OC Political

While the races in Trustee Areas 1 and 7 are cancelled for being single-candidate affairs, a pair of tri-candidate campaigns have emerged in Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee Areas 3 and 5.

Mark McLoughlin, David Chapel, Claudia Alvarez

The slugfest between Rancho Santiago Community College District Vice President Mark McLoughlin (D-Santa Ana), Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee David Chapel (NPP-Santa Ana), and Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez (D-Santa Ana) should be the most fun college board race to watch this November.  Read my full pre-campaign analysis of this Trustee Area 5 race here.  Sadly, rumors of a Republican Vietnamese candidate proved untrue in Area 5.

Thomas Anthony Gordon

Nelida M. Yanez

Public School Inspector Thomas Anthony Gordon (R-Santa Ana), Paralegal Nelida M. Yanez (D-Santa Ana), and Construction Laborer Antonio “Tony” Jesus Tapia (D-Santa Ana) will contest Trustee Area 3.  Gordon is of course a blogger here at OC Political.  Ken Nguyen (NPP-Santa Ana) and Myriam Tinajero (D-Santa Ana) failed to return their papers before filing closed.

While Gordon and Yanez (like the trio in Area 5 of Alvarez, Chapel, and McLoughlin) wisely chose to place a candidate’s statement in the sample ballot, Tapia did not even bother getting a statement, which will make it difficult for voters to take him seriously when he doesn’t even take the voters seriously enough to tell him anything about himself.  The candidate’s statement in the sample ballot is the single thing that actually reaches every single voter.

(In the interest of full disclosure, Custom Campaigns, which owns OC Political, is the consultant on Gordon’s race.)