct as its not populated enough. Oh well,SNL’sGilda RadnerwouldhaveEmilyLitella say"Never mind!"… Read More