Incumbent Larry Agran and Republican candidate Jeff Lalloway have won seats on Irvine City Council, ensuring that the city will keep its 3-2 Democratic majority.
Agran got 23.4 percent of the vote, while Lalloway took 22.6 percent of the vote.
Lalloway will replace termed out Councilwoman Christina Shea, a Republican who for years battled the Democratic majority on issues ranging from transparency and fiscal responsibility at the Great Park to the Irvine Shuttle. Lalloway has said he will continue that tradition of opposition on those issues.
In an interesting twist to the race, Republican candidate Lynn Schott landed in third place, while community services commission chairwoman and Agran ally Shiva Farivar took fourth.
Schott got 20.1 percent of the vote, while Farivar took 18.3 percent.
Schott was the center of a spat in the Orange County Republican Party over a party endorsement, which she lost by one vote.
Schott and the party later reconciled, but soon after she and her supporters felt snubbed when mailers were sent out saying Lalloway was the only GOP-endorsed candidate.
Shea fired Lalloway from his post on the finance commission and cited the mailers as the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”