The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee plans to open a western regional office in Irvine, further emphasizing the national party’s hopes of picking up House seats in Orange County. Western regional staff has been headquartered in Washington D.C. since at least the 2004 election cycle.
“Moving out west is one of the improvements that we’re making at the DCCC in order to maximize gains in the midterms,” said Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-New Mexico, chairman of the committee.
Of the 23 GOP districts that Hillary Clinton won nationwide last year, four are in Orange County. The national party is hoping to flip all 23 of those seats and, 18 months before the general election, two Orange County organizers – hired by the state party with earmarked DCCC funding – are already in place.
The local GOP incumbents being targeted are Darrell Issa, Ed Royce, Mimi Walters and Dana Rohrabacher. Orange County was a natural choice for the new office, according to DCCC spokesman Tyler Law.
“If you have to pick a place in the West, it makes the most sense because of the cluster,” Law said.
Plans call for at least eight staffers to work out of the office, including a political director, a fundraiser, a regional press secretary, a digital strategist and a data analyst, Law said. The staff will work directly with congressional candidates’ campaigns in eight western states.
Zarkades vs. Rohrabacher
American Airlines pilot Tony Zarkades hasn’t made the splashiest entry of the four Democrats challenging Rohrabacher.
Fellow candidates Harley Rouda and Laura Oatman both had consultants onboard – in Rouda’s case, three consultants and a fundraiser – who made sure I was up to speed on their clients before their bids became official.
Zarkades, who doesn’t have a consultant or even a campaign account yet, has been toiling more quietly on his Facebook page and website, which articulately lays out his positions on nine key issues. But he’s been thinking of running longer than the others.
Rouda, Oatman and Boyd Roberts all say they were motivated to run by Donald Trump’s unexpected victory, Rohrabacher’s support of the president, and their desire to redirect the balance of power in Washington.
While Zarkades sounds similarly appalled by the policies and demeanor of Trump and Rohrabacher, he says he was considering a bid when polls and mainstream pundits were still pointing to a Hillary Clinton presidency.
“I was thinking I’d wait until the end of this year to start running, but the whole county is on fire to replace Rohrabacher” and other Republican members of Congress, said the 51-year-old. “There’s a lot of grassroots activity.”
Zarkades spent eight years as a Marine helicopter pilot and flight instructor, including a stint at the now-defunct Marine Corps Air Base Tustin. He’s lived in Huntington Beach with his wife and two kids since 1999.
Rouda and Oatman appear to be the early Democrats to watch in terms of fundraising in the race, with Rouda saying he’d raised $200,000 by the end of March and Oatman saying she expected to have $250,000 by the end of June.
Beside having done little or no fundraising, what Zarkades and Roberts have in common is that theirs are the only two whose websites explicitly express support for single-payer universal healthcare. The two also supported Bernie Sanders in last year’s Democrat primary, while Rouda and Oatman voted for Clinton.