OC Political

This morning Jon Fleischman posted the results of a poll conducted by Lewis Consulting Group, that showed the favorables/unfavorables of some potential candidates along with results of some hypothetical matches. The results were not what I expected to see, with what appears to be a wide open race amongst a few front-runners. I talked to John Lewis this morning after the poll was released and he had this to say, “The goal with this poll was to try and best replicate predicted 2014 turnout. This is clearly a wide open race and results will largely depend on who decides to run.”

You can view the entire poll by clicking CD45-Crosstab-Tables-I.

Lets start by taking a look at the raw numbers for favorables vs unfavorables for each candidate in the running, in order to use a single number to represent favorability, I am taking the percentage that represents favorables and subtracting the percentage that represents unfavorables in order to create a net favorability ranking system. Here are the rankings based 0n this net favorability:

(R) Todd Spitzer +25% (OC Supervisor)
(R) Ed Royce +20% (Congressman)
(D) Sukhee Kang +13% (Former Irvine Mayor)
(R) Mimi Walter +13% (State Senator)
(D) Steve Young +12%  (Perennial Dem Candidate)
(R) Gary Miller +10% (Congressman)
(R) Don Wagner +10% (State Assemblyman)
(R) Scott Baugh +8% (Chairman of OCGOP)
(D) Beth Krom +4%
(D) Barack Obama -28% (This was simply his approval rating, I am fairly certain he has no intention of seeking this seat)

The fact that Todd Spitzer had the highest net favorability was not especially surprising to me because a lot of my non-political friends are aware of some of his public safety initiatives that he has worked on. I am most surprised by Steve Young having a 12% net favorability rating, although my instinct states that perhaps some football fans got confused on this one.

This data does not also take into account that some other potential candidates are looming out there, including but not limited to Steven Choi (Current Irvine Mayor), John Moorlach (OC Supervisor), and some of the wealthy private sector individuals that could self-fund a campaign. On the Dem side I hear rumblings of Irvine Councilmember Larry Agran jumping into this race and I would argue that he would be the Democrat most likely to advance to November.

My favorite part of the poll was the hypothetical match-ups that were polled including the following scenarios:

Mimi Walters vs. Gary Miller vs. Beth Krom

Walters 25.0%
Krom 21.3%
Miller 21.0%

This matchup is interesting because Walters is definitely in this race and I have heard from more than a couple of insiders that Gary Miller is strongly considering a move back to Orange County to run for this seat due to the fact that his current seat is one that could very easily go blue in 2016. A 4% gap is not very hard to overcome especially when you consider margin of error of any poll.

Mimi Walters vs. Ed Royce vs. Beth Krom

Royce 25.7%
Krom 22.3%
Walters 20.3%

I am not surprised that Royce is leading in this matchup due to the fact that he is a sitting Congressman who has higher name ID than Gary Miller in Orange County. The surprising part is that Walters is within striking distance of him and could beat him in a head-to-head matchup.

Mimi Walters vs. Todd Spitzer vs. Beth Krom

Spitzer 29.0%
Krom 22.0%
Walters 19.7%

Wow!!!!! This result on its own shows me that Todd Spitzer can have this seat if he wants it.

Mimi Walters vs. Ed Royce vs. Beth Krom

Walters 26.7%
Krom 23.0%
Wagner 15.7%

Don Wagner is my personal favorite of all the candidates considered in this poll but these numbers look to be a steep hill to climb in a hypothetical matchup that includes Walters.

Mimi Walters vs. Steve Young vs. Beth Krom vs. Sukhee Kang

Walters 41.0%
Krom 10.3%
Young 8.7%
Kang 7.3%

These numbers show that a Democrat winning this seat is highly unlikely. I believe that Larry Agran would be able to finish ahead of all of the rest of these folks in CD 45 on the Dem side.