Just 50 days remain until the June 3 elections for three seats on the Orange County Board of Supervisors and, as usual, the campaign money race offers hints about the likely frontrunners.
Based on contribution activity (and personalities), the four-person race to replace termed-out 2nd District Supervisor John Moorlach is the most contentious with candidates having stockpiled more than $662,000 in their war chests.
Here's the cash-on-hand (as of the last disclosure report through mid-March) breakdown for those candidates:
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Michelle Steel, State Board of Equalization member: $507,321
Joe Carchio, Huntington Beach councilman: $72,107
Allan Mansoor, California state Assemblyman: $61,559
Conrad “Jim” Moreno, Coast Community College District trustee: $21,603
Here are similar figures for the 4th District contest:
Shawn Nelson, Incumbent/attorney: $188,190
Rudy Gaona, Hospital employee/National Guard soldier: $0
These are the cash-on-hand numbers for the race to replace termed-out, 5th District Supervisor Pat Bates:
Lisa Bartlett, Businesswoman/mayor: $89,384
Robert Ming, Businessman/councilman: $66,109
Frank Ury, Businessman/councilman/engineer: $26,510
Joe Williams, Deputy District Attorney: $250
First District Supervisor Janet Nguyen is midway through her third term, but could depart if she defeats Jose Solorio for an open Orange County state Senate seat.
There's one person guaranteed to be on the board that spends more than $5 billion annually: Todd Spitzer, who handily won his 3rd District seat in 2012 and decided not to challenge District Attorney Tony Rackauckas this year.
(Attorney Greg Diamond, a member of the Orange County Democratic Party, is opposing the incumbent DA.)
It's possible after the election that Orange County could have its first woman-dominated board of supervisors.
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Email: rs**********@oc******.com. Twitter: @RScottMoxley.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.