Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento was on track to be overwhelmingly re-elected to a second term on Tuesday night’s primary, capturing nearly 63% of the ballots cast on Tuesday. 

Yet that’s as good as it gets for Orange County Democrats when it comes to local offices, with Republicans pulling ahead as top vote getters by the end of the night in the other two key contested county supervisors’ races, which both now extend out to November. 

Democrats have held tenuously onto a tight, unsteady 3-2 majority on the county board of supervisors in recent years – mainly fueled by bad relations among Democratic county supervisors.

Yet with Republicans pulling ahead in two key supervisors’ elections on Wednesday morning, there’s a possibility of a massive shift on the county board in November – potentially shifting to a 4-1 Republican majority. 

With an expensive independent mail campaign on behalf of incumbent Democratic County Supervisor Katrina Foley, funded by law enforcement and general unions, there were expectations that Foley might win the Fifth District supervisors’ election outright in June with so much mail. 

[Read: Campaign Spending Heats Up in OC Board of Supervisors Races]

Yet Republican Assemblywoman Diane Dixon – buoyed by an independent mail campaign financed by the GOP Lincoln Club  along with a voter registration advantage in the district that she focused her outreach efforts on – actually came out on top on Tuesday night with 49% of the vote to Foley’s 45%. 

As of roughly 12:30 a.m Wednesday morning, there were roughly 122,000 ballots tallied in Fifth District.  

Dixon and Foley can now expect an extended six-month campaign debate on the issues facing South County – unless a candidate gets over 50% of the final count, which means they when the race outright.  

Up in North County, La Habra’s longtime Republican City Councilman – Tim Shaw – pulled ahead with about 34% of the roughly 77,000 votes tallied.

Buena Park Mayor and Democrat Connor Traut, trailed with just over 30% of the vote in a race that included Fullerton Mayor Fred Jung. 

[Read: Election Night: Who’s On Track to Be the Next Orange County Supervisor?]

Shaw and Traut will likely face off in November over the issues facing the Fourth District. 

In a strong voter rebuke to the incumbent majority on the Orange County Board of Supervisors, just over 73% of countywide voters overwhelmingly chose to return incumbent Treasurer/Tax Collector Shari Friendenrich back to office – despite the majority of supervisors (including both Republicans on the panel) opting to strip Friendenrich of her investment powers. 

[Read: Santana: Who Should Be Managing OC’s $16 Billion Investment Pool?] 

Friendenrich faced off against her former deputy, Dana Schultz, who wasn’t able to muster more than 27% of the vote. 

Going forward, Friedenrich doesn’t have to worry about re-election but she does face an acute governing crisis – having lost 17 staffers from county supervisors’ reorganization of her office and losing investment powers – something she recently called illegal at the last county Investment Oversight Committee. 

Meanwhile, Republican incumbents overwhelmingly held onto a series of countywide elected seats on Tuesday including County Auditor Controller Andrew Hamilton, Assessor Claude Parish, Clerk Recorder Hugh Nguyen and County Education Board member Lisa Sparks. 

For the most part, Orange County’s congressional delegation remains largely Democratic – with freshman Rep. Derek Tran seemingly solidified his hold on his seat on Tuesday, winning 47.6% of the vote in a field of six candidates. 

Yet in the wake of the new congressional districts forged by Prop 50, two incumbent members of Congress – Rep. Young Kim and Rep. Ken Calvert – slammed each other hard during the primary with each candidate questioning the other’s MAGA credentials for the contested seat, which essentially combined Calvert and Kim’s former districts. 

[Read: 2026 Primary Election Night Results: 40th Congressional District]

On Tuesday night, Calvert came out on top, getting the nod from 29.5% of voters to Kim’s 27.5% of the ballots cast. 

Yet as they move into the general election, it will be interesting to see what shade of Red that seat takes on.