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As we reported previously, the election for the Board of Supervisors District 2 seat was going to come down to Moorlach vs Foley. Yesterday, Democrat candidate and current Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley won the election.
With about 25% of registered voters participating, Democrat Rappaport secured about 4.46% of the vote, Republican Kevin Muldoon and Republican Michael Vo both took about the same cut vote, with 11.24% and 9.03%, respectively, Republican Moorlach secured about 30.98% of the vote, Democrat Foley walked away with about 44.28%. These numbers are approximate because the votes have not been fully counted yet, but generally speaking, with this many votes counted already, the sample size is large enough for a good representation of the whole and is unlikely to move more than a few points in any direction, at maximum.
Republican insiders tell me that the frustrations at the also-rans runs deep in the party, and has for a while, making future political aspirations from Muldoon and Vo a much more steep battle, as there will be resentment towards them in regards to this race from some of the more influential members of the party, as they are seen as having “spoiled the election” for Moorlach. Misleading political advertisements from both of those candidates proclaiming that they had polling which showed that they were the only chance to beat Foley confused voters and has now created distrust in the candidates from both citizens and with the party insiders.
In reality, if all candidates other than Moorlach and Foley had dropped out and those votes fell within party lines, we would still be left with a race that was simply too close to call.
Congratulations to Mayor Katrina Foley on winning the Supervisor seat. Costa Mesa now has two options to fill her vacancy: they can either appoint a new mayor by a Council vote or they can hold a general election. Given that the Council is the one who gets to decide which way to go, it is very unlikely that they would be willing to give that decision to someone else (like the voters), and we can likely expect an appointment of a new mayor who is already close with the council majority.
