For some time now, Tustin Councilman Jerry Amante has been the prohibitive frontrunner in the race to succeed Chuck DeVore in the State Assembly in the 70th District in the heart of Orange County. Actually, to be more accurate, Amante came out of the gate early with an impressive array of endorsements, and really had created a “presumptive Assemblyman” status for himself. We were certainly prepared here at the FlashReport to call it that way. But it would appear that Amante’s “lock” on the GOP nomination in AD 70 is not as certain as I would have predicted.
The latest campaign filing reports show that Amante, who has been impressive in his ability to garner endorsements, has had a rather lackluster go of raising funds – according to filings Amante raised around $43,000 in the last period and had less than $12,000 cash on hand as of June 30th. That is a very poor showing. Especially for someone running in a district that includes many of Orange County’s wealthiest enclaves. And as we like to say, in districts like these, there are literally thousands of potential candidates one mortgage away from self-funding a campaign.
It is not surprising that off the transom today comes a release from conservative South Orange County Community College Trustee Don Wagner, declaring his intention to seek the GOP nomination in the 70th. Wagner comes out of the gate with the endorsement of the Family Action PAC, which has the ability through its members to raise a lot of money for candidates which it supports – I know this because I am a member of FAP (though I played no role in the decision of the group to endorse in AD70). Wagner has tapped Revolvis (Duchiara and Roe) to run his campaign.
Wagner’s entrance into the race has been talked about for some time. I wouldn’t be surprised to see others get into the race. I would also (understandably) look for some high profile actions from Amante now, to try to re-solidify his positioning here. Amante’s endorsements will be a powerful tool in his run for office — but only if he can provide his capable consultant, Dave Gilliard, with the financial resources to let GOP primary voters know that he has them.
I should mention that there has been another candidate out on the stump, Shawn Black. But his campaign didn’t raise enough funds to even require him to file a report, causing me to doubt his credibility as a candidate.
We’ll see how things develop, but for now we’ll have to put AD 70 into the “Up For Grabs” column.