The Democratic Party won’t be represented in the General Election this year, in the 72nd Assembly District. The winners of the Top Two Open Primary, Troy Edgar and Travis Allen , are both Republicans. However Edgar is a former Democrat who has voted repeatedly for tax increases, as a member of the Los Alamitos City Council, which I supposed is a consolation prize for the DPOC.
The leading Democratic Party candidate, Joe Dovinh, just missed making the Top Two, by 419 votes, according to Smart Voter. Why did he lose? Simple. An 82 year old Tea Party Democrat, Albert Ayala, jumped into the race and got 8,816 votes without campaigning at all.
Ayala, a retired police commander, may have benefited from being the only Latino in the race for the 72nd A.D., which includes part of West Santa Ana.
There are rumors that the Republicans asked Ayala to run but I have not been able to substantiate those allegations.
Dovinh also lost when he ran for the 68th Assembly District in 2010, according to Smart Voter.
Another Vietnamese candidate, Republican Long Pham, also lost in the 72nd A.D. Open Primary. He spent a lot more than Dovinh did but has nothing to show for it. Even worse, he walked away from a seat on the Orange County Board of Education. Now Pham is out of politics entirely.
I wouldn’t fault Pham for leaving the do-nothing redundant BOE. It was the honest and proper thing to do in order to run for Assembly.
Wait until you see the howls when Spitzer runs for DA after two more years as a Supervisor — you can bet he won’t resign that seat while he runs for his “destiny” job. Let’s hope there are others that want it as well and can overcome Todd’s union-funded cash stash.
What’s more interesting about this race seems to be the lack of support Dovinh received from the Democrats — he only barely lost and needed that to overcome Ayala. Troy Edgar has plenty of skeletons (his support of a high-speed elevated maglev train thru the county, his hypocritical taxing of his own city when he won’t sign the ATR pledge, the crook he hired as his campaign manager, his sleeping with the trash haulers) in his closet that the Dems could have used to campaign against him. His lack of strength showed in that he’s only eight points ahead. Edgar can easily be beat by his opponent with a properly managed and funded campaign.
The Democrats were somewhat split on supporting Dovinh, because he ran before against Phu in the primary two years ago. not that the local county Democrats are able to raise money and really support candidates in an organized fashion. Most of the support for local Dems has to come from business or labor groups that are willing to support Candidates, the OC County Party is weak.
The clubs the West Orange County Club and the especially Leasure World Club worked hard to get the Democratic voters out to the polls to support various Endorsed Candidates, including Dovinh.
The real hope for Democrats in the County are the clubs and the Young Democrats. Nick Anas is doing a decent job as executive director and is showing some leadership and creativity otherwise lacking at the county level.
Are for as the 72nd goes it looks like the choice for Democrats will be to pick between a corrupt former Democrat Troy Edgar and a Reagan Republican Travis Allen who is the more honest of the two.
I am glad to hear that Anas is doing a good job. I was afraid he was just going to be a tool for Melahat.
And yes, Allen is the preferable candidate over Edgar.