It was like a wake for the aunt no person actually favored. Not lots of people confirmed up. Those who did had been a bit bitter and surly. And the attendants appeared suspicious, as if you happen to had been there to steal the rings off her fingers or one thing.
Main Election Day arrived with extra of a growl than a bang on Tuesday as we explored the zeitgeist on the polar reverse ends of O.C.’s political spectrum.
“I really feel, these days, it’s all false guarantees,” mentioned Salvador Romero of Santa Ana, who voted by mail however strolled by the Salgado Recreation Heart’s polling place Tuesday to absorb the scene. “All people has concepts about find out how to make every little thing higher. However have a look at every little thing. It’s loopy!”
Politically talking, Santa Ana, we’ll remind you, is brilliant blue, with 70,230 registered Democrats (49.9% of all registered voters) and simply 28,081 registered Republicans (19.9%). No-party desire people properly outnumber Republicans right here, with 34,386 (24.4% of the overall).
However the vibe, or lack of it, was a lot the identical in Huntington Seaside, the place MAGA passions run excessive.
“I used to be contemplating not voting,” mentioned Lisa Halford as she led her cute canine Clover from the artwork deco/artwork moderne Metropolis Gymnasium & Pool after dropping off her poll. “I lastly took the time to do it final night time. There’s no pleasure.”
Surf Metropolis, for the document, is among the many county’s reddest, politically talking, with 56,367 registered Republicans (41.4% of all its registered voters); 41,156 registered Democrats (30.2%); and 28,400 (20.9%) no-party desire. Newport Seaside has extra registered Republicans as a % of all registered voters (47.6%), as does Villa Park (51.2%), however each cities are a lot quieter about it.
Orange County, in the meantime, is a purple swirl: Democrats retain a big edge, with some 695,000 registrations (36.4%), in contrast with Republicans’ 645,000 (33.8%). And the county’s no-party desire voters, 447,000 (23.4%), can decide winners and losers.
Porterville
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UC Irvine graduate scholar Romeo Ignacio, 27, leaves the campus polling place with an “I Voted” sticker and a smile on Election Day, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (Picture by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
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UC Irvine graduate scholar Romeo Ignacio, 27, leaves the campus polling place with an “I Voted” sticker and a smile on Election Day, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (Picture by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Let’s be actual, although. This major election, regardless of meh turnout, will decide who makes the November poll to steer the most important state within the nation and the fourth-largest financial system on the planet. So a polling place that may exert extra political energy than you’d anticipate might be at UC Irvine, near the place UCI legislation professor and gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter lives.
Katie Porter! Orange County’s personal! We’ve by no means had a viable gubernatorial candidate earlier than. So, as we headed near the voting heart close to her College Hills house, we had been psyched to really feel some electrical energy.
And, certainly, there have been extra individuals streaming out and in than we’d seen elsewhere. However sadly, we had been chased away by a ballot employee who apparently didn’t get the memo that the Fourth Property has the authorized proper to be inside polling locations (and to take pictures, so long as we don’t present poll element or discuss to voters contained in the vote heart).
We requested ballot employees in the event that they’d seen Porter, however solely bought some lengthy, stern appears. Seems Porter voted over the weekend, in Newport Seaside, which has a pleasant ironic ring to it, no? (Irvine, by the way, is much bluer, with registration working 39.1% Democrat, 25.5% Republican and 30.2% no-party desire, based on county information.)
“It’s so essential that everybody makes their voice heard earlier than polls shut,” mentioned an election-eve missive from Porter. “That’s the one method we’ll cease the particular pursuits who bought California into this mess from shopping for their most well-liked candidate into workplace. … This race has been flooded with Huge Oil cash, particular pursuits spending, and a billionaire’s private fortune. However no amount of money can silence the voices of Californians able to make a distinction for working households.”
All quiet
There are two the explanation why polling locations had been so quiet Tuesday, and maybe why some ballot employees had been so glum.
One is poor turnout. About 28% of the county’s 1.9 million registered voters had forged ballots by noon Tuesday, based on the Orange County Registrar of Voters. That’s truly thought of good for a major, which tells you the way low our participation expectations have grow to be.
The opposite is the recognition of voting by mail. Some 86% of all votes forged so far have been by mail, based on the registrar.
By the best way, Orange County Republicans clearly don’t purchase the evils-of-voting-by-mail factor. The information posted Election Day by the county reveals greater than 188,000 GOP mail-in returns versus greater than 169,000 Democratic ballots.
“This election cycle, we’ve pressured the significance of voting early — and Orange County Republicans have responded in a giant method,” the O.C. Republican social gathering mentioned in a cheerful pre-Election Day publication. “Because of your efforts, we’ve seen historic turnout and large momentum heading into the ultimate days of the Main Election. However the work isn’t completed. Hundreds of Republican voters have but to forged their ballots, and people votes might make all of the distinction on Election Day.”
It invited people to make calls to evoke the trustworthy to the voting cubicles, promising doughnuts and low within the morning and pizza at lunch.
Apocalypse, now?
Democracy has gotten actually bizarre. Flaccid Voting Rights Act? Weird mid-Census-cycle redistricting? The top of the world as we all know it?
“We’re a bit polarized,” mentioned Romeo Ignacio, a graduate economics scholar at UCI with a present for understatement, after casting his poll. “Within the second, it feels terrible. However in the long run, the methods are in place.”
Halford of Huntington Seaside agreed.
“I feel we’re going to survive,” she mentioned. “There will likely be bumps alongside the best way. It’s what it’s. What are you able to do? Simply deal with individuals kindly and get on with it.”
On this Election Day, it would assist to do not forget that we aren’t the primary to really feel a bit despondent.
“Maybe you and I’ve lived too lengthy with this miracle to correctly be appreciative,” California Gov. Ronald Reagan said at his inauguration back in 1967. “Freedom is a fragile factor, and it’s by no means a couple of era away from extinction. It isn’t ours by means of inheritance; it have to be fought for and defended consistently, by every era, for it comes solely as soon as to a individuals. And people in world historical past who’ve recognized freedom after which misplaced it have by no means recognized it once more.”
OK, maybe that makes me much more nervous. Overlook I discussed it.
