The affluent coastal communities of Orange County, California will host a special election on Tuesday to fill a seat on the five-member Board of Supervisors that could affect redistricting efforts for this governing body into the next decade. The 2nd Supervisorial District became vacant when former Republican Supervisor Michelle Steel was elected to the 48th Congressional District last year by unseating Democratic Rep. Harley Rouda.
Team Red emerged from last year’s election with their 4-1 majority intact, despite a valiant effort from Democrats to flip the two seats that were on the ballot, but Democrats would benefit from a win here. While Team Blue can not take the majority with a victory on Tuesday, the party can shift the balance of power from a GOP supermajority to a more modest 3-2 advantage. The makeup of the Board of Supervisors is especially important for both parties at this moment in time, as this iteration of the board will draw the supervisorial district lines that will be in effect for the next decade.
A Democratic win here would be difficult, though. Steel easily prevailed here 63-25 in 2018 and, though Joe Biden won all the Board of Supervisors districts, his 50-48 win in the 2nd makes it the reddest of the five. However, the process for this special election is different than the one for regular board of supervisor races, which does introduce some extra unpredictability into the contest.
While still officially nonpartisan, there is no second round of voting among the top-two vote getters; the candidate who wins a plurality of the vote will serve in this seat until the next regular election in 2022. This is a complicating factor for both parties, who are attempting to consolidate around a single candidate in this five-candidate field.
The Democratic Party of Orange County has endorsed Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley. Foley also has the support of numerous elected officials, including all the Democratic members of Orange County’s congressional delegation and Supervisor Doug Chaffee, the lone Democratic board member. Attorney Janet Rappaport is the other Democratic candidate in the running, but she has not received any notable endorsements and, as of late February, had only raised $25,000.
Democrats, though, may be able to benefit from an even more fragmented GOP field, where three candidates are running and there is dissension among party leaders. The county GOP and Supervisor Lisa Bartlett are backing former state Sen. John Moorlach, who previously represented this seat on the Board until he was elected to the legislature in 2015. (Moorlach narrowly lost re-election to the state Senate last year.)
Moorlach hardly has all the major conservative interest groups on his side, however, as the union representing Orange County sheriff deputies has also spent $240,000 against him: The Voice of OC writes that this is “the first time in recent memory” that the group has opposed a candidate backed by the county GOP.
The other two Republican candidates, Newport Beach City Council member Kevin Muldoon and Fountain Valley Mayor Michael Vo, have each raised a notable amount of money as well and received endorsements from board members. Muldoon has the backing of Supervisor Don Wagner, while fellow Supervisor Andrew Do decided to dole out endorsements for both Muldoon and Vo.
The coronavirus pandemic has emerged as the dominant issue during this campaign. Communities in the district such as Newport Beach and Huntington Beach were hotspots last year for protests and backlash against California's coronavirus restrictions, with Wagner even joining in to speak at one of the rallies. While none of the GOP candidates have taken stances quite that extreme, Muldoon has kept his focus on reopening the economy and Moorlach also decried some protective measures against the virus as “an incredible overreaction.”
Foley has taken a distinctly different approach to handling the pandemic. She’s touted the mask mandate Costa Mesa instituted last year, while also attacking the board’s response to the virus and pledging to focus on speeding up the vaccination process for residents of the county.
