Four-term Democratic incumbent Assemblyman Tom Daly is heavily favored to win reelection Nov. 3 against Jon Paul White, a Republican business consultant from Santa Ana, in central Orange County’s 69th Assembly District.
AD-69 has long been the bluest district in the county, with Democrats now claiming 60,000 more registered voters than Republicans in a district that includes nearly 180,000 voters. The district has sent a Democrat to Sacramento since 1998.
Daly was born and raised in the 69th district. He first won political office in 1986, serving on the Anaheim Union High School District board. He went on to serve as mayor of Anaheim from 1992 to 2002 and Orange County Clerk-Recorder from 2002 to 2012, when he won his first assembly term.
In the most recent assembly session, Daly introduced nearly three dozen bills, with eight signed into law. They included a bill that fixes a loophole that could have caused homeowners to be underpaid by insurance companies if their homes are destroyed in a fire, and another that eliminated fees for juveniles to petition to have their court records sealed.
Daly says he’s focused on “ensuring a balanced budget with a healthy reserve, maintaining and improving our statewide infrastructure and reducing bureaucratic red tape while promoting government efficiency.”
White studied horticulture at Bakersfield College and political science at Cal State Bakersfield. That’s led him to work in a wide variety of fields, per his campaign Facebook page, from owning a pumpkin patch to working in an apartment complex.
White is billing himself as a conservative Republican who has worked on a number of GOP political campaigns. Even in this cycle, with his name on a ballot, White is trying to help Republican Joe Collins defeat Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters in Los Angeles. He’s been active with the Orange County Eagle Forum, an ultraconservative political organization that opposes guest-worker visas, abortion and gay marriage. White also posts about getting the United States out of the United Nations, making English the national language and reopening the economy during the pandemic.
While White hasn’t reported any campaign fundraising this cycle, Daly has raised more than $1 million, with his largest contributions from building, law enforcement and labor union groups.
Since Daly’s race isn’t considered competitive, he’s donated more than $200,000 in campaign funds to state and local Democratic parties and thousands more to other local Democratic candidates. He’s sitting on $881,707 in cash heading into Election Day.
Source: Orange County Register
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