This part ends up being good news for the GOP, if you call an expected loss of 0-1 Seats Net in the Assembly, good news. I had previously thought the loss was going to be 3-4. Here is how it changed:

Bye Tyler.

AD-01 Megan Dahle, despite having a challenger with $500K he burnt through she ended up with around 51% of the vote. She will hammer the dem by 17-20% in the fall. This primary challenge unlike AD72 and AD73, did not have any legitimate basus. It also featured some fringe elements and rogue staffers with personal grudges – the typical stuff you see in an unfounded primary challenge.

AD-03 James Gallagher. Despite this district slipping to R+4, Gallagher got 65% of the vote. This tells me two things, Gallagher is popular and many of the NPP in that district are refuseniks because of Republicans like Arnold and Meg.

AD-05 Frank Bigelow – he drew no opponent.

AD-06 Kevin Kiley 58% of the vote. Despite this district being safe, Kiley under-performed some of his other colleagues in similar districts. AD-06 is 13% to the good for the GOP in registration similar to AD-34 where Vince Fong went over 70%

AD-12 Heath Flora 63.5% of the vote. Flora’s District is also sliding in registration like AD-03 but again Flora is active in his district and has a contingent of NPP similar to those further north in AD-03.

AD-23 Jim Patterson – he drew no opponent.

AD-26 Devon Mathis. With the non-scandals behind him he cruised to a 61.5% share of the vote. Hopefully, he gets left alone in the future.

AD-33 R vs R. With this district with slipping registration, it is safe for a term. This is Jay Obernolte’s district and he has set the bar high for engagement. It will be interesting to see if “Smitty” Smith can follow that model.

AD-34 Vincent Fong: 72% of the vote. Hat Tip.

AD-35 Cunningham, I figured he was looking at bolting the GOP as his district is alleged to be turning away from him. Uh no – Cunningham took 57% of the vote in the Primary. The Democrats would need thousands of ballot harvesters to overcome that margin. The population out there is too spread out. Cunningham by all accounts is a good dude but has gotten progressively more liberal with each successive term. Cunningham wins and has zero reason to bolt the GOP as his party label clearly is not a negative for him.

AD-36 Lackey #1 Lackey got 53% of the vote in this D+9 District. #2 He drew the sexually challenged Steve Fox as his opponent. Fox, who rented AD36 for one term could not keep his hands off of his staff nor control his foul mouth. Tom Lackey will hammer Steve Fox.

AD-38 (OPEN D) The Democrats did what the Republicans are famous for. A whole bunch of candidates got in the race and all fought with each other. This left the 5 democrats splitting the votes in almost prefect proportions. Since Republican Leadership seem to have a thing for playing in safe seats and primaries – how much money do they spend on AD38 now that it is R vs R? They spent nothing on it in the Primary. Some are quick to count out Lucie Volotzky, but she is basically starting in the same place as Suzette Martinez.

AD-42 Chad Mayes (D-Yucca Valley) vs Andrew Kotyuk R-San Jacinto. How much money does the “Third House” pour in to their golden boy Chad Mayes? They are going to spin this race as some sort of referendum on President Trump and the GOP – but they tried that in the Primary. They wasted money attacking Andrew Kotyuk and only ended up bringing Kotyuk up to second place. Remember what we wrote about the insider machinations leading up to this primary. Does GOP leadership and CAGOP follow through with real support for Kotyuk or does Marie Waldron want Mayes to win?

AD-55 Chen, Chen was considered vulnerable. Was. He thumped his primary opponent by 13 points. Phillip Chen is a rockstar.

AD-67 (OPEN SAFE R) Kelly Seyarto won the primary despite no financial help from leadership or the party. He has a dem for an opponent. Seyarto wins.

AD-68 Steven Choi. See Above. Choi is in serious trouble. Given that his district is overlaid with CA-45 where the Republican is expected to have a difficult time and SD-37 with John Moorlach who performed equally as poor, you can make bank that the democrats will have hundreds of harvesters on the ground there.

AD-71 Voepel. The Duncan Hunter Scandal and the faux Stolen Valor BS did not affect Voepel. He won by 22 points and will win by that or more in the fall.

AD-72 Diep. Bye Tyler. Janet Nguyen faces off with Democrat puppet Diedre Nguyen. That should be fun until Janet roasts Diedre over an open political rotisserie flame. Yes, this is far from a lock, but never bet against Janet Nguyen. This is a marginal R seat.

AD-73 Brough. Brough got crushed, finishing 4th. His defeat was huge for Republicans everywhere as his scandals would have been lead weight on Republicans statewide. Why “leadership” could not see this and why they interfered with efforts to run Bill out of the race is something I will write about for years. The only reason why we are not facing a massacre in the assembly has nothing to do with their decisions. Laurie Davies finished first and will face off with a Democrat. AD-73 is more safe than AD-71 or AD-06.

AD-74 D Cottie Petrie-Norris-Norris – Norris Got 52.3% of the vote in this R-Leaning District. It appears that the two main factions of the OCGOP decided they needed to have a primary fight. This leaves GOP candidate Diane Dixon with a $1 Million deficit to Norris-Norris and Norris finishing way higher than she should have because of the hard-hitting primary. Aside from AD-38, AD-74 was supposed to be the top target pickup. I am afraid the primary and the ineptitude of Assembly GOP Leadership may have torpedoed that. Diane is the Mayor of the Largest City in the District and does have means to raise some support. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

AD-75 Waldron +12.6. The feckless Assembly Permanent Minority leader’s margins have slid in each successive cycle.

We gain one with AD-38 and could lose AD-72 and AD-68. I don’t think we hold both 72 and 68 as there will be dem operatives from all over the country trying to save their moonbat empty shirts Katie, Lotto Boy and Harley.

Now for the sad news – here is a list of seats that within the last 2-6 years were considered competitive. Or worse, were held by a Republican in the last 2-6 years.

AD-08, Dem won by 16. Up until 3 years ago this seat actually had more Republicans by registration in it than dems

AD-21, Adam Gray drew no opponent despite an effort being run against him just 4 years ago

AD-31, once represented by Jim Gillmore, the dem won by 22%

AD-32, several Republicans took shots at this seat over the last decade but the incumbent dem won by 16%

AD-40, once represented by Marc Steinorth, the democrat just got 60% of the vote.

AD-44, once considered competitive with Rob McCoy 6 years ago, the democrat took 61% of the vote

AD-60, just in 2018 the Republican Billy Essayli came within a few thousand votes. Now the extreme left-wing activist democrat won by 8 points.

AD-61, in 2012, Charles Munger and Crew funded a Republican William Batey for this seat. His 15 point loss seems like a memory now that Ali Mazarei got hammered by 34%

AD-65 once held by Young Kim, the democrat incumbent won by 17%

AD-66 once held by David Hadley, the democrat incumbent won with 66% of the vote

AD-76, last cycle 5 Republicans filed allowing two democrats to make the runoff. Now the democrat incumbent won by 15 points.

AD-77 unlike Jordan Cunningham, Brain Maienschein actually bolted the GOP to save himself and was rewarded with a 15 point win. (Note, Cunningham also won by 15 as a Rep)

So even though we forestalled disaster on the Assembly side Look at the above list of seats once deemed competitive or actually represented by a Republican to tell the real story of the Oligarchy of Controlled Failure and the results of the top-down control.