SD33 Watch: By The Numbers

There will be three competitive Republican legislative primary battles next year: AD 71, AD 60 and SD33.

These are three heavily Republican seats in which winning the GOP primary is tantamount to a general election victory. Red County/OC Blog already described the AD71 contest with by-the-numbers post of the basics of the campaign: candidates and their teams, registration and geographic distribution of GOP voters, etc.

Now let's take a look at the battle for the 33rd Senate District, which is represented by termed-out Senate GOP Leader Dick Ackerman and boasts 259,850 Republican voters who will determine the next senator:

Following is a breakdown of Republican voters by city (I got these numbers form the ROV on May 10):

City                                 Number of GOP Voters          % of SD33 GOP Voters

1.Orange                                   33,143                                    12.75%

2. Mission Viejo                          31,844                                    12.25%

3. Fullerton                                 27,501                                    10.6%

4. Lake Forest                             22,121                                      8.5%

5. Anaheim                                  21,799                                      8.4%

6. Laguna Niguel                          20,853                                      8.0%

7. Rancho Santa Margarita           15,108                                      5.8%

8. Tustin                                     14,261                                      5.5%

9. Aliso Viejo                               12,211                                     4.7%

10. Laguna Hills                             9,377                                       3.6%

11. Irvine                                       6,951                                       2.7%

12. Laguna Woods                          6,749                                       2.6%

13. Santa Ana                                 3,707                                      1.4%

14. Villa Park                                 2,980                                      1.1%

15. Buena Park                               2,433                                      0.9%

16. San Clemente                           1,353                                      0.5%

17. Unincorporated                         27,459                                    10.6%

The North County-South County split is about 41% North OC and 49% South OC. I'm not sure of the geographic breakdown of unincorporated voters, but I presume it's overwhelmingly South County, so the actual North-South split is more like 60/40 in favor of South County.

Interestingly, the city-by-city ranking changes somewhat when ranked by number of high-propensity GOP voters (these numbers courtesy of the Mimi Walters campaign):

City                       Number of Hi-Pro GOP Voters       % of SD33 Hi-Pro GOP Voters

1. Mission Viejo                          15,832                                    13.2%

2. Orange                                   15,663                                    13.0%

3. Fullerton                                 12,725                                    10.6%

4. Laguna Niguel                           9,906                                      8.3%

5. Lake Forest                              9,845                                      8.2%

6. Anaheim                                   9,826                                      8.2%

7.Tustin                                       5,872                                      4.9%

8. Rancho Santa Margarita             5,834                                      4.9%

9. Laguna Hills                              4,381                                      3.7%

10. Laguna Woods                          4,216                                       3.5%

11. Aliso Viejo                                4,209                                       3.5%

12. Irvine                                       3,096                                       2.6%

13. Small cities/Unincorporated     27,459                                     22.9%

The Candidates

Thus far, there are only two announced-- reflecting the district's North-South split.

Assemblywoman Mimi Walters: Mimi's sticking with the campaign team that steered her to victory in a blazing three-way 2004 primary battle in which she bested OC Supervisor Tom Wilson (and Vista school board trustee Jim Gibson). Dave Gilliard is her general consultant, Wendy Warfield handling Sacramento fund-raising and Julie Paule doing district fund-raising, and Monaco Group handling printing/mailing duties. Gilliard has amassed a lopsided win record in Orange County.

Walters is generally considered the front-runner for a number of reasons:

• She's already a state legislator and will almost certainly win the endorsements primary
• She's a strong fund-raiser
• She's extremely popular with GOP activists and party leaders (of no small importance in a partisan primary)
• She's built a strong reputation on issues the conservative base cares about such as property rights/eminent domain, taxes and abortion
• She's a proven campaigner

Mimi isn't bullet-proof: Sidhu's campaign will almost certainly hit her for accepting a $12,000 pay increase last year -- but even so, she presents a very low target profile.

Anaheim Councilman Harry Sidhu: Harry's campaign consultant is Duane Dichiara of Coronado Communications, who ran Sen. Tom Harman's squeaker win against the Diane Harkey onslaught in the spring of 2006. John Niestedt of Competitive Edge is the pollster. This will be a re-match between Dichaira and Gilliard, who was general consultant for Harkey's state Senate race. And to complete this few-degrees-of-separation exposition, I worked with both Dave and Duane on Issa for U.S. Senate in 1997-98.

The buzz last year was Sidhu was going to challenge Mayor Curt Pringle for re-election, but Harry wised up and avoided mangling his political future in such a car wreck. Speculation then shifted to a possible run for the 60th Assembly District until Sidhu declared for SD33 last November.

Sidhu is the comparative underdog, but he's ambitious and rich and has proven his willingness to drop some serious coin during his two council races (he lost in 2002 and won in 2004). Sidhu came here from India when he was a teenager (he's Sikh, to be precise) and has a good immigrant success story to tell. He can also tap into a largely untapped Indo-American donor network. As Sidhu pointed out to me last December, Indo-Americans are the single richest ethnic group in America.

Sidhu has tried to craft an image for himself in Anaheim as a taxpayer champion, most visibly by being a thorn in Mayor Curt Pringle's side during negotiations with the NFL. Sidhu loudly insisted there be no taxpayer subsidies (which Pringle and the rest of the council had already rules out) and favored selling to land for development -- which is what is happening.

The other issue where Sidhu has a high-profile is the Disney-SunCal battle [full disclosure: I'm a member of the consultant team for SunCal's Platinum Pointe project], where in the course of the battle he has managed to be on every side of the issue (he voted in favor of the project before he voted against it). Since February, Sidhu has been on the Disney side.

This illustrates a complaint about Harry heard in political insider circles: his politics are driven much more about personal ambition and calculation than philosophy.

Sidhu  has a "free ride" because even if he is is defeated by Walters in June he can still run for re-election to the Anaheim City Council in November.

The wild card in the race is 4th District Supervisor Chris Norby, who has publicly ruminated on the possibility of entering the contest and has yet to rule it out. That said, I doubt he'll run. He's friends with Harry, and it's far more likely Norby will run OC Clerk-Recorder  in when he's termed out 2010 (when current Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly runs for Norby's supervisor seat).

My gut feeling is this race will get ugly. Neither Walters and Sidhu will lack for funds, and since there isn't much daylight between them philosophically, there's an excellent chance the mail will get negative on non-philosophical issues.

Stay tuned...

Comments

[OCNative]

Why does the chart give AD71 numbers instead of SD33 numbers?

Also, Sidhu lost in 2002 and won in 2004 for City Council. He's at the end of his first term, but he can still run for reelection (SD33 Primary in June, Anaheim City Council race in November).

[Jubal]

It was a typo. Fixed. Thanks.

And you're right about the years of Sidhu's elections. Just got a little mixed up. Fixed. Thanks.

[redperegrine]

Norby a Clerk-Recorder? I hadn't head that one. Wouldn't he be happier returning to those halcyon days teaching civics and cheerleading for the Ladycats?

Serously though, you've gotta figure Lewis would be pushing him for the 33rd. He's a natural; thanks to Ackerman the district has been gerrymandered to include most of Fullerton. It also includes other areas of the 4th Supe District as well. Norby also has positive name recognition down south due to the El Toro fracas; plus his new wife used to live down there and may like the idea of moving back to south county.

Are Norby and Harry S. really that friendly?

[Phil Paule]

Duane Dichiara should never under estimated in a race of this type. I am going to support Mimi and believe at the end of the day she will win a hard fought race.

[Phil Pasco]

Norby will be the next Clerk-Recorder and Daly will be the next 4th District Supe, returning a Dem. to the 5th Floor.

Norby guarrantees that he gets the pension he didn't vote for which is better than the Cal-STRS one he slaved for in return for his endorsement of Daly for the 4th Supe seat. Daly reaps the benefit of being one of the very few city council people to endorse Norby against Cynthia Coad. A strategic move that will pay dividends in allowing Daly to move up to the seat he's always coveted, that of his former boss, and former County Dem leader, Ralph Clark.