Scott Baugh, Dave Min Narrowly Lead U.S. House 47th District Against Other Dem, GOP Candidates

With the Primary election less than a week away, Congresswoman Katie Porter’s (D-CA) Orange County district continues to be one of the most contentious House races nationwide, let alone in California.

Porter narrowly defeated former Assemblyman and former Orange County Republican Party Chairman Scott Baugh 51.7% to 48.3%. With such a close race, thanks in part to Congressional redistricting, Porter opted to run for the U.S. Senate in 2024 then try and retain her House seat. The race suddenly became wide open, with Porter now out as a candidate (and currently polling a close 3rd in the Senate race). Over the next several months, candidates quickly shored up in an attempt to win over the purple district.

For the Democrats, state Senator Dave Min (D-Irvine) came in first only days after Porter’s announcement. Lawyer Joanna Weiss also came in with a surprising amount of base support, as did former Congressman Harley Rouda, a House member who often challenged Porter. For the GOP, Baugh decided to come in again. Joining him was Max Ukropina, a businessman and former aide to several House members.

While in the initial months Baugh, Min, and Rouda were all considered the top three candidates, things took a turn in April when Rouda was seriously injured in a fall, causing him to pull out of the race. While some support did go towards Weiss, most of it went Min’s way, setting a up a Baugh-Min battle. But that proved to be short-lived, as the very next month Min received a DUI in Sacramento following parties throughout the night with fellow lawmakers and lobbyists. Min wound up with three years probation and several other fines and punishments and managed to avoid jail time. But with a huge shadow now over his campaign, other candidates quickly took advantage.

Baugh, who had been trailing Min in fundraising, quickly leapt up to the lead. He wound up leading for the rest of 2023 into 2024, with FEC filings showed that in the last quarter of 2023, Baugh had raised 1.93 million. On the Democratic side, Weiss quickly shot up in the race, as Min was now quite vulnerable. Her own fundraising machine managed to outdo Min despite having been a distant 4th place early on, with 2023 4th quarter figures showing Weiss ahead of Min in fundraising $1.56 million to $1.55 million. While an extremely narrow lead, the fact that she did it as a political outsider against a sitting state Senator spoke volumes.

What had been a Baugh-Min matchup quickly degraded into a race for second between Min and Weiss. Vicious attacks between the two were common in late 2023 going into 2024. Weiss went after Min’s DUI and Min tried to show that Weiss had been taking money from Republican donors and has personally used some of her own money made in cases where she defended sex offenders. The last few months have been particularly brutal, with ads attacking each other flooding the airwaves in Orange County. During this time, Baugh largely consolidated Republicans, although Ukropina has managed to keep up a significant amount of support heading into the final days.

The latest poll, which was conducted earlier this month, found that Baugh is indeed winning the race, with current poll numbers showing him at 27%-30%. Min received a strong second place finish with a  22%-23% range, while Weiss was farther down than many thought, clocking in at 14%-16%. Ukropina is currently in 4th with 9%-10% and undecided voters, the key to this election, still being a high 14%-17%.

#CA47: Internal for Scott Baugh (R) found him leading the March 5 all-party primary. State Sen. Dave Min (D) would also advance.

Baugh 27%
Min 22%
Joanna Weiss (D) 16%
Undecided 17% pic.twitter.com/qpYtuKhmKs

— James Downs (@jamesd0wns) February 17, 2024

With Ukropina voters, many undecided voters, and a significant percentage of Weiss voters all likely to go with Baugh in November, Min’s more and more probable second place finish  may be tainted by the sheer fact that many are spurning him. He is third in fundraising, has spent a lot of his war chest already, and still has the DUI on him in a race where the other candidates have nothing nearly as severe against them. An attempt in September to slam Baugh on a speech criticizing “wokeism” fell largely flat because of it being a older speech and being used out of context.

“Min’s campaign has been a minefield,” said Malik Griffin, a Los Angeles polling analyst, to the Globe on Thursday. “He is narrowly leading Weiss right now, and he is farther below Baugh than he would like.”

“The GOP has this race pegged as a main district to flip this year. That’s a big reason why Baugh is doing so well. I mean, he is a former Assemblyman and did very well against Porter the last time out. But he has that momentum now charged by a ton of GOP dollars. Min, meanwhile, had the backing of most Democrats but is still fending off Weiss. And Min has not been happy the way things have turned out. That DUI really hurt him and will continue to hurt him. Any time he tries to say anything about public safety or crime, that will be pushed back in his face. Weiss took advantage of it, but the Democrats are still sticking by Min throughout all of this.”

“They don’t want to see this House seat flipped. Orange County is still a very volatile area. The GOP largely lost it in 2018 on the House level, but in the last few cycles, slowly won most of it back. This is the Democrats last major holding in Orange County. Now, all 4 races are contentious. But this one is the big one to hold. They have Min pegged as their best chance. And that is looking more and more like a gamble. Especially with Min being given the catchy title of “DUI Dave Min” by many in the county.”

The primary election is on Tuesday, March 5th.