Winners and Losers for March Primary

Joe Kerr and his son re-create a photo with Gov. Newsom

 

TheLiberalOC isn’t the type of blog that makes endorsements and we didn’t this primary season except for a commentary on slates – specifically slates associated with the DPOC Central Committee.

As the tallies are wrapping up, here’s an assessment of winners and losers for the March 2024 Primary.

Winners:

Congressman Adam Schiff:  A deep war chest afforded him the ability to make the November contest for US Senate a Democrat vs Republican election.  It doesn’t make Katie Porter a loser by any stretch because US Senate seats don’t pop up all that often.  Schiff already had Northern California’s Democrats all locked up and will make Steve Garvey look dumber than Herschel Walker in 2022.

The Recall in OUSD: The Astroturfing out of towners from “Let Our Kids Alone” can’t carry a tune when it comes to actual voters.  And voters showed the Orange Unified School Board exactly what “Parental Rights” was all about.

Rep. Lou Correa:  Orange County’s most popular Congressional Rep showed his strength beating a Republican carpetbagger from Irvine with the highest percentage of votes in every OC-based Congressional race.  If the Democrats retake the House in November, expect to see Correa back on the DHS Subcommittee as appropriations chair making him one of the more powerful members of the House period.

Joe Kerr:  The number of untruths about his campaign was nothing short of remarkable.  I very much enjoyed his wife China’s takedown of OJ Blogger Vern Nelson’s op-ed in the Register point-by-point and Nelson refused to let her continue commenting.  Many people focused on Kerr’s consultant – a shop that represents many Republicans but also Democrats.  They were responsible for the Democratic Party takeover of the Virginia State Senate last year.  What many don’t know is this consultant is working for free unless Kerr beats Young Kim.  This allowed Kerr to spend all of his time on Voter outreach.  And it worked.

Dave Min:  The onslaught of PAC money against Dave Min wasn’t enough and he won his race against Democratic challenger Joanna Weiss by about the margin of a poll released by Republican Scott Baugh.  Min’s May 2023 DUI is cancelled by Baugh’s campaign finance criminal charges.  And while Baugh won the primary, the massive voter turnout in November will again favor Democrats as it did in 2020.  Donald Trump just won’t have the coattails Baugh is going to need.  There’s a significant push from Min’s team to put this primary behind them to come together to focus on Baugh.  Weiss gracefully conceded after all and committed to work to keep this seat blue after running one of the nastiest Dem-on-Dem campaigns in this county in recent memory.  Kumbaya starts with Weiss and her husband writing checks to “Min for Congress” for the maximum amount.  As far as Weiss working on the campaign, it’s going to be like Bernie Sanders campaigning for Hillary in 2016.  I’ll need more convincing she’s sincere.

Labor:  Labor-backed candidates outperformed those backed by PACs.  Plain and simple.  Don’t underestimate the power of Unions as we move into November.

Irvine Voters:  Overwhelming approved of a measure to expand the council by two seats and install district-based elections.  And high time to remind Irvine voters that Tammy Kim, running for Mayor in November, did everything she could to quash district-based elections and expansion, unless every council member would be elected at large.  That would benefit her personally but not the voters of Irvine.

Marlene Gillespie:  Re-elected as a Central Committee member for the DPOC again despite not raising/spending a dime or campaigning actively.  Marlene attends every meeting and every vote she makes is carefully considered. She’s one of the nicest people you could ever meet and I advise newly-elected members of the DPOC Central Committee reach out and introduce yourself.  She would be a great mentor on how to be an effective member of the party.

Cottie Petrie-Norris:  Ran a positive campaign against two lackluster Republicans and should be easily re-elected.  And not just this fall but for years to come.  But she also strongly backed Weiss in CA47, a campaign that continued to insist Min took Corporate PAC money (he did for his state senate campaign but not for Congress; a point buried in agate type). Why is this an issue? Because Petrie-Norris’s campaign gets a ton of money from corporate PACs.  OK for me but not for thee.

Katie Porter’s Kids:  If you’ve met Katie Porter’s children, you know what a good job she’s done raising them, and I don’t know how she does it.  The kids are smart, polite, and sweet.  They have an agreement with Mom…if she lost the primary, they’d get a puppy (her daughter told the LA Times she wanted a cat).  And they are getting their wish as Katie has promised to deliver.  May the new addition to the Porter family’s Irvine home be a source of love and affection for years to come.

Allyson Muniz Damikolas: But she lost the CA40 primary, right?  That she did, but hopefully she will run for re-election to the Tustin Unified School board.  Voters got to know her better and I have no doubt we will see her on the ballot again.  CA40 was a tough primary; I consider both Allyson and Joe as friends.  I don’t think she was well served by her consultants who didn’t seem to understand the make up of the district.  She did run an honorable race.

 

Losers:

The Democrats of Huntington Beach:  Surf City needs more Democrats and more like Dan Kalmick and Natalie Moser please.  But the Fascist Four got two of three measures approved.  Let’s see if the courts will intervene.

EMILYs List and AIPAC:  Spent significant amounts of money to prop up Joanna Weiss in CA-47.  Dave Min and Weiss’s positions on Israel were virtually identical but the PAC spent a fortune to fund negative TV adds against Min in the final weeks of the Campaign.  In the case of EMILYs List, just about all of their eggs went into Joanna Weiss’s basket too.  They endorsed Allyson Muniz Damikolas in CA40 but offered no money and completely ignored Kim Nguyen Penaloza in CA45 who really could have used it.  EMILYs List says 40 percent of women they endorsed and helped elect to the House of Representatives are women of color.  If you want to make a donation to PACs, please send a check to California Women’s List, Planned Parenthood, Winning for Women PAC, Black Women Organized, California Women 4 Women, Latino Victory Project.  Your money will be better spent there and will reflect your values.

Supervisor Katrina Foley:  No other elected official went so far out of a limb in CA47 than Foley.  Weiss was her favored candidate for Congress.  She boasted “knowing the voters in this district.”  On Twitter constantly.  Tweeting to a staff member on New Year’s Eve to make a donation to Weiss’s campaign that Foley would match (for clarity, the staff member endorsed, canvassed for, and supported Weiss and most certainly had no issue making said contribution, but my friends in HR said Foley’s request was in poor judgement at best or unethical/illegal at worst).   For those in HR, I leave it to you.  Foley, who’s raising money for her race in 2026, defied the County Party and State Party’s endorsement for this race.  When she seeks DPOC’s blessing for re-election, I’m told there will be a line of Central Committee members ready to pull her endorsement.

Vern Nelson/Sal Rodriguez:  Ah, this one is too easy.  Sal Rodriguez, the Los Angeles-based opinion editor hates unions, isn’t fond of Democrats, and mistakenly thinks the 2024 Primary results still show OC as a conservative bastion (just wait until November, Sal).  Sal reached out to the OJ Blog’s Vern Nelson, who also happens to hate Joe Kerr (a Union guy) and Dave Min (a Democrat with a DUI) to write two op-eds about their Democratic challengers.  Sal’s interest wasn’t promoting Weiss and Damikolas; it was to use a “Democratic” blogger to make it easier for Scott Baugh and Young Kim this fall.  As Rodriguez is so anti-DUI, it’s remarkable that he’d use Nelson who has five DUIs (not DUI’s as Vern wrote, as he is the punctuation police these days) to craft these pieces.  $5 says Sal didn’t know about Vern’s criminal record.  I don’t expect the failed stand-up comedian to ever apologize for racist, sexist and homophobic language used in a much-criticized open mic night in 2012.  No candidate for office or elected official would survive that attitude that Sal has never publicly apologized for ever.  And Vern gets a byline on the opinion pages of a newspaper almost no Democrat I know reads. I hope the Register paid you Vern.  You could use the money.

Larry Tenney – Don’t know Larry?  Find him on Twitter!  He’s a former Republican Public Affairs agency owner who sold his firm and “retired” some years ago.  I’m told he blames Shawn Steel for ruining his business and costing him Republican clients after Tenney came out (before selling his firm or after?).  He moved to Texas for awhile and he moved back to Huntington Beach and has become a Democrat, or, at least, an anti-Republican.  He has a cousin in Congress – Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney – who, oddly enough, went to High School with my wife (they were not friends).  Larry directs a lot of venom at his cousin.  Larry doesn’t have a position with any campaign but is trying hard to get hired as a “social media influencer.”  Good luck.  Tactics he learned as a Republican don’t work well for Democrats. — significant lying, mainly.  Larry tweeted “Dave Min is still drinking,” “UCI wanted to hire Dave’s wife Jane, not him,” and “Joanna Weiss is endorsed by every Democrat in Congress” through a caucus, which the Schiff campaign said wasn’t true.  Larry’s does what Larry knows – a lie travels around the world while the truth is pulling up its pants and he’s good at that.  A lot of his worst posts are now gone, just like his reputation.

…..

It was a bad turnout primary in advance of what looks like another record turnout general election.  Democrats will come out in force to vote for Joe Biden over “Honest Don” Trump.  Downticket candidates will benefit.

Got any other candidates as winners or losers?  Post them in the comments.