Last week, I blogged two city-by-city breakdowns of the results in two Assembly races.

First up was AD-72, which showed Mayor Troy Edgar (R-Los Alamitos) and Businessman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) the top two in four cities, OC Board of Education Member Long Pham (R-Fountain Valley) and Planning Commissioner Joe Dovinh (D-Garden Grove) the top two in two cities, and Pham and Edgar the top two in Garden Grove.

Next up was AD-74, which showed Assemblyman Allan Mansoor (R-Costa Mesa) and Businessman Robert Rush (D-Newport Beach) alternating as first and second place in each city in the district, with the sole exception being Newport Beach, where Councilwoman Leslie Daigle (R-Newport Beach) slipped in ahead of Rush but behind Mansoor.

Up today is the final OC Assembly race that featured more than two candidates: AD-69.  First, let’s recall the districtwide numbers:

So let’s take a look at how the voting broke down in the four cities of AD-69: Santa Ana, Anaheim, Garden Grove, and Orange.

(Thanks to Matt Rexroad and Chandra Sharma at Meridian Pacific for the map, which I’ve cropped here and to which I have added graphics.  Note that the population numbers on the map apply to each whole city, not just the portion of the city in AD-69.  The bulk of Santa Ana and a sliver of Garden Grove are in AD-69 while a sliver of Santa Ana and the bulk of Garden Grove are in AD-72.  A sliver of Orange is in AD-69 but the bulk of it is in AD-68.  Anaheim is divided into nearly even thirds, with the western 1/3 in AD-65, the central 1/3 in AD-69, and the eastern 1/3 in AD-68.)

Daly was consistently first in each city while Barragan was consistently fifth.  Moreno, Perez, and Martinez swapped around for the second, third, and fourth place positions.  The humongous Daly head is indicative of his first place finish in all four cities; taking his head out of the individual cities allows us to more closely examine second and third place, which actually differed in the four cities.  In each individual city, the candidate with the larger head came in second while the candidate with the smaller head came in third:

• Moreno came in second with Perez third in Anaheim and Garden Grove.
• Perez came in second with Martinez third in Santa Ana.
• Moreno came in second with Martinez third in Orange.

Here’s their vote totals broken down visually by city:

Since Daly came in first by such a large margin (indeed, Daly’s Santa Ana total nearly bested everyone else’s districtwide total) and Barragan fell to fifth by such a large margin (Daly’s Garden Grove total outpaced Barragan’s districtwide total), let’s take a closer look with just Moreno, Perez, and Martinez, who were closer together in the results:

It’s clear that without Anaheim, Perez would have made it into the top two and on to November, rather than Moreno.  Moreno’s final vote total was 5,980 while Perez’s was 5,738.  Without Anaheim, Moreno would have had 4,105 while Perez would have had 4,308. (Anaheim gave Moreno 1,875 votes and Perez 1,430 votes, a 445-vote margin).  Perez lost districtwide to Moreno by 242 votes; without Anaheim, Moreno would have lost to Perez by 203 votes.

Anaheim was a crucial stronghold for Moreno, as he came in fourth in Santa Ana but second in Anaheim.

However, with so few cities in AD-69, and Santa Ana such a strong majority of that district (59% of registered voters in AD-69 live in Santa Ana, and 60% of ballots cast in AD-69 were from Santa Ana), it would be more useful to break this result down into regions smaller than cities.  Luckily for this purpose, the City of Santa Ana has Council wards.

Here, the larger head came in first while the smaller head came in second:

• Daly came in first with Moreno second in Wards 3 and 6.
• Perez came in first with Daly second in Wards 1 and 4.
• Perez came in first with Martinez second in Wards 2 and 5 (Martinez represents Ward 2 on the Santa Ana City Council, by the way).

Despite the fact that Perez won four wards and Daly only won two, Daly actually won Santa Ana by a 10% margin.  How?  Well, 48% of registered voters in Santa Ana live in the two wards that Daly won: Wards 3 and 6.  49% of Santa Anans who voted in the AD-69 race live in Wards 3 and 6, so those two wards did not have disproportionate voter turnout – they just have a disproportionate share of the voters to begin with.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so…

The overwhelming majority of Daly and Moreno’s votes in Santa Ana came from Wards 3 and 6, with 59% of Daly’s Santa Ana votes and 66% of Moreno’s Santa Ana votes coming from those two wards.  By contrast, 29% of Perez’s Santa Ana votes and 38% of Martinez’s Santa Ana votes came from those two wards.  Here’s each candidate’s vote totals broken down visually by ward:

Once again, due to Daly’s landslide first-place finish and Barragan’s distant fifth-place finish, let’s take a closer look with just Moreno, Perez, and Martinez, who were closer together in the results:

Perez’s vote totals were fairly evenly spread out across the wards, Martinez got a bump from Ward 3, but Moreno’s performance was very strong in Wards 3 and 6 and disastrous in Wards 2, 4, and 5.

Had Perez done a stronger push in Anaheim or a three-prong strategy in Anaheim, Santa Ana’s Ward 3, and Santa Ana’s Ward 6, there’d be a Democrat vs. Democrat intraparty battle in AD-69 in November between business-backed Tom Daly and union-backed Julio Perez.