Late vote count confirms Irvine Mayor Don Wagner will be new county supervisor

Irvine Mayor Don Wagner has won a special election to fill a vacant seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

With only a few dozen ballots left to count on Monday, Wagner, a Republican, led former congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat, by 3,537 votes in the seven-candidate race to represent the inland 3rd District, according to county officials.

Wagner is expected to be sworn in either March 26 or April 9, filling the seat that Todd Spitzer left after he was elected the county’s district attorney in November.

The latest count and the results weren’t unexpected. Wagner declared victory last week, thanking his supporters and saying he was “very much looking forward to doing some of that work to solve the county’s problems.”

On Monday, Sanchez said she called Wagner over the weekend to concede the race. She also said she’s already mulling a 2020 rematch.

“My team is definitely looking at it and trying to figure out where we fell short, and we’re looking at all the numbers,” Sanchez, an Orange resident, said on Monday.

Wagner will serve a 21 month term. He’ll have the chance to win a full four-year term in 2020, and could secure a second term as soon as March 2020 if he’s able to win more than half of the vote in that month’s presidential primary election.

Sanchez blamed her loss on low Democratic turnout in the special election. She also said Wagner did a good job of consolidating the Republican vote, pointing out that other notable GOP candidates, such as former Anaheim councilwoman Kris Murray, failed to pull as many votes as some campaign polls had predicted.

Turnout was typically low for the recent special election, with only 21.1 percent of the 3rd District registered voters casting ballots. Wagner was the top vote-getter in four of the district’s cities: Villa Park, Orange, Anaheim, and Yorba Linda. He also was the top finisher in the district’s unincorporated areas. Meanwhile, Sanchez earned the most votes in Wagner’s home city of Irvine and neighboring Tustin.

Wagner’s win means Republicans will continue to hold four of the county board’s five seats. His election also means Irvine will need to replace Wagner on the city council, either by appointing another council member as mayor or holding a special election.