OC Political

Andrew Galvin of the Orange County Register has confirmed that John Moorlach is exploring a run for Governor. Thank you to the OC Register for crediting OC Political with the scoop. We broke the story here at OC Political last week after learning that Moorlach was exploring a run.

Only Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (AD 33) has officially announced that he is running for this seat and Moorlach would easily advance to the run-off against Jerry Brown if Donnelly is the only other major Republican running.

After browsing through some campaign finance information on the CA Secretary of State website I learned that Donnelly is struggling with his fundraising. According to the most recent campaign finance reports Donnelly received one check for $1,000 into his main campaign committee and appears to have exceeded this number with $1,190 in expenditures although I couldn’t figure out what he spent it on.  His Assembly account does not look much better in terms of having the cash necessary to run for Governor.

Moorlach on the other hand has more money sitting in his OC Supervisorial campaign committee with over $10,000 sitting there. This amount of money is not what is needed for a Gubernatorial campaign, but it shows that he has a head start on Donnelly.

The one wild card in this is the rumor of Assemblyman Rocky Chavez (AD 76) jumping into the race. If Chavez does jump into this race it will change the dynamic leaving him the clear favorite. I do not have any indication of how realistic a Chavez candidacy is at this point.

We will keep you posted as more information becomes readily available.