AD60: By The Numbers

Time for another by-the-numbers post (we've already done AD71 and SD33), and this time the subject is the 60th Assembly District. More specifically, the Republican primary, since it is immaterial who the other partisan nominees in the seat are.

AD60 is 54% Republican and 26% Democratic with a sprinkling of 92 Natural Law Party voters (who are those people?) and the usual proportions of Libertarians, etc. It is presently represented by Bob Huff, who is eligible for one more term but is running for the 29th Senate District seat being vacated by termed-out GOP Senator Bob Margett.

OC Voters Dominates District
AD 60 straddles Orange, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties and includes all or portions of Chino Hills, Diamond Bar, Anaheim, La Mirada, Orange, La Habra, Yorba Linda, Walnut, Whittier, Villa Park, La Habra Heights, San Dimas, and the fabulous City of Industry.

There are 105,763 GOP voters distributed as follows across the district:

County                                     GOP Voters                Percentage of District GOPers
Orange County:                         54,866                       51.9%    
Los Angeles County:                  35,804                       33.8%
San Bernardino County:             15,093                       14.3%

Here's what the county-by-county distribution looks when broken down by number of permanent absentee voters (30,087:

County                                     GOP Voters                Percentage of District GOPers
Orange County:                         18,234                         60.6%    
Los Angeles County:                   6,831                          22.7%
San Bernardino County:              5,022                          16.7%

Permanent Absentee Voters Will Dominate June Primary
As you can see, Orange County voters dominate the district -- a dominance that is even more pronounced in terms of permanent absentee voters (PAVs).

The latter is especially important in terms of the June primary. A consequence of creating a stand-alone presidential primary in February is there won't be any statewide races the June ballot to generate voter excitement and drive turn-out. It will all be local elections. That means low turn-out.

PAV are already a huge voter bloc. Just under half the ballots cast in the November 2006 election were absentees. The percentage of voters going PAV has grown every year, so it's safe to say a majority of the votes cast in AD60 in June will be from PAVs.

In fact, given the low turn-out environment, the AD60 contest may well be over before a single Election Day voter casts his or her ballot.

The Candidates
There are two candidates for the GOP nomination in the 60th Assembly District: Larry Dick and Curt Hagman.

Larry Dick is a member of the Board of Directors of the Municipal Water District of Orange County, as well as a director of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Larry was born in Mexico -- Missouri, that is -- and he and his charming wife Sally live in the beautiful City of Orange. Larry has been a universally liked fixture of the OC GOP for many years, and has garnered a boat-load of endorsements from Orange County electeds. [In the interest of full disclosure, now is a good time to mention I enthusiastically support Larry in this race].

Larry's campaign team consists of Joe Justin as general consultant and strategist and Barrett Tetlow as campaign manager. Larry's lovely daughter Jane handles district fund-raising and veteran Wendy Warfield is in charge of Sacramento fund-raising.

Curt Hagman was elected to the Chino Hills City Council in 2004 and is presently the mayor pro tem of that fine town. I haven't met Curt yet, so I don't know very much about him other than he runs a bail bond business and has a lovely family.

Hagman's campaign team consists of general consultant/strategist Jim Nygren, strategist Mike Richman and campaign manager Saulo Londono. Veteran fund-raising Diane Stone is leading the money-tree shaking.

Strengths & Weakenesses
Both candidates have assembled excellent campaign teams, and both have their stengths and weaknesses.

Given the dominance of Orange County voters, Larry Dick has the obvious advantage of being the OC candidate. If he can communicate that effectively to OC voters and leverage his endorsements and county pride, it stands him in good position.

But communicating with voters costs money, and campaign cash is Curt Hagman's area of strength.  In the first six months of 2007, Hagman raised $310,000 to Larry Dick's $188,000, with cash-on-hand of $334,000 to Larry's $166,000.

Obviously, those numbers will be different as we approach the filing of the end-of-the-year reports, but I wouldn't be surprise if Hagman passes the half-million mark.

I think the winning candidate is the one who does the better job of contacting and winning the support of PAVs. As I mentioned, given the that the great majority of them are OCers, Larry Dick should have an advantage if he has sufficient money to leverage his OC status and OC endorsements. Absentee voting begins in early April, and communicating with a large universe of voters over the course of two months is expensive.

Hagman will clearly have the money to run a strong absentee program, and he has a campaign team experienced at running such a program (that's how Nygren/Lanza/Londono came within a hair of beating Lou Correa for Senate as Daucher's campaign team).

Stay tuned.

Comments

[Random GOPer]

Looking at those numbers and the endorsements Larry has garnered, it would be a huge upset if Hagman steals this one. Tetlow and Co. should run away with this if they know what they're doing.

[Long Time Politico]

I would agree with the above statement if Larry proved capable of raising $$, which he hasn't.

If Curt's campaign breaks a half a million like Jubal said, Larry is toast.

[OC Native]

I assume their ballot designations will read "Director, Municipal Water District of Orange County" and "Chino Hills Councilman" (or something along that line). Seeing "Orange County" and "Chino Hills" on their ballots, voters will vote for their home candidate.

[High Horse]

You OCers need to get off your high horse about living in OC. Voters don't care.

If they did, Bill MacAloney would be the Assemblyman today. Not only was he the only OC candidate during his race, but he competed against TWO candidates from LA.

Voters care about issues and biographies, not geography.

[d'Anconia]

If voters in this district cared that much about where their candidate lives/works Bob Huff wouldn't have won his race in '04; a year in which voter registration for this district was even more lopsided towards Orange County.

Although geography matters in local races(supervisor, city council, etc), all bets are off in state/federal races.

With that said, I agree with LTP. Money will be the ultimate decider on this race as well as AD71.

[Been Around]

The "home candidate" theory has been proven wrong time and time again. It's a losers strategy. This race will come down to 2 unanswered questions: 1.Can Hagman overcome being a bail bondsman (it will not be easy) and, 2 Can Dick demonstrate the energy and drive needed to be a winning candidate. So far, Dick's campaign has not impressed, but there is still time.

[endorsements?]

http://www.hagmanforassembly.com/endorse.asp

curt's apparently been working the two other counties pretty hard. walnut, diamond bar, la mirada, san dimas, even yorba linda.

[Who is Larry Dick Anyways?]

I would pick money over endorsements any day. Unless those endorsement can be translated into cash which in Dick's case he is a little short. Hagman by far has a better camp. Jim Nygren, Mike Richman and Diane Stone are legendary. The money favors Hagman and in a low turn out campaign that all you need.

[Mike..Dont You Have Anything Better To Do?]

Nygren is great.

Diane Stone is a pro.

I don't think either would consider themselves legendary.

Mike Richman barely can drink legally.

Mike, I think you need to have a few more birthdays and win a few more contested races before you start calling yourself legendary.