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For the first time in recent memory, there will be a new face at the helm of Orange County’s Republican and Democratic parties.
Both parties will be picking new leadership tonight.
It comes after the local GOP has been bleeding voters since 2016, with Democrats taking the voter registration advantage in a county that former President Ronald Reagan once said “is where good Republicans go before they die.”
While Republicans made some gains this past election, they’re still trailing Democrats by roughly 40,000 voters throughout Orange County, according to data from the OC Registrar of Voters.
Now there’s a rare contest for the local GOP chairmanship, delicately skirting up against Reagan’s 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”
Before the holidays, former Newport Beach Mayor Will O’Neill was running unopposed – as far as I knew – to take over the helm from outgoing Chairman Fred Whitaker, a former two-term Orange city councilman.
At the 11th hour, Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner stepped into the race, requiring central committee members to cast a vote on a secret ballot at tonight’s Republican Party Central Committee meeting.
“I am campaigning for the OC GOP Chairmanship on a platform of growing the Party, winning at all levels of governance, and encouraging conservative service through policy education,” O’Neill texted me over the weekend after I asked about the last-minute race update.
“My message has been resonating with the committee and I feel good heading into the election,” O’Neill wrote. “I look forward to working with our grassroots volunteers, candidates, and all of our elected Republicans officials in Orange County, including Supervisor Wagner.”
Wagner questions the party’s recent strategy in a recent email to Republican Central Committee members that was forwarded to me.
“We have done nothing of late to re-engage the base,” Wagner wrote in a Jan. 10 email to central committee members.
“Our signature effort over the last election cycle was to recapture voters we lost in the prior decade,” Wagner said in the email. “It is not a viable strategy to keep chasing voters we’ve lost rather than to stop losing them in the first place and bring new Republicans — not just disaffected former Republicans — into the fold.”
He also noted his successful campaigning track record supported by consistent fundraising.
But Wagner’s email also raised eyebrows after he described the power an OC Supervisor has – especially in the aftermath of a corruption scandal that saw his former colleague plead guilty to bribery.
“One thing I do know about the day after our Chairman vote,” Wagner wrote, “is that I will remain a county supervisor with all of the influence, connections, and opportunities that entails, with access to donors, business interests, the grassroots, and two decades of contacts around the state,” Wagner said.
“Whether that unique position and influence are put in service of the party as Chairman or not is for the committee to determine Monday night.”
In the wake of the federal prosecution of former OC Supervisor Andrew Do – who Wagner defended with his vote and words from behind on the dais on several occasions over the course of the last year – it’s no surprise that his use of language caught some attention.
GOP leadership also stood firmly behind Do for years over several elections while he gave the party a solid hold on central Orange County’s political scene and considerable power and influence inside the County Hall of Administration.
[Read: Former OC Supervisor Andrew Do Pleads Guilty to Bribery Scheme]
I asked Wagner directly whether it was fair for voting GOP central committee members to assume that the county’s vendors should be nervous about being asked to support Republican Party infrastructure if he took the helm, based on his email.
Wagner dismissed those concerns as unfounded, saying the aim of his email was to point out his fundraising relevance as a sitting county supervisor – an apex politician who gets his phone calls returned.
After our conversation, he later texted me to add, “Btw, never said vendors in my email. I said donors.”
However, the relevant portion of the email states “with access to donors, business interests, the grassroots and two decades of contacts around the state.”
Outgoing GOP Chairman Fred Whitaker leaves a mixed record after about a decade at the helm – with Republicans losing all congressional seats in 2018, a bounce back in regaining two congressional seats in 2020, followed by two hard losses in races again this past November.
[Read: Derek Tran Beats Rep. Michelle Steel in 45th Congressional District Race]
Under Whitaker’s leadership, there were efforts to bring disenfranchised Republicans back into the fold as the Democratic presidential nominee won the countywide vote in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
While losing some ground, Republicans remain a force in city races in places like Huntington Beach as well as on school boards across the county and the Orange County Board of Education.
Local Democrats are also about to see a leadership change tonight.
At the helm since 2019, OC Democratic Party Chairwoman Ada Briceño is stepping down from her post as she prepares a run for the 67th State Assembly district seat in 2026 when Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva terms out.
Longtime OC Democratic Party Central Committee member and current Treasurer Florice Hoffman is running unopposed – as far as I know – to replace Briceño at tonight’s central committee meeting.
Briceño, the first Latina to lead the party, took over the post just after Democrats flipped all of the GOP congressional seats in 2018.
Within the next few years, Briceño – also a co-president of the regional hotel employee union, Unite Here Local 11 – saw Democratic voter registration outpace Republicans in the county.
Both parties in OC have historically seen long tenures for their local chairs, who working with central committee members, lead the party’s fundraising, recruitment and training efforts for candidates as well as voter registration and Get-Out-the-Vote efforts for partisan campaigns.
On the Republican side, former party Chairman Tom Fuentes held the post from 1985 to 2004, wielding extraordinary influence on party discipline and races, in many ways crafting the OC GOP brand.
State Assemblyman – and recent candidate for Congress, Scott Baugh – took over from Fuentes and held the post for more than a decade until 2015 when current Chairman Fred Whitaker took over.
OC Democrats were led for more than decade by longtime attorney and political activist Frank Barbaro who stepped down in 2013.
That year, after a contested election, Democrats elected Henry Vandermeir, who would leave the post in 2016 just after the election of Donald Trump, citing weariness over intra-party fighting.
Local Democrats would later unite around Mission Viejo activist Fran Sdao, who took over the reins at the Democratic Party of OC in early 2016 and would go on to lead the party during a historic stint when Democrats flipped four congressional seats in 2018 – a clean sweep.
It ushered in the term, Purple County, referring to the tight margins between Republicans and Democrats across the county.
In the meantime, the influence of both traditional political parties has waned as the ranks of nonpartisan voters have risen, which now make up nearly a quarter of all registered voters in Orange County.
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