AD-69: Traditional D vs. R Match-Up in Daly vs. Moreno; Martinez Plays Spoiler for Perez
Posted by Chris Nguyen on June 13, 2012
On Monday, I took a look at AD-72, and in this post, I’ll be looking at another of OC’s multi-candidate Assembly races that has now narrowed down to two: AD-69.
Conventional wisdom held that if any OC district was going to feature an intraparty battle in November (courtesy of Prop 14), it was going to be the Republicans in AD-74 between Assemblyman Allan Mansoor and Newport Beach Councilwoman Leslie Daigle or the Democrats in AD-69 between OC Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly and either labor leader Julio Perez or Santa Ana Councilwoman Michele Martinez. (Unexpectedly, it was AD-72 that created OC’s sole intraparty battle with an all-Republican November matchup between Los Alamitos Mayor Troy Edgar and Huntington Beach Businessman Travis Allen.)
AD-69 will come down to Daly and Republican OC Eligibility Technician Jose “Joe” Moreno (not to be confused with Anaheim City School District Trustee Jose F. Moreno).
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We here at OC Political predicted Daly vs. Moreno here, here, and here. (While we made several predictions that went wrong [like nearly everybody else, we failed to predict Edgar vs. Allen in AD-72], we’ve been consistent in predicting Daly 1st and Moreno 2nd in AD-69.)
This race was incredibly evenly divided. Daly was far and away the top vote-getter, getting nearly double the number of votes of the second-place candidate.
| Tom Daly | 10,724 | 39.6% |
| Jose “Joe” Moreno | 5,843 | 21.6% |
| Julio Perez | 5,440 | 20.1% |
| Michele Martinez | 4,506 | 16.6% |
| Francisco “Paco” Barragan | 577 | 2.1% |
Some readers may be wondering if Perez could still catch Moreno with the remaining uncounted ballots. There just aren’t enough out there. 27,090 out of the 417,965 ballots counted in Orange County so far cast votes in AD-69, which equals 6.5% of the votes. There are 9,528 uncounted ballots remaining in Orange County, which leaves approximately 619 votes remaining in AD-69. To make up his current 403-vote deficit, Perez would need to be ahead of Moreno by 65.1%. If Moreno captures 10% of the vote, that would require Perez get 75.1%, leaving just 14.9% to be split between Daly, Martinez, and Barragan. Let’s say AD-69 has a disproportionate share of the outstanding ballots, and double that to 1,238 ballots remaining in AD-69, Perez would need to be ahead of Moreno by 32.6%. That is a tough margin for Perez. If Moreno captures 10% of the vote, that would require Perez get 42.6%, leaving just 47.4% to be split between Daly, Martinez, and Barragan.
It’s clear from the results that Martinez was Perez’s spoiler. If just 10% of Martinez’s votes had gone to Perez, he would have surpassed Moreno and advanced to a run-off against Daly. Martinez and Perez were clearly the liberal Democrats in the race, with Daly and Barragan the more moderate Democrats, and Moreno was the Republican. The lion’s share of Martinez’s votes would have gone to Perez.
It’s now clear that without Michele Martinez in the race, union-backed Democrat Julio Perez would have advanced to the November run-off against business-backed Democrat Tom Daly.
OC Political 
Fair and Balanced said
Maybe you ought to rely less on “conventional wisdom” and perhaps you should stop deleting comments that are any way critical of your GOP pals. Then maybe someone will read this drivel.
Chris Emami said
Cmon Bro,
We approve your comments. The problem is that you comment under so many different names and so often. This often leads WordPress to stick your comments in the spam folder.
As annoying as you can be, you’ve grown on us :)
Dan Chmielewski said
So clearly all this blog chatter about Martinez being the leading candidate in the race followed by the leading Latino candidate in the race and the only woman in the race didn’t do her any favors. She got fewer votes for Assembly than she did for city council despite having a larger pool of voters to draw from. Martinez clearly got a lot of bad advice during the campaign. Perez had zero name recognition going into the race and outgunned a well known sitting Santa Ana council member. As the frontrunner in the race, Daly will have a bigger war chest than Moreno and would be smart to seek greater support from the political leaders in Santa Ana.
Bigmike said
The OC Juice has a nice Video showing Tom questions the patriotism in partisainship. What a joke? First, he had some people send out these deceptive mailers telling everyone how much of a Republican he is or all the Republicans supporting him than a few days after tells everyone that Democrats are more Patriotic than the Republicans. Set this guy in the pasture, he doesn’t even relaize the difference between the 72 Assembly district and the 69th Assembly district. http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2012/06/tom-daly-democrats-are-the-party-of-patriotism-barragan-is-cool/
Jenifer said
Thats an interesting way to look at it. But, it could also be argued that Perez played the “spoiler” role. take his votes and pile them on the councilwoman and it’s very different as well. Additionally, Barragans votes would have given Perez, the clear labor choice, the election, so that really makes him the real spoiler.
One thing is perfectly clear, labor, especially public employee unions are SQUARELY behind the only dependable union hack they could find: Perez, Barragan and Martinez showed some independence and that scares the special interests away.
Most interesting, in the half dozen blogs covering this, not one has EVER asked who is best for the district and why? but, power players from Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles chime in supported by bloggers from Long Beach, Brea, Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa and beyond……….Nobody asked the voters………except for the ballot counters and thats why Moreno won, they simply liked him better. Not that complicated.
Greg Diamond said
Here’s “not that complicated” — Moreno won because there are enough Republicans in the district who vote straight party to get him a bit above 20%. The didn’t “like him”; they didn’t even know him. Daly won because outside, mostly commercial/conservative interests, spent almost $1,000,000 trying to elect him and trashing Perez, who has less than a fifth (as I recall) of IEs in his favor and who, unlike Daly, was the target of substantial direct mail IE attacks.
It “could be argued that Perez played the spoiler role,” but it would evince enormous ignorance — almost as much as the statement that no blog “EVER asked who is best for the district and why.” You seem to be beyond rational discussion, so enjoy your “educated take” on the results.
Spoiler said
Julio lost because he didn’t get enough votes. The lawsuits over his credit card debt hurt him. He never demonstrated anything but being a puppet for unions. Daly got the most votes. Democracy won.
Karl Handler said
I don’t see how Daly demonstrated anything but being a puppet for large corporate interests. Democracy lost.
Jenifer said
Thanks for the condesending reponse Greg Diamond. Typical. We all know that only Dr. Diamond has the smarts to figure this stuff out, the rest of us can just go home and be quiet I suppose.
I do agree with Spoiler though, if Julio Perez could not manage his meager finances how in the world could he be expected to work the complicated budget issues in Sacramento (unless he was just going to take his orders from the powers……………..which makes him a puppet).
Bottom line, he was unfit for office and the voters knew that. PERIOD.
Greg Diamond said
It’s spelled “condescending” — and you’re welcome. You earned it.