California State Senate District 36 held a special election this Tuesday, February 25th, to fill the vacancy left by former Supervisor Janet Nguyen in Orange County’s 1st District. Among the four candidates, Republican Tony Strickland took a significant lead and will hold the position until December 2026 if elected.
The shape of California’s 36th District Senate district is quite unique, following the coastline of Orange County, extending into a corner of Los Angeles County. Similar to several other districts in Orange County, the congressional, state senate, and state assembly districts were redrawn in 2021 to span across multiple counties. As per the official website, there are a total of around 646,000 registered active voters in the districts, with approximately 142,000 votes counted so far.
According to California law, in special election primaries, if a candidate receives 50% + 1 vote, they can win outright without the need for a runoff between the top two contenders. As of 10:10 AM on the 27th, Strickland led with 51.1% of the votes (72,488), followed by Jimmy D. Pham (D) with 27.4% (38,920), Julie Diep (D) with 14.5% (20,608), and John Briscoe (R) with 7.0% (9,952).
Strickland served as the Mayor of Huntington Beach from 2022 to 2023, State Senator for California’s 19th District from 2008 to 2012, and held positions as Vice Chair of the Senate Health and Environmental Quality Committee, as well as Chair of the Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee. From 1998 to 2004, he served as State Assemblyman for the 37th District, where he chaired several important committees.
Strickland has received a lifetime A grade from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and was named Legislator of the Year by the California Humane Society. Currently, he serves as Vice Chair of the Finance Committee and City Council Member in Huntington Beach.
Both Vietnamese-American candidates, Jimmy D. Pham and Julie Diep, are Democrats. Pham, who obtained a law degree from UC Irvine, runs a law firm dedicated to helping the community with complex legal issues and currently serves as the Chair of the Westminster City Traffic Commission. Julie Diep is a board member of the Anaheim Elementary School District with nearly 25 years of experience in speech-language pathology, as well as the founder of “OC Autism,” an organization in Orange County assisting disabled children and families.
John Briscoe, a candidate, has been a board member for the Ocean View School District and held executive positions in major U.S. companies like Kraft/General Foods and Mars, Inc.
The 36th District election in Orange County followed the procedures of the California Voter’s Choice Act, requiring 39 days from the official start of voting on January 27th to the final confirmation of results by the Secretary of State. This process was implemented following the full adoption of mail-in voting in 2020.
Orange County’s election timeline included mailing out ballots to voters on January 27th, conducting logic and accuracy tests on scanners on January 28th, and starting the counting of mail-in ballots on February 3rd without publicly disclosing the results until Election Day on February 25th.
On February 15th, ten out of the 20 polling centers in the 36th District of Orange County opened early, allowing residents to vote in person. These centers also handled conditional voter registration and provisional ballots. The remaining ten centers opened on Election Day, February 25th.
By 8 PM on the 25th, all polling centers closed, marking the end of in-person voting. At 10 PM, all 20 polling centers, mail-in ballots, and 37 curbside drop boxes were transported to the counting center. However, state regulations permit a 7-day delay for mail-in ballots to reach the counting center.
On the second day after the election, the Orange County vote counting center conducted a 1% manual count involving seven randomly selected precincts from cities such as Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, and Stanton to verify the accuracy of the machine tally against the software results. Machine sorting, ballot extraction, signature verification, and machine and manual duplication processes commenced on that day.
On March 3rd, another logic and accuracy test of the scanners was conducted to ensure the system continued to accurately count votes.
By March 6th, the Secretary of State of California is expected to confirm the results of the State Senate primary election and announce whether a runoff election between the top two candidates will be necessary.