Irvine Election Predictions

Larry Agran should be worried, but is likely to  pull through.

We don’t have our own polls here at OJ, so I will build these predictions using past election outcomes and counts of hit mailers from the two campaigns that can afford polls.

Mayor

The same three candidates are running the last election, with Mary Ann Gaido  as a stand-in for Larry Agran. Mary has done no fundraising on her own, and she under-performed her slate by 4% the last time she ran in 2006. She’s not tainted by the Great Park, so expect her to hold Larry’s “base.”  Katherine Daigle  has only been the subject of only three hit mailers, one of which was cloned from this blog (picture and all), so the Choi camp doesn’t seem too worried about Daigle.   The straight-forward prediction is a reprise of the 2012 results:

City Council

Since Irvine City Council incumbents never lose to non-incumbents, the easy prediction is the Jeff Lalloway and Larry Agran will return to the dais.  But this may race may be an exception.

The closest analog to this race is the 2010 race when the top four in a field of seven were:

That past result also suggests that Agran and Lalloway will be returned. Notably, Lynn Schott also lagged her slate-mate by 4% in 2012. Given the lack of hit mailers against Schott in my mail box, the Agran camp is apparently confident Lynn will come up short for the third election in a row.

So that settles it, right?  Maybe not. Several things have changed since 2010. First, Melissa Fox is a much stronger candidate than Shiva Farivar was. Second, the 2010 Agran slate had substantial developer support, which this year has completely sided with Lalloway and Choi.  Also, the strength of the slates is quite different this year.  In 2010 Lalloway ran with a weak Mayoral candidate while Agran ran with Sukhee Kang, who tallied 64% of the vote. This year Lalloway is running with the almost-certain-to-win Choi, while Agran is running with the placeholder Gaido.  Lastly, I doubt Agran’s negatives have gone down since 2010.

Taken together, these trends suggests that Lalloway will run stronger, Agran weaker, and Fox much stronger than those 2010 results.

I have a hard time believing that Agran can overcome this many headwinds to beat Lalloway. So I am comfortable predicting that Lalloway won’t be third.  But who will join Lalloway on the dais?  That is a much tougher call.     Agran’s “base” here in Irvine has the same problem as the Republican “base” nationwide: it’s “aging out.” If you were at the last city council meeting, you know what I mean.

My prediction is that Larry Agran is favored  to hold his seat, but should be worried about losing his seat to Melissa Fox rather than Lynn Schott.

(note: the numbers don’t add to 200% because some Irvine voters only vote for one candidate)

School Board

This is one of those races that restores your faith in Democracy. Bob Vu is challenging incumbents Sharon Wallin and Ira Glasky. The race has been run on the issues, in particular how to best navigate state funding and how to plan for the sixth high school. There has been no mud, and little partisanship, even though different school board members are endorsing different slates for city council.

So of course we’ve all ignored the race. Wallin and Glasky will hold their seats with ease.

Now that I’ve stuck my neck out, what predictions are you will to make about today’s elections?