Preamble
In Orange County, municipal elections for each of the 32 independent cities which comprise it are held without primaries, taking place instead at the November general election. This frequently leads to city councillors elected without majorities and confusing final ballots with unserious candidates. Not so for the county’s executive offices however. These competitions, though officially nonpartisan, are powerful races which can determine the expenditure of the county’s nearly $11 billion budget on things like transit, policing, infrastructure, etc. and the compliance of the county (and its many incorporated entities) with state and local law. Unfortunately, the OC Democratic Party has left nearly the entire OC executive uncontested to “nonpartisan” candidates endorsed by Republicans: Assessor, District Attorney, Auditor-Controller, Clerk-Recorder, Treasurer-Tax Collector, Superintendent of Schools, and the entire Board of Education. Nonpartisan incumbency bias for huge countywide races is obviously a huge hurdle, but in a voting environment like the current one—it feels like a missed opportunity to not contest these seats.
That said: the most important countywide body, the OC Board of Supervisors, is a site of active political contestation. This cycle, three of five seats are up for election in districts 2, 4, and 5. Given their nonpartisan listings and their priority for local organized labor, this voter guide offers a brief analysis of each race and offers voting recommendations (as our chapter has done for years). These races are also all painted against the backdrop of the multi-million dollar bribery scandal which sent former supervisor Andrew Do to federal prison last year: so now, you may notice, every questionnaire and candidate is focused on “transparency” and “accountability.” Additionally, they are also all shaped by the county’s new purple politics and the thin margins it takes to win these districts after the 2023 map redraw. The result? Candidates who may be clearly progressive on some issues, but so much not on others (particularly with respect to “safety”). This is a county of contradiction, if nothing else: you may need to make your own calls here, voter.
To be extremely clear: the listings in this guide are not endorsements. Endorsements require engagement in our endorsement process (including a vote of the membership). This process is required to approve the commitment of our chapter’s time and resources to winning those campaigns. Recommendations cannot and, necessarily, do not commit our chapter’s resources to campaigns. None of the candidates discussed below are socialists or DSA members and none of them align entirely with DSA’s program (broadly speaking). However, in the spirit of wanting to improve our organizing conditions on the ground and bettering our collective engagement with politics in Orange County, what follows are our brief analyses.
In solidarity,
OC DSA Electoral Politics Committee
For state and federal races, please refer to the California DSA voter guide!
OC Board of Supervisors
Supervisor, District 2: Vicente Sarmiento
The Second Supervisorial District encompasses all of Santa Ana, the heart of Orange, a chunk of Anaheim, and slivers of Tustin and Garden Grove. Backed by the growing Orange County Working Families Party cohort, as well as OC organized labor, Vicente Sarmiento is running for re-election as part of a three pronged strategy to solidify the pro-labor Democratic supervisorial majority. Sarmiento is almost certain to retain his seat: his Republican opponent James Wallace’s list of backers (and website) are half-baked. In office, Sarmiento voted against a raise for OC Sherriffs’ in 2023 and worked to end Santa Ana’s contract with ICE—making him the most DSA-aligned candidate of the crop this cycle. We recommend voting for Vicente Sarmiento for Supervisorial District 2.
Supervisor, District 4: No recommendation
The open seat on the list is the Fourth Supervisorial District—spanning most of OC’s northern cities: La Habra, Brea, Placenta, Fullerton, Buena Park, Stanton, and a swath of Anaheim. The main attraction here is Connor Traut: a young, fairly traditional Democrat running to replace ConservaDem Doug Chaffee’s seat. Chaffee, on his way out, even backed outgoing MAGA Republican assemblymember Diane Dixon in her race to reclaim Supervisorial District 5 for the Republicans.Traut’s is running on non-objectionable renewable energy, and he’s the most pro-union candidate here and is backed by labor as a result. Unfortunately he’s also running on his track record of supporting hiring more police during his time in Buena Park. Perennial candidate and former mayor of La Habra Rose Espinoza is running with little-to-no platform. Fred Jung, registered as no party preference but backed by the Republican Lincoln Club, is running on “smart policing” and “enforcing the law” on the houseless. The Republican-endorsed candidate, OC Board of Education Trustee Tim Shaw, is running his campaign back after being narrowly defeated by Chaffee for this seat in 2018. Shaw’s endorsement page (the only one outside of Traut’s) is a real murderer’s row. Traut is the only real option to cast a ballot for here, but (like Katrina Foley) he’s not where he needs to be on policing for us to fully recommend. No recommendation.
Supervisor, District 5: No recommendation
Running down the county’s southern coast from Costa Mesa to Laguna to San Clemente (diagonally bisecting Irvine along the way), Orange County’s Fifth Supervisorial District is probably the hottest race of the bunch. Incumbent Katrina Foley flipped this Republican-leaning district for the Democrats in 2022—since then she’s been engaging in ultra-pragmatic politics, and has become a strong ally to labor in OC. A skilled administrator, Foley has been a fairly progressive supervisor, from developing a climate action plan for the district to being an ardent supporter of LGBTQ rights; but has also consistently advocated for directing more money to policing across her tenure in government, which she touts on her campaign page, and has received some heat from environmental activist groups for herbicide spraying in D5’s waterways. Foley also supported the disbanding of the UCI Palestine encampment in 2024, in a strangely (but typically, for Foley) depoliticized statement which didn’t describe any of the content or context of the protest—but advocated its dispersal nonetheless. Her only serious opponent is Diane Dixon, the outgoing Republican assemblywoman for the 72nd district who is vacating her statehouse perch specifically to unseat Foley. She’s anti-union, anti-environmental regulation, anti-minimum wage increases, opposed Prop 6, etc. There’s technically a third candidate on the ballot as well, Lucy Vellema, who is potentially more law and order than even Dixon: “The [Board of Supervisors] should direct the FBI, DOJ and the DAs office to enforce the law!” It’s a tight race, and Foley is the best choice, but like with Traut her support for (and from) police and policing means we can’t fully recommend her. No recommendation.