The early March Primary election results are in.
California voters proved to be out of their minds once again as a slight majority voted yes on the latest boondoggle, Prop. 1, a $6B bond measure that will cost twice that much to pay back, with interest. That money will be used to perhaps house 11K transients with mental issues. That is a ton of money for such a small return! The latest vote count, as of March 6, shows that the Yes on Prop. 1 vote has 50.3% of the vote while the No on 1 vote has 49.7% of the vote. Critics are saying that California Governor Gavin Newsom erred by putting this measure on the Primary ballot instead of the General Election ballot as the Primary voters tend to be older and more conservative. Those groups generally vote no on bond measures.
Steve Garvey, the former Dodger legend, made the November General Election by garnering 29% of the vote in his race for the U.S. Senate. The top Democrat vote-getter was Adam Schiff, who got 35.87% of the vote. Local O.C. Congresswoman Katie Porter ended up with 14.5% of the vote and she now finds herself out of office having given up her seat in the U.S. House. You may recall that Loretta Sanchez did the same thing when she lost in her Senate race against Kamala Harris a few years ago. Sanchez has since run a half dozen times and cannot get elected to anything anymore. We suspect Porter is finished politically now too. Why anyone would leave a safe House seat is a very good question as there are no term limits in the House of Representatives.
It should be noted that Garvey also did very well in Orange County, where he was the top vote-getter. He got 152,905 votes compared to Schiff who netted 81,067 votes. Porter got 74,680 votes.
Congresswoman Michelle Steel got over 53% of the vote over in the 38th Congressional District. The Democrats had too many candidates. Their top two candidates, Derek Tran and Kim Bernice Nguyen-Penaloza, split about 20K votes.
In the race to replace Katie Porter, over in the 47th Congressional District, a Republican, Scott Baugh, led with just over 33K votes. The leading Democrat, DUI driver Dave Min, got just under 27K votes. Baugh and Min will face off again in the November General Election.
Mike Tardif, a Republican in Santa Ana, did pretty well in his latest contest for the 68th Assembly District. He got almost 45% of the vote while the incumbent, Avelino Valencia, a Democrat who previously served on the corrupt Anaheim City Council, got just over 55% of the vote. If the OC GOP would actually do anything to promote Tardiff he could take this seat!
In the hotly contested race to replace termed out OC Supervisor Andrew Do, his handpicked choice, Van Tran, did not fare well. Tran ended up with just over 13K votes. The top two vote-getters were Janet Nguyen, a Republican, with over 32K votes, and Frances Marquez, a Democrat who serves on the Cypress City Council, got almost 19K votes.
The conservative OC School Board candidates all won. Santa Ana voters reelected Jorge Valdes, who supports school choice, with over 60% of the vote. The teacher union backed candidate, Beatriz Mendoza, got only 14,047 votes.
Lastly over in the judicial races the good news is the three prosecutors who were running for seats on the OC Superior Court all won easily. That means they will become judges who will actually put criminals behind bars, which is what most of the public wants.
