Three's a Crowd: The 72nd Assembly Race

It’s Day Four, and the race is tighter.

Yet another day ballot counting for the 72nd Assembly District has ended, and the race is closer than it was yesterday with fourth-place candidate Long Pham surging into the mix.

Pham, an Orange County Board of Education Trustee, has earned another roughly 3,200 additional votes since the Orange County Registrar of Voters began tallying absentee and provisional ballots Wednesday. Pham is now just behind the third highest vote getter. Going into the weekend, the race looks like this:

• TROY EDGAR 17,594 votes or 28.2%
• TRAVIS ALLEN 12,300 votes or 19.7%
• JOE DOVINH 12,055 votes or 19.3%
• LONG PHAM 11,959 votes or19.2%
• ALBERT AYALA 8,492 votes or 13.6%

By mid next week the Orange County Registrar of voters expects to complete the tally of 17,000 provisional and absentee ballots, the outcome of which will determine whether the November election will be all Republican. Los Alamitos Mayor Troy Edgar (R) is the race’s clear winner with 28.3 percent of the votes. The remaining spot on the ballot remains up for grabs. Dovinh is the lone Democrat still in the running. The 72nd Assembly District represents northwest Orange County cities including Rossmoor, Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach.