We’re confused.
That’s the only clear message I took away as I sorted through the (still unfinished) results of last week’s midterms.
Sure, much of the country just held a primal scream-style election, redrawing political maps on the fly with wild voting swerves and U-turns and shockers. Places like Kansas, Mississippi and Texas traded crimson-red political identities for something closer to Papa Smurf blue.
Is that a sign of confusion? Maybe. But it also seems to speak to widespread frustration with MAGA-era politics and $9-a-pound hamburger.
Still, even as political drama unfolded around the country, voters in Orange County seemed intent on making several different, and often conflicting, political statements.
For example, we absolutely, positively hate taxes – except when we don’t.
Consider: The latest ballot counts released Friday by the Orange County Registrar of Voters show locals are against Prop 3 and in favor of Prop 43.
The one we don’t seem to like, Prop 3, (the vote count is close enough that results could shift over the next week), would simply keep taxing high incomes earned in California to help pay for education and healthcare.
The one we do like, Prop 43, would amend the state constitution to make it harder for voters in cities to raise future taxes. (As an aside, I find it almost charmingly arrogant when voters go to the ballot to limit the rights of other voters. I know because I’ve probably done it myself.)
Anyway, in both cases, voters in OC were saying taxes stink. And, in both cases, it happens we were overturned by voters around the state, as Prop 3 is passing and Prop 43 is failing.
But here’s where it gets weird: While we were voting against the idea of taxes, we also were voting in favor of new state bonds (Props 1 and 38), and local school bonds (in Laguna Beach and Westminster) and local hotel taxes (in Los Alamitos and Orange).
It’s all muddled, but it’s in keeping with the confusing (and, for many, exhilarating) tone of last week. It also proved only one thing when it comes to politics:
Nobody. Knows. Anything.
Bluenami, meet Surf City
Except, maybe, this: MAGA still has much of Florida, and possibly Huntington Beach.
In Florida, Republicans beat back Democrats challenging for governor and a Senate seat. The state’s congressional delegation also remains GOP-centric, though Democrats appear to have held some seats that were redrawn with a goal of making them easy wins for Republicans.
In Huntington Beach, MAGA politics might be making a similar rear-guard defense.
Wait, you say it’s too early to believe that. And I feel you. Lots of local ballots haven’t been counted; the slate of self-described progressives running against some self-described MAGA-friendly candidates still might win multiple seats on Surf City’s city council.
But that’s not how it seemed at the end of the day Friday. That tally shows MAGA-friendly candidates ahead in three of four open slots. And even if the results change when the final ballots are counted, and progressives wind up with a strong voice at City Hall, the final numbers are all but certain to be razor-close.
And in the context of this midterm, close is actually a little weird.
Voters nationally shifted hard – by about 13 points – toward Democrats, at least when compared with how they voted in the 2024 election. The electoral shift, nationally, has put MAGA politics in a timeout or, perhaps, on life support.
But in Huntington Beach – in the ostensibly non-partisan but, you know, actually super partisan race for city leadership – plenty of voters continue to embrace MAGA politics.
After every vote is counted, Huntington Beach might turn out to be redder than Texas.
Tiny?
The midterm also showed this: District-style municipal elections are either crazy, or gloriously democratic, or both.
Consider: As of Friday evening, Helen Le led Bonnie Peat by 12 votes, 963 to 951, in the quest to represent the mighty District 1 neighborhood on the Cypress City Council.
It was no fluke. In Costa Mesa’s District 3, Daniel Morgan led Cara Stewart by 36 votes, 2,439 to 2,403. In District 4, in Lake Forest, Amy Stevens was ahead of Shari M. Rhodes by 52 votes, 2,760 to 2,708. And in Aliso Viejo’s District 3, the difference was 60 votes; with Marie Tsaasan ahead of Garrett Dwyer, 1,188 to 1,128.
All those numbers figure to change, maybe several times, as ballots are tallied over the next few days. But know this: In every one of those districts – and dozens of other fun-sized voting worlds in Orange County – the pool of voters is so small that infinitesimal shifts can change city leadership.
In fact, if current trendlines hold, you could lose a couple fingers to a table saw, and maybe some toes to flesh-eating bacteria, and still use your hands and toes to count up the number of voters who will set the future of Cypress, if not Aliso Viejo or Costa Mesa or Lake Forest.
Is that – and by “that” I mean tiny voting districts, not gruesome stuff that takes out your digits – a good thing?
In some ways, sure.
Super close results in super small districts give tangible proof to the phrase “every vote counts.” Small-ball elections also tend to make democracy personal. If you voted in an election that came down to three or four ballots, or even 300, you couldn’t really claim you didn’t get a say.
The concept of tiny districts even seems to achieve at least some of what was intended when dozens of California cities (usually under threat of litigation) adopted it – giving political power to neighborhoods that historically have been denied it because of race or money or both.
I love all of that.
But micro-electioneering also has some drawbacks.
Any candidate (and, to be clear, we’re not suggesting anybody mentioned above has done anything like this) could win a race by giving out a few Rams tickets or even some coupons for large-ish soy lattes. In elections of any size, of course, there’s a risk of grift. But it’s tougher to sniff out and expose shenanigans when they involve only a few people.
Also, the current midterm shows that tiny districts can lead to something worse than flimsy elections: no-choice elections.
In several local voting areas – District 4 in Newport Beach, District 5 in Mission Viejo, Districts 2 and 6 in Anaheim – voters had few options because candidates for those seats ran unopposed.
This level of apathy is shameful, to be honest. Few Orange County communities are tiny when compared with towns in much of the country. So, if nothing else, our sheer numbers suggest there’s more than one person in each of those districts qualified to represent their neighborhood at City Hall.
And Anaheim, with a population of 341,008, is the 57th biggest city in the United States. But even there, it seems, a voting district can be shrunk down so much that few people know or seem to care about it.
If we don’t participate in democracy, how can we expect to keep it?
For what it’s worth, 26 of Orange County’s 34 incorporated cities currently use some kind of district system to determine their council races.
Rising tide lifts all … wait, what?
Orange County’s coast – the local perk that makes the county a tourist draw and a great place to live and surf and generally hang out – is sliding into the sea. For real.
It’s as if an ancient Johnny Carson joke (youngsters, Carson was a funny guy who appeared on TV a lot in the last century and sometimes poked fun about the idea of California falling into the Pacific) came to life.
San Clemente, Laguna Beach, Balboa Island, Seal Beach; they’ve all recently seen water damage, in some way, as the ocean rises higher than previously believed possible and eats up everything between the former high-tide line and the nearby buildings and roads.
And all of that soon could be a big political deal, locally.
Last week, voters in San Clemente rejected a 1% sales tax to offset expenses connected to global warming – sand replenishment and fire damage.
There might be great reasons to reject that tax; I’m not questioning the wisdom of the vote. I’m also not saying San Clemente residents should get ready to write checks if (when) fire wipes out something valuable, or their stretch of beach washes out (again) into the sea. Lots of people in lots of cities are going to make similar decisions, maybe in the belief that global warming isn’t real or, perhaps, believing that federal taxpayers (i.e., the rest of us) will help them when the time comes. San Clemente taxpayers have certainly done their share, for others, when that was needed.
But however you feel about that particular tax, or that particular pitch, don’t fool yourself into thinking it was a one-off or the last of its kind.
Taxes to pay for global warming-related stuff, like beach erosion and fire damage and, soon enough, for city renovations if not full-blown relocations, figure to become common.
As if on cue, the issue played out, in real time, while the midterm took place.
Last month, as San Clemente voters were rejecting the sales tax, the ocean was eating their local beaches, wiping out parts of Laguna Beach, and surging into living rooms and other buildings on Balboa Island. On the island, in particular, the surge damaged some of the priciest real estate in the country.
Whatever your political views, that’s tragic.
It’s also likely to put pressure, perhaps in the near future, on politicians of all stripes and both major political parties.
For example, the current official platform of the Republican Party, a 16-page document, does not say anything about global warming or recognize its connection to human activities. It does push for more oil drilling and development of carbon re
Politically, that worked in the 2024 cycle. And it might continue to work in the future, nationally.
But it soon might be a slightly tougher sell, even in – or, maybe, especially in – Balboa Island. The traditional Republican stronghold – a place where a lot of residents write pretty big checks for GOP candidates and causes – might remember the water in their living room and find the party’s stance on global warming tough to swallow.
Conversely, the Democratic Party officially rejects the future use of nuclear power. I’m not saying that’s wrong, per se, but it’ll be tough to woo former GOP donors, or young people who don’t have a knee-jerk rejection of all things nuclear, if the party is steadfastly against a possible partial solution that those donors might support.
My point is that the environment soon could be important, politically. Yeah, I know; lefties have been saying that for years. And it’s always been bait and switch. Democrats have believed – naively, perhaps – that voters of all stripes soon will agree with them that the world is melting and that a melting world is a fairly important issue, politically.
That’s been a mirage, of course; impossible, never, ever going to happen.
Sort of like Texas – or maybe Balboa Island – turning blue.
