A majority of Orange County voters will get to choose their county supervisors in June, and they’re soon going to find out who will be on the ballot.

The filing period opened this week for candidates seeking seats in the newly drawn Districts 2, 4 and 5, and whoever wants to be on the June 7 primary ballot has until March 11 to turn in paperwork to the Orange County Registrar of Voters.

A combination of recent redistricting (which changed district boundaries), and term limits for supervisors, has created a rare situation – two supervisor seats that are essentially wide open.

Supervisor Katrina Foley won a special election last year in the old District 2. But the new version of that seat doesn’t include Costa Mesa, where she lives. So, to stay on the board, she’s hoping to win in the newly drawn District 5, where Supervisor Lisa Bartlett is ineligible for reelection due to term limits.

While the District 5 race is expected to be highly contested, Foley’s move leaves the new District 2 – OC’s first-ever Latino majority voting district – up for grabs. At the same time, the new District 4, where current Supervisor Doug Chaffee is running again with a self-funded war chest of about $300,000, is expected to draw several opponents.

“I can’t remember the last time we had two open supervisor seats at the same time,” said Democratic political consultant George Urch.

While county supervisor seats technically are nonpartisan, the Republican and Democratic parties in Orange County back candidates and grapple for control of the five-member board. For decades, the battle was something of a David vs. Goliath fight. Until 2019, voter registration numbers showed the GOP with an advantage over Democrats in Orange County – and the GOP held a virtual lock on county supervisor seats. Some critics said the redistricting of 2011 was shaped to help the GOP hold that advantage.

This time around, the landscape is different. Orange County voter registration data now shows Democrats with a small but growing advantage over Republicans. And this year’s board, with two of the five supervisors (Foley and Chaffee) Democrats, crafted new districts that show Republicans holding slim registration advantages in Districts 1, 3 and 5, and Democrats with bigger advantages in Districts 2 and 4, according to Political Data Inc., a company that tracks voter registration throughout California.

“I think the redistricting maps came out fair,” said Republican consultant Lou Penrose. “They’re fair fights.”

While the Democrat advantage in District 2 appears the biggest in the county – with the party preferred by 48.1% of registered voters vs. 22.5% who are registered with the GOP – Penrose suggests party affiliation won’t necessarily be the determining factor.

“I would encourage a Republican candidate to run hard in any of them,” Penrose said of the supervisor seats.

Santa Ana Mayor Vicente Sarmiento and Garden Grove Councilwoman Kim Bernice Nguyen (both Democrats) have announced they’re running in District 2, which includes all of Santa Ana and portions of Anaheim, Garden Grove, Orange and Tustin.

In District 4 – which covers northern Orange County, including west Anaheim, Fullerton and Placentia – Chaffee will have to contend with at least one other Democrat, Buena Park Councilwoman Sunny Park, and there’s plenty of time for other candidates to jump in. Democrats in the district hold a roughly 12 point registration advantage over the GOP – 41.9% to 29.3% – according to Political Data Inc.

In District 5, where the GOP advantage over Democrats is slight, 37.4% to 33.4%, the race could get crowded.

Foley is expected to face several Republican opponents, including Diane Harkey, who has held local and state offices, and state Senator Pat Bates, who is also a former county supervisor. Several people who planned to run before the district lines changed still have open campaign accounts, and Urch said he wouldn’t be surprised if a couple more candidates actually file to get on the ballot.

Penrose considers the reconfigured District 5 a powerful seat because it brings together the county’s key revenue-generating assets, John Wayne Airport and Dana Point Harbor, and it also includes the (state-owned) OC Fair & Events Center and (city-owned) Newport Harbor

While Penrose thinks voters’ concerns about crime and quality of life issues could drive them to support GOP candidates (he’s backing Harkey in District 5), Urch sees a chance for Democrats to pick up a third seat and take the board majority for the first time in decades.

One challenge for everybody running for supervisor may be getting the public to notice them.

Most of the state-level races on the June 7 ballot are incumbents seeking reelection, and there will be no statewide initiatives — something Urch suggested voters could find boring.

“Everybody’s going to be scrambling for limited campaign dollars and attention for their campaigns,” he said.

Potential candidates for OC supervisors seats in District 2, 4 and 5 have until March 11 to file paperwork to get on the June ballot. If any race has more than two candidates and no one receives at least 50% plus one vote, the top two vote getters will face off again in a two-person runoff in November.

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