What's the most unlikely thing in politics?
Try seeing conservatives come out on top in a spate of recent special elections in California.
First, we had this astonishing result in San Diego, which held a special election for District 1 of the County Board of Supervisors, after the November winner, Nora Vargas, mysteriously dropped out to spend more time with her family.
According to NBC 7:
Chula Vista Mayor John McCann and Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre appear headed Wednesday for a July 1 runoff election for the District 1 Board of Supervisors seat.
The final batch of results released by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters Tuesday night showed McCann leading the field of seven with 43.58% of the vote, with Aguirre second with 31.62%. San Diego City Councilwoman Vivian Moreno was the only other candidate with at least 10% of the vote, placing third with 13%.
McCann (42.40%) and Aguirre (32.32%) held onto their leads on Friday evening, when an updated vote count was released.
If a candidate receives a majority of the vote, he or she would win outright, avoiding a runoff election.
McCann released a statement on Tuesday evening that read, "I am thankful for the hundreds of volunteers who have worked on my campaign and the thousands of voters that cast their vote for me. They know I will bring common sense back to San Diego County by supporting law enforcement to keep our streets safe, getting homeless off the streets, working to get real solutions on the Tijuana sewage issue and opposing the mileage tax."
The race is officially nonpartisan, but everyone knows that McCann is a Republican and Aguirre is a flaming leftist. McCann, in fact, has won elections before in Chula Vista, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by at least two to one.
Aguirre, meanwhile, represents Imperial Beach, the border town turned into a Mexican toilet based on untreated sewage brazenly dumped into that town's waters and beaches, making it utterly stink and completely hazardous to come in contact with. For at least three years, she's complained, but done nothing about it, even though she bills herself as a conservationist, and serves on the powerful California Coastal Commission, whose main focus is on denying permits to those who would try to improve their properties or construct new housing. There are many who think she, and her other rival, third place finisher Vivian Moreno, a union favorite, is a little too close to the ruling elites of Tijuana next door, which dispenses the sewage without consequence. Moreno has actually been accused of living in Tijuana -- literally a foreign country, yet seeking great power over the American citizens who are living here.
It makes sense that the miserable pair lost, but they are the ruling establishment -- part of the corrupt Democrat machine that pays no attention to taxes, spending, potholes, or anything else, and uses green consciousness as a figleaf for corrupt slush fund activity, rewarding cronies, while the city goes the way of blue cities, dysfunctional and expensive.
Something snapped. Enough of the voters switched parties to see a conservative come in as the first place finisher, with a runoff expected in a few weeks. There may be enough leftists from among the contenders below to coalesce around Aguirre, but just this result came as a surprise. Up until now, the "analysts" all claimed that the Democrats had it in the bag. It doesn't look like it. We should savor it while we can, that little thread of red that may make for a real red tide in time, maybe not this time, but maybe not so far away, either.
Meanwhile in other San Diego trend-is-your-friend news, this morning, Amy Reichert, a past Republican candidate who hasn't been elected, but who is suddenly in demand as a speaker, editorialist, and television host -- as the best dirt-disher about Democrat doings in town -- reported this:
BOOM: The people of California are DONE. Lemon Grove Mayor @alyssonsnow just got SERVED with recall papers by fed-up residents sick of Democrat scams—shady homeless nonprofits shoved into neighborhoods, and if you object, you’re the bad guy?
— Amy Reichert (@amyforsandiego) April 16, 2025
Bye, bye, bye! pic.twitter.com/Ffh6ghNRyK
The leftist mayor of Lemon Grove got himself a recall from disgusted residents -- again, fed up over blue-city corruption, which always happens in a political monopoly. That wasn't on my bingo card, either.
A few weeks ago up the coast, in Huntington Beach, the admittedly conservative surfer town, saw the appointment of openly conservative chef, restaurateur, and commentator, Andrew Gruel, to the city council.
A strong advocate for the Huntington Beach business community, Gruel is the CEO of ‘American Gravy,’ owner of Calico Fish House, and previously owned Slapfish. Known for his innovative approach to the culinary arts and his active engagement in local community philanthropy, like offering his restaurant location as a donation center to assist the victims of the LA fires, Gruel brings a fresh perspective to his new role on the City Council.
They aren't even trying to hide that they are bringing in conservatives anymore in that town. That, too, happened.
Then today, the bombshell news from Oakland: Voters rejected Rep. Barbara Lee, the far left congresswoman with the unions, the wokesters, and every leftist Democrat machine operative in her back pocket, in favor of an unknown candidate, Loren Taylor, following the recall of their own mayor, Sheng Thao, for flaming corruption.
According to KTVU:
Taylor was ahead of the nine other candidates on the ballot with nearly 49 percent of the vote in the first round of ranked-choice voting as of about 8:15 p.m.
Former U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee was in second place with about 45 percent of the vote.
The results are preliminary and the final vote tally will be announced after the Registrar of Voters Office completes several rounds of ranked-choice vote counting.
... and ...
Speaking from his downtown Oakland watch party, Taylor said his early lead was indicative of the need for change. He said voters were not standing for business as usual. While he called Lee, his opponent, a political icon, he also said she's someone who's been in the political establishment for 50-plus years.
"We knew that Oaklanders were hungry for change, hungry for something new that would solve the problems and not just see those same problems reoccur time and time again," said Taylor. "It's great to have the lead but we have been here before."
His tone was one of overall excitement. He reiterated that public safety was his overall priority. Taylor said he looks forward to sitting down with the current chief of police in Oakland to see what solutions they can come up with.
Taylor said he wants to see Oakland gain traction on a different trajectory than the negative portrayal it has seen in recent years.
I doubt he's a Republican, but whatever his views, he's better than she is, because no one can get more left-wing than Lee outside the Revolutionary Communist Party, and maybe not even them. Taylor does seem to at least recognize that Oakland is a wokester disaster area whose major league ball team won't even play in that city and which bears the dubious distinction of being the only city ever to lose its In-N-Out Burger and airport hotels, owing to unchecked crime. He may even try to clean it up.
I didn't pay attention to the race much because analysts and media reports insisted that Lee had it in the bag.
Well, surprise -- she didn't.
The numbers, of course, may flip, given that the vote-counting apparat plans to take at least days to count the ballots.
But maybe they won't.
San Francisco just recently elected a reform-minded mayor, defeating the incumbent, who in turn, came out against crazed leftist district attorney Chesa Boudin as too extreme. There is a rightward trend, moving slowly, but surely.
Los Angeles, too, may follow the pattern. It's a city that's absolutely boiling with hate for its out-of-tune socialist mayor, Karen Bass, who failed to prevent the disastrous fires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, and now has threatened burned-out fire victims with fines for not clearing their rubble as "public nuisances" even as bums litter the streets with no consequences, and she has since issued a whopping total of four, count 'em, four, rebuilding permits, from among the tens of thousands of residents whose homes burned to the ground.
I have long felt that the Los Angeles electoral machine was corrupt, but if the wave is big enough in that city, there could be a recall that works, too.
And it coincides with even the governor of the state, the wretched Gavin Newsom, suddenly waking up and smelling the political coffee. In recent weeks, he's putting on a conservative skinsuit for reasons no one has quite been able to fathom.
Suddenly, he, too, is against corruption and in favor of brush clearance.
The only thing that can be said about this is that the winds of change are all over that state now and Newsom knows it. Let's hope California surprises us again.
Image: X video screen shot