OC Political

Business Owner/Assemblyman Donald P. Wagner, former Orange County Supervisor John M. W. Moorlach, and Naz Namazi

In the SD-37 Special Election (polls close in 15 days), 28,555 ballots have been returned so far.  Of those, 11,940 (41.8%) have come from the 68th Assembly District, 9,988 (35.0%) have come from the 2nd Supervisorial District, and 6,627 (23.2%) come from neither of those districts.

Assemblyman Don Wagner has represented the 68th District since 2010 and was on the ballot there most recently in both June and November of 2014.  Former Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach represented the 2nd District from December 2006 until January 2015 and was on the ballot there most recently in June 2010.  Moorlach served in Countywide office from March 1995 to December 2006 and was most recently on a Countywide ballot in June 2006.

The Wagner camp should be pleased by their district of strength leading Moorlach’s district of strength by 6% in ballots returned in SD-37.

Naz Namazi remains a wildcard who could eat up as much as 5% of the vote.  Write-in Democrat Louise Stewardson is probably good for another 4% of the vote.

While well over 60% of the votes are from Republicans, the wildcard is what did non-Republican voters do?  There are 5,783 Democrats (20.3%), 3,783 NPP (13.2%), 596 AIP (2.1%), 185 Libertarians (0.6%), 49 Greens (0.2%), and 20 Peace and Freedom (0.1%).

Faced with three Republicans on the ballot, only a fraction of those Democrats are going to notice their write-in candidate, and the Greens and Peace and Freedom voters were only 69 people.  The NPPs, AIP, and Libertarians comprise 15% of the vote.

Which candidate campaign most effectively to the non-Republicans, and especially the Democrats?  Wagner and Moorlach are both acknowledged as two of the leading conservatives in Orange County.  Which campaigned best to Democrats?  Or which IE best campaigned to Democrats?