Obviously, this entire election cycle has been magical and glorious and amazing and otherworldly. The blue wave, truly, turned into a tsunami, and everywhere one looks they can see a repudiation of the modern Republican way.
It. Is. Historic.
That being said, as I sit here this morning, I have genuine regret over my misdiagnosed assessment of CA-40, a district rejiggered to marginalize Republicans, a district rejiggered to force Young Kim and Ken Calvert into a GOP v. GOP battle, a district … maybe we could have won.
Maybe.
I look back 1 1/2 years ago, before Prop 50, and it all seems so … naive. Young Kim was the incumbent. The district was the district. We needed to find someone to take her on. Simple, right? We have a bunch of events, we meet the candidates, they say a few words, we figure out who stands the best chance. The young Perry Meade? The wealthy Esther Kim Varet? The likable Paula Swift. The sturdy Joe Kerr. The efficient Christina Gagnier.
And that’s how I wrote about it all on this site. Almost like a horse race or arm wrestling tournament. The fastest and strongest would emerge.
Well …
Shit obviously changed. With the state redistricting plan, a bunch of candidates dropped out, a bunch of outlooks shifted—and I pretty much accepted this was a lost cause. I also devoted way, way, way, way, way too much attention to the unhinged exploits of Esther Kim Varet. I looked at her money and her volume and became simultaneously horrified and fascinated. At one point I presumed she was the lone candidate who could even possibly hang with a Calvert or Kim, and stated so.
It was, in hindsight, inane.
The truth is, had we unified to get behind a good candidate with a strong message, there was a shot (albeit, a long-shot still) to have a Democrat among the final two. Maybe it should have been Lisa Ramirez, the immigration attorney. Or Meade, the young gun who stepped away early. Or Swift, a new member of the Assembly. Gagnier (who wound up running a failed bid for county supervisor) had a lot of positive characteristics, and I (wrongly, I now believe) dismissed her for not living within the CA-40 boundaries.
Again, I’m not saying a Democrat would have won.
But it’s certainly a possibility.
My fault. I misread the whole thing.
I think one of the things you could have done is talked to the candidates teams and volunteers, as well as getting out of OC. The big thing you missed (and I hate to say I told you so) is how heavily Lisa's campaign was concentrated inland, and how she was leveraging cross-canvassing with other candidates. In additon, and I cannot stress this enough as someone who does market research for a living, one point in time poll is not destiny. You need multiple polls across multiple points in time to get a somewhat accurate directional picture of the electorate. Even then, political polling nowadays suffers from issues that make it hard to to be as precise as we want it to be.
Lisa ultimately suffered from entering the race late, too many people in the race, and yes, a fundraising deficit, but she really did have a shot.
I witnessed two schools of thought among my Dem CA40 friends in this election: Vote for Young Kim, since she is more moderate than Ken Calvert, or vote for Ken Calvert, since he’s such a MAGA extremist he might be easier to beat in ‘28. Esther Kim Varet is posting like crazy on her FB page that any Dem CA40 hopefuls should not run because she obviously has the biggest war chest, and that trumps her other profound deficits. Aside from her call for others to step aside being alarmingly undemocratic, this election taught us that war chests don’t win elections (just ask Elon Musk). I’m not convinced any Dem can win CA40 at this point, but 2028 might bring new surprises and new possibilities. I look forward to a robust primary with good quality Dem candidates. And then it’s up to all of us to get to know them and make informed choices. BTW, the Democratic Party of OC (DPOC) endorses primary candidates. How does that happen? People like you and me sign up to become delegates. Jeff, I hope you write a column one of these days explaining to people how our county party runs, and the importance of everyone reading this to find out what the DPOC Central Committee does, and why each of us should consider running for the Central Committee in 2028. Serving on Central Committee isn’t a heavy lift re free time — mostly you attend infrequent zoom meetings — but it’s an opportunity to steer our county Dem party in the right direction. Maybe even in a direction that sees us winning CA40.