The race to determine who will represent much of Orange County’s coast is still too close to call on Thursday evening, with narrow races for state senate, assembly and city council on the ballots.
As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Democrat challenger Chris Duncan was in the lead for the 36th State Senate District with just over 50% of the vote, with incumbent Republican Senator Tony Strickland behind by around 3,700 votes.
In the 72nd Assembly District, which also covers much of that same area along the coast, Republican Huntington Beach Councilwoman Gracey Van Der Mark was in the lead with 50.4% of the vote, just over 1,600 votes ahead of her opponent Democrat Chris Kluwe.
In the race for Huntington Beach City Council, Republican incumbents Mayor Casey McKeon and Councilmembers Andrew Gruel and Pat Burns were on track to hang onto their seats, with Democrat challenger Ben Davis also on track to pick up a seat on the city council.
Erin Spivey, another Democrat challenger, was just 50 votes behind Davis as of Thursday.
In the past, most of these races have been handily won by Republican candidates, in some cases winning by margins of over 20%, but this year they’re much tighter.
Mike Moodian, a professor of political science at Chapman University, said that while it’s still too close to call most of those races, just the fact they’re this close is unusual.
“It’s just showing this blue tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, whatever you want to call it has also taken place right here in Orange County,” Moodian said in a Thursday interview. “These usually are races that’re reliably red just because of the makeup of the district, but some of these candidates are in for a fight right now, and the margins are very thin.”
