Troy Edgar running for Congress
September 27, 2011 in Uncategorized By: Dave Emerson
(Los Alamitos, 9/27/2011) Los Alamitos Mayor Pro Tem Troy Edgar is running as a Republican for the 47th Congressional District, which includes Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, Cypress, most of Long Beach, and portions of Lakewood, Garden Grove & Westminster.
Organizing papers were fed exed to the Federal Elections Commission last Monday, 9/19 by Gary Crummit, Treasurer for Troy Edgar for Congress, operating out of 110 Pine Ave. in Long Beach, # 1110.
According to Open Congress Wiki, Mayor pro Tem Edgar is one of 4 announced candidates so far:
- Democrat Alen Lowenthal, a former Long Beach City Council Member who served two terms representing Long Beach in the California Assembly.
- Republican Steve Kuykendall, a Republican, who served one term as the 36th Congressional District representative from1999 to 2001.
- Republican Gary DeLong, who represents Belmont Shore in Long Beach’s City Council, and who announced last Thursday that his campaign had already raised $100,000.
Kuykendall says he’s received backing from former Gov. Pete Wilson (photo left) and L.A. District Attorney Steven Cooley. DeLong has received endorsements from former Gov. George Deukmejian and Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe. [ad]
When I asked one astute local how Edgar thought he could overcome opponents with such formidable endorsements, I was told Edgar may be thinking that if he’s the only Orange County Republican running and the two Long Beach Republicans split the vote, he might be able to win the primary, where voters will no longer be restricted to only vote for their party.
Then, as the only Republican facing Lowenthal in a competitive district, Edgar would have considerable Republican support, especially from the Orange County Republican leadership that has supported him for Council in the past.
Interesting. . . one day after I put up a post about politicians not taking care of today’s business & focusing on an election that’s over 13 months away.
And as a long time Orange County resident who grew up in Lakewood, has a real estate business on both sides of the County Line, and attended Long Beach schools, I’d even been toying with running. . . . as the only non-politician!
Click here for the final map for our 47th Congressional District.
9/28/11 update: For a very interesting & far more in-depth analysis of this race from someone who knows a whole lot more about politics than I do, see JM’s two detailed comments below. Very interesting!
As always, your perspective, reporting, and insights, diplomatically expressed, are encouraged.
Well….why am I not surprized that Edgar is pulling a “dine & dash” on Los Al. This was only his stepping stone.
Now do you see why Edgar was always in a rush to move things ahead without regard for the residents. His own agenda? Can it be?
This is Dave Emerson’s blog:
“And as a long time Orange County resident who grew up in Lakewood, has a real estate business on both sides of the County Line, and attended Long Beach schools, I’d even been toying with running. . . . as the only non-politician!”
What a joke.Dave Emerson you are the most political person posting on this website.
Alas, you are wrong. I am the most political (and I have the resume to back that up).
I also must admit that I have been wrong. I had thought that Troy was angling for the soon to be open County Supervisor seat, and I had said as much in any number of occasions here and on other blogs/news sites. Thus having put out a prediction that he was going for that open seat, I had not considered that he would have the audacity to take on some real Los Angeles County heavyweights.
I must now say that even I didn’t see this one coming.
I do wonder how, considering the makeup of the district he is running for this.
Dave the “47th Congressional District, which includes Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, Cypress, Long Beach, Lakewood, and parts of Garden Grove.” is not quite correct. It does cover LB (the largest portion) and then spreads out to take in Los Al, Rossmoor, Cypress, and portions of Westminster and Garden Grove, as well as all of Stanton. The portions of Westminster it takes in are interesting (based on my knowledge of the area it has a slightly higher low income (rental) than home ownership, I would tend to think it would lean (D) in that area rather than (R) (although I would have to call Sanchez’ office to confirm that data) whereas the other Westminster area not included is more upscale and would have a much higher (R) than (D) (this I know from my campaigning in that area in 1994, and from my family that lives in the non-included portions). In addition I noticed that the new district includes the low-end downtown of LB (again, higher (D) than (R) and much higher rental community, as well as a high level of different minorities) and most of the areas that are considered “the gay community”, which Log Cabin Republicans or not, will trend (D) as well. Also of note is the portions of Lakewood included (Lakewood is also only included in portion). I should point out that Stanton is also a lean (D) area that can not be counted on to go with Troy just because he is the “OC GOP” as the numbers there will depress him. I would hazard a guess that, based on the maps, the new district would have a +2 to a +6 lean toward the (D). In terms of the (D) (R) split, Royce retaining what he did kept most of his (R) and lost a large chunk of the southern (D)’s while picking up fewer in the push north and east.
Now how does that affect the race? Well about 1/2 of the district is Long Beach and leans (D). So, if Troy’s pitch is that he is the OC GOP, then he is already giving that up. And while he may do well in Cypress, his actions on the takeover of the 4th corner will come back to haunt him as he won’t pick up well in Rossmoor. Most of Los Al already knows Troy, and his second place win (with the help of the Sylvia-run slush fund shooting down his opponents with lies) won’t work as well this time as Steve Kuykendall is NOT going to lie down, and he has better access to the financing necessary to change the game.
And talking about financing, this is actually a somewhat level playing field so far. There is no one with a massive Sanchez or Royce warchest. That means that it comes down to who has the better fundraising machine. With only Alan Lowenthal on the (D) side he doesn’t have to beat the bushes dealing with a primary challenge at this time. This bodes well for him building a very large warchest for the General ($1MM to $1.5MM). On the other hand, with multiple people asking for donations on the GOP side from the Presidential field, and from the Congressional field, this could spell trouble for those that are less connected to the financial channels.
Long Beach Councilmember Gary DeLong has a jump on fundraising, but Steve Kuykendall having served in Congress before the last redistricting may have an edge based on his knowledge of how DC fundraising operations work. Steve Kuykendall lost his assembly seat to Alan Lowenthal and when he ran again after leaving Congress he lost to Betty Karnette (Alan having moved up to the State Senate) after his return from DC (it should be noted that Alan’s wife now holds the Assembly seat).
Now the next question is who is going to embrace the tea-baggers? This is really necessary in this district as the Cypress-Seal Beach-Los Al area is one of the biggest tea-bagger groups in CA. A tight embrace of the tea-baggers may help in the Primary, but would do excessive damage in the General considering the makeup of the non-hardcore GOP areas. Going strong “church-style” (anti-science) or “anti-immigrant” may play well to the far right base Primary-wise, but at a cost of many votes needed to close the General.
My favorite quote from the above is, “Orange County Republican leadership that has supported him for Council in the past.” Considering that the City Council seat is non-partisan, this does make a joke out of that on the people of Los Alamitos. But it also acknowledges the Primary problem he faces in that Steve Kuykendall has a long positive relationship with Dana (remember that Gary DeLong also has a “council member to Congressman” relationship that matches Troy’s, so this should keep Dana out of the mess until the Primary dust settles), so Troy can’t expect any help from that quarter. Outside of possible stumping by a termed out County Supervisor, I think Troy may find the picking a bit slimmer than he had hoped through the Primary season.
Again, I do apologize for my mis-read and pronouncements that I thought he was going for the termed out Supervisor seat. I could say that no-one expected this area to be a Royce-free zone with an open Congressional seat, but that would be a cop-out on my part. I make every attempt to be accurate, and when I am wrong, I don’t blame it on anyone else but me.
Disclaimer: I currently have no boat in the Congressional race and am just an interested spectator. To me this is looking to be a slow motion car crash on the GOP side, fun to watch and glad to not be a part of it.
Per an e-mail I just got. Now this is not rocket science, but electoral science (much more finicky than rocket science).
“LBPRT is Obama E and Brown +11″
What that means is that if Obama votes were counted in the precincts from 4 years ago that are covered in the new district, the vote was even within the margin of error. The number for Brown shows that if the district existed in the last election, Brown would have won by 11 (think (R )45/(D)56. An odd number generally means that there is a third party percentage at work that they can’t allow for in the models. I asked for a Congressional swing, but since the area covered three or four congressional districts it was pointed out to me that there were far too many issues
In paragraph 5 above I use terms like +4 (D), etc. This talks about “registered voter leaning” In the last election CA-47 (Sanchez’ district) had a +1(R ). This means that here were slightly more (R )’s than (D)’s registered. In cases like this that means that the registration underdog can still win, but must out campaign (out spend) the party getting the lean (which Sanchez did, her $2MM to Tran’s $1.5MM). It should also be noted that in Sanchez’ last election the third party candidate pulled a massive amount (Sanchez: 52.9% | Tran 39.2% | Igleseis 7.75%) Historically in that district no third party candidate has gone over 5%. So, doing 50% better than the high for the (I) was unusual. Additional exit poll breakdowns for the (I) show that of the (D) and (R ) pull she pulled 3:1 (three Sanchez votes for every 1 Tran vote) Therefore, had she not been there Sanchez would have had a greater win (assuming the voters continued to vote and were not just disaffected).
There is a science to doing this,and I am far from an electoral scientist (remember when I ran for Congress I thought I was going to win
). Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight is considered one of the best in the business at this kind of stuff (he ran as an independent until the NY Times picked him up (bought his site out and made it part of the NY Times) because he was right way more than he was wrong), and he has not officially put out the numbers for the new district. One last place I go is where people literally put their money where there mouth is (intrade.com). Until we get past the primaries there will be nothing there that will register most likely, but worth keeping a watch on.
OH MY! It seems that I have forgotten one key voting block that could make all the difference. Avalon. Yes, in my comments above I failed to include Catalina Island into the assumptions. CI is part of the district (be a volunteer and have one of the candidates send you over there to canvas for a day…).
Oppsie. Avalon votes 66.65% Democrat. Not a good sign. That’s over 2000 votes that go into the (D) column.
Something to consider about fundraising. The Edgar majority money has been flowing in from Trash Hauling. But, in this case one of the lower bidders (who should have gotten the contract rather than CDS) is the primary Trash Hauler in LB. Another does Rossmoor. I believe a third does Garden Grove. I’m not sure about Westminster. So, how much is Republic going to pony up, and will the other trash haulers pony up in equal amounts for his opponents?
See politics is a game of cash flow (which is why I favor all campaigns funded by the public, but that’s for another post). In OC there are two locations for cash. One is South County beaches (think Newport Coast) and the other is the Hills (think Anaheim Hills). In terms of the cash rich Congresscritters, Dana is really a kingmaker. But, as I pointed out in another post, Dana isn’t going to get involved in the Primary. This leaves the GOP field in a bit of a quandary on the cash flow from OC. That is NOT true about cash flow from LA.
A short history lesson here by way of Sanchez in ’96. CA-46 was the district. In the election before (’94) the cash went to a guy named Farber (outspent all other Primary candidates combined – That included Norm Ecenrode, the then Mayor of Placentia). In ’96 Farber faced off with Prince and Sanchez in the Primary. This led to a split in the party cash machine between Prince (the better candidate) and Farber (who had lost to B-1 Bob last time). Sanchez couldn’t get any capital out of the OC. But, she was able to get quite a bit out of LA (her entire fundraising operation ran out of Marina Del Rey or Santa Monica I believe). The rest they say is history.
How does that affect this Primary? Well the OC money will be locked up in attempting to get rid of Sanchez (yet again). And considering Dana’s non-endorsement in a Primary, the beach money won’t be there for the Primary. That leaves the Primary cash flow up to the candidates, and I would say that there the best possibility in raising the cash would lie in Steve Kuykendall based on prior experience and his deeper connections to the LA cash (and more, see below).
So, to get a feel of how the Primary will break, I would suggest watching the quarterly fundraising reports. While it’s not always true that the guy who spends the most wins, it’s more true than not in today’s “politician for sale” system. One last thought. LB has a limited number of “cash cow” areas and with the current field each has a “local” running. Edgar can claim he is the OC, but where he doesn’t have access to the real OC GOP money, both the LB GOP do have access to the LA GOP money.
This reminds me a bit of Mike McGill (formerly of Cypress City Council) who was, by all appearances, the best candidate for the Supervisor race. Mike had a great message that resonated well with the GOP base, but his problem was funding. I happen to like Mike a lot personally. His vote was not for sale and he is exceptionally honest. While not the best way to raise funds for a campaign, even though I disagree with him on many issues, he was someone I could have actually voted for because of his directness and honesty. But today it is not enough to be forthright and honest, you have to be for sale to the highest bidder – and that is why Mike is not our supervisor. When it comes to this race, there are more potential early investors on the LA side than there are on the OC side, and that does not does well for an OC-based campaign.
One last thought about the ’96 Sanchez primary. The idea that the money would be split between the two LA and the OC would then win. Which seems to be at the heart of the Edgar financial strategy. That would be true if all three were unknowns. But, one has been in Congress before, and that changes the dynamic considerably. While not an incumbent, he does have the benefit of having nationwide contacts so you can expect to see some of his money coming from NY (Wall Street), maybe even CT (insurance). With a larger reach he doesn’t have to shake the local trees as much for the Primary, just reduce the amount that his competitors can shake from those trees by building a large warchest early on to reduce the incentive for people to invest in the other candidates betting against him (Gary DeLong is already going this route with his announcement of $100K raised shortly after his announcement that he was in the race).
This has the potential to get very interesting, so keep an eye on the financials as they will tell a compelling story of who is getting the upper hand.
Alas, Ivler, you are wrong. You are not the most political since you have never run for elective office simply because you could never win.
Alas anon, I did run for public office (I think my FEC filings are on-line somewhere) for CA-46 and had in excess of 10,000 votes (in a seven person Primary where the winner spent more than the other six of us combined – the election before Sanchez’). Prior to that I was paid staff in THREE Presidential campaigns starting in 1976 (one didn’t clear the Primary field, one was an Independent in General Election (my first GE campaign, a losing cause for a good man – John Anderson), one was a General Election Presidential candidate) and after that I was a paid consultant to two Presidential campaigns (one Primary and one GE).
So, anon, if I may be so bold as to tell you to blow it out your [cleaned up since Dave wants to keep this a family friendly site].
When people/voters ask about him we all better say that he is the best thing to come along since sliced bread! If we don’t, we’ll still be stuck with him. I would much rather deal with him as a congressman than a councilman. Time for “Stepping Stone Troy” to move along.
The thought of Troy in Congress has revived a long suppressed memory of being a constituent of B-1 Bob. I cannot remember how many years I lived with that embarrassment …
Ok I stayed tuned so where is the statement from Edgar he said would be out today?
Oh wait, I forgot he is not a man of his word. I guess I won’t hold my breath.
7:30 p.m., still no sign of the “statement” Mr. Edgar told me (& the OC Breeze) that he was putting out today.
If I ever get the statement, I’ll put it up. . . if you find it elsewhere, please put up a link. As of this moment my Google search revealed nothing.
Interesting way to kick off a Congressional campaign!
two days later…
[said in my best impression of the announcer from spongebob squarepants]
. . . . nada. Zilch. Not even a reply to my “touching base” text on Friday.
Is Troy unsure about this?
Is he contemplating a better offer?
Has Council Member Poe been teaching him how to run when approached by the press, as she did (literally) from the OC Register during the Mayor Grose fiasco?
Are his people late in getting the statement to him?
Is this any way to kick off a Congressional race?
From Troy Edgar’s website (1st press release): “As part of this announcement, Edgar also revealed that despite beginning his campaign just a week ago, he has already raised more than $220,000. This amount puts Troy amongst the leading candidates in this race, some who have been running for months.” I wonder where this money came from?
From the Federal Election Commission website:
PAC donations to Troy Edgar: $250 from “Friends of Dean Grose”
Individual Donations: $20,418 from various individuals including Ken Stevens.
Loans: $200,000 and $5000 from “Troy Edgar”
Does this mean he is loaning money to his campaign or he borrowed the money for his campaign?
Grose gave Troy $250 from his former elections campaign.
Troy has actually raised $20,418 from individuals.
Troy has loaned himself $205,000, which he can fund raise and use those funds to pay back the loan he made to his campaign.
It’s called “buffing the turd”. It allows you to say that the campaign has “over $225,000″ giving the impression that there is a great deal of financial/personal support, when in fact there isn’t.
Troy did this in his City Council runs as well. SOP for Troy.
Mr. Ivler – Thank you.
JB, something to consider.
You are about to make an investment of $5,000. That investment has an 89% chance of failure (at best). You willing to drop $5K into that bucket?
That’s what Troy has been trying to “sell” for the last month. That he has been able to get over $20K to invest in a project that has a 89% chance of failure at best is a somewhat amazing feat. And for that he deserves credit for his salesmanship.
Now I should clarify the “at best”. If there was no GOP primary and Troy was just running against a generic Democrat he would have to overcome the 11% edge that the new district has in Democratic voting. So, in the general election, based on past voting behavior the vote would be 56% (D) 44% (R ).
Now there are three ways to change this potential outcome. The first is to generate “new” GOP votes; the second is to depress Democrats from voting and the third is to actually flip (D) to (R) votes. On the positive side for Troy is that the top of the ticket is not impressive for (D)’s and they are not motivated to go to the polls and vote for Obama for a second term. And that’s his one positive, that Obama has no shirttails. On the down side is that the GOP has a bunch of weenies and he is most likely going to get stuck with Mitt on the top of his ticket, which has no “pull” in his shirttails. That leaves the third and hardest option, getting a (D) to vote (R ).
Does Troy have the salesmanship to get 5% of the (D) vote to switch to (R)? This would require two things. First Troy would have to hope that whomever the (D) is, he is really bad. Right now the (D) who has committed is NOT “really bad”, so that could be a problem. Then, in addition, Troy would have to make his public persona very “middle of the road Republican” the type the seeks bi-partisan solutions.
Here his own history in City Council in Los Al will work against him as he has never been one to “split the baby” and always has been “my way or the highway”. Rather than a peacemaker, he has always used what power he has had to crush his opposition. I can’t see a Democratic opponent not using his history on the City Council against him there. And, in addition, right now the Democrats are NOT looking for a bi-partisan (D), they are looking for a (D) that will fight for the working class, so the (D) only has to stand up and say he is in favor of OWS and what OWS wants and he will solidly fight for the working class and Troy will have a massive uphill battle to fight to flip a single (D).
Back to the GOP primary battle. Troy’s whole argument there is that he is the OC (R) and the LA (R)’s will split the Long Beach vote and he will take the OC vote. This is what he has been selling to get the $20K+ he already has in hand. And while he is somewhat right that he could make that argument, he is discounting the fact that his GOP opponents will have to spend a great deal of time and money attempting to win those OC (R) votes because they know that they will split the LA (R) votes and the advantage for any one of them is how well they do in picking up the (R) votes from the OC.
Thus, expect most of the GOP primary battle to take place in Cypress, Garden Grove, Westminster, Rossmoor and Los Al (does going for the forth corner look like the best move Troy could have made considering he needs those Rossmoor votes now?).
Overall, if Troy has a political consultant working for him right now, I would hope that the consultant would be telling him that he should be running for County Supervisor or CA Legislature, not Congress.
I should point out that in 1994 Arakellian was talked out of running for a CA race that she could have won into a House primary race that she had no chance of winning. When she announced the only person who seemed to take joy in it was the largest fund-raiser in the race.
It was of almost no surprise that after the primary her adviser suddenly showed up on the staff of former opponent Farber. It should be no surprise that exit polls showed that if she had not been in the race a majority of her votes were split between the next two candidates, and that if those votes had gone that way, the ultimate winner would have been Benuelos, not Farber. So did Farber set her up to draw votes off Benuelos?
Politics is a funny game to watch since like an iceberg, much of the game is hidden below the surface.