Supervisor Katrina Foley is narrowly losing to a challenger for her seat as of Thursday night, opening questions over whether she might lose the seat without a runoff election.
As of Thursday night, Republican Assemblywoman Diane Dixon held 48% of the vote to Foley’s nearly 46%, who’s endorsed by the Democratic Party.
While Foley was leading Dixon in early returns on Election Night, Dixon overtook her late in the evening, with Wednesday and Thursday’s update only slightly narrowing the gap between the two.
They’re running to represent the county’s Fifth District, which covers large chunks of South Orange County and the coast and has a 5% Republican voter registration advantage.
If either candidate claims 50% of the vote, they can win the seat outright and won’t move onto a runoff election in November.
Foley has held the seat since 2022, and if she loses the seat to Dixon it would give Republicans a majority on the board for the first time in four years.
It comes after Foley claimed that she had the election in the bag before a single vote was counted.
“I will look forward to when the election is over,” Foley said at the supervisors’ May 19 meeting. “The reality is, I’m for sure winning the primary, it’s a matter of whether we win outright or move onto the general.”
Foley’s campaign also received a significant boost with advertisements paid for by the Orange County Association of Deputy Sheriffs, Orange County Professional Firefighters Association and the Orange County Employees Association, which spent a combined $812,000 supporting her.
Dixon’s campaign received its biggest outside support from the Lincoln Club, a group of conservative donors, which spent $44,000 advertising Dixon and over $306,000 attacking Foley’s candidacy.
The Lincoln Club also spent $18,000 advertising Lucy Vellema, an educator who’s currently holding less than 6% of the vote.
Foley’s race is the last of the supervisor seats that remain competitive.
Democratic Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento is on track to win reelection with over 62% of the vote, meaning he won’t face a runoff election in November.
Democratic Buena Park Mayor Connor Traut and Republican OC Board of Education Trustee Tim Shaw are set to face one another in a runoff for the county’s Fourth District, which covers northern cities like Fullerton and Anaheim.
Doug Chaffee, who currently represents that district, is termed out.
It’s unclear how many ballots are left to count, with the county registrar’s website noting that as of Wednesday they had around 270,000 ballots remaining.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.
