It’s Election Day in the 37th Senate District
Posted by Chris Nguyen on March 17, 2015
Business Owner/Assemblyman Donald P. Wagner, former Orange County Supervisor John M. W. Moorlach, and Naz Namazi
At long last, election day has arrived in the 37th Senate District. Voters in the 37th Senate District can find their polling place here; polls close at 8:00 PM. Absentee ballots can still be mailed to the Registrar of Voters today, thanks to SB 29 (Correa).
Voters will fill the seat to succeed Mimi Walters, who was elected to Congress, unless neither Don Wagner nor John Moorlach achieves 50% of the vote, in which case Naz Namazi will cost Orange County taxpayers $1.974 million by causing an unnecessary May 19 run-off election.
For those tracking, 54,700 ballots were received by the Registrar of Voters as of Friday. Of those, 19,655 ballots have come from portions of SD-37 that are in the 2nd Supervisorial District while 24,667 have come from portions of SD-37 that are in AD-68. 10,378 came from portions of SD-37 that are in neither district. Additionally, another 2,894 ballots arrived yesterday, but location breakdowns are not yet available for those.
Wagner has represented the 68th Assembly District since 2010 and was on the ballot there most recently in both June and November of 2014. Moorlach represented the 2nd District Supervisorial 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.
OC Political 
KenCoop said
The citing of the amount caused by a runoff election is shameless. Blaming it on Namazi is offensive.
That is the cost of our democracy. That is our process.
Namazi (like any other candidate), has the right to run for public office. Irrespective of their chances of winning.
Greg Diamond said
Hear, hear! If people didn’t want to run the risk of a runoff, they should not have elected Mimi Walters to Congress. What may bother Chris more is two more months without GOP representation in SD-37.
And hey — can’t Democratic write-in candidate Louise Stewardson get a little hate around here?
Jeff Gallagher said
And, at at least one polling place in Tustin, they could not get the machines working and the first ballots had to be cast by hand. I smell a conspiracy…
Greg Diamond said
What does it smell like? Cigars and whiskey or wet moldy rags?
Jeff Gallagher said
Cigars and green beer, of course, Greg.
Greg Diamond said
Chris, I hope you don’t mind my alerting interested readers to the piece by Norberto Santana Jr. in Voice of OC on this race, as it’s by far the best one that has been written.
http://voiceofoc.org/2015/03/state-senate-election-pits-republicans-against-themselves/
That’s a piece that will be even more widely read if this does go to a runoff. Among the most interesting points in the piece is that OCEA — which has hated hated hated Moorlach — sat this one out, even though the Public Safety “unions” spent about $200,000 to defeat Moorlach. Wagner can’t move left to try to pick them up — can he?
I have a suspicion that Wagner is going to discover what Anna Bryson did — that it’s possible to send voters TOO MANY mailers; makes you look both desperate and bought. A month ago, I had thought that Wagner would walk away with a win; now I think that he and his IE supporters may have blown it. And if people reject him because he came on so strong (and so harsh) in the primary, it’s hard to see how outspending Moorlach again in the runoff will be any more effective.
Jeff Gallagher said
Darn, Greg, Hell must have frozen over. I actually agree with you (Another beer, please).
Greg Diamond said
Sometimes being drunk helps one let down one’s guard.
By the way, we’re keeping running tabs tonight (the mathematical kind rather than the alcoholic kind) tonight over at OJB, for those interested.
Pancho said
Sometimes missing repeated doses of ones med’s has an effect to!