Lou Correa losing in the First District Special Election by 2 votes

The ballots have all been counted in the First District Special Election and it appears that former State Senator Lou Correa is losing by two votes to Andrew Do, who quit the Garden Grove City Council in 2011, according to the Orange County Registrar of Voters.

Do was supported by former Supervisor Janet Nguyen and by the CA and OC GOP.

Correa had a lot of support from unions and from OC Sheriff Sandra Hutchens and OCDA Tony Rackauckas.

We warned Correa that he needed to attack Do’s record as a quitter.  Instead Correa sent a slew of campaign mailers that touted his public safety record.

There is no telling what sort of dirty tricks Do and Nguyen engaged in.  There are still provisional ballots to be counted but they may go mostly to Do.

Overall voter turnout was 19.4%.  When the smoke clears we imagine that we will discover that Latino voters, once again, did not vote.  Much of Correa’s campaign was focused on getting the Latino vote out.

This is another huge embarrassment for the Democratic Party of Orange County.  Orange County’s blue donut hole now has only two Democratic legislators – Assemblyman Tom Daly and U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

The Democrats fumbled away the 65th Assembly District last November when incumbent Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva was upset by Young Kim.  And Jose Solorio lost in the battle for the 34th State Senate District to Janet Nguyen.

The Democrats did not oppose Nguyen when she ran for reelection to the OC Board of Supervisors in 2012.  Instead they ran several candidates for the 69th and Daly emerged as the victor when the Latino candidates knocked each other out.

Latino voters in Santa Ana now have no Latino representation in the State Assembly, the State Senate and the Orange County Board of Supervisors.  And they have only themselves to blame as Latinos stayed home in the Primary and General Elections last year.

Depending on what happens with the provisional ballots we could see a recount in the First District Special Election.  Not sure who will pay for that.