Santa Ana Council member Jessie Lopez, a progressive Latina, is back on the move in Orange County’s 68th Assembly District race, closing the distance to rival Democrat David Penaloza after a campaign awash in independent spending and establishment support. Lop
On election night, Santa Ana City Council member Jessie Lopez watched the numbers land like a punch—third place, far behind fellow Democrat David Penaloza and Republican business owner Mayra Ruiz in the race to represent Orange County’s 68th Assembly District.
In downtown Santa Ana, tearful supporters hugged Lopez at a California Working Families Party event at the Mission Control bar and arcade, pressed flowers into her hands, and told her they had her back.
The script didn’t feel new to Lopez. In 2023. she beat a recall attempt funded by Santa Ana’s police union and apartment owners who opposed her unabashedly progressive views in a city where centrist Democrats have dominated politics for decades and where lefty ones were long ostracized. Lopez won that fight decisively, and the win set the tone for her years on the council.
Over the next three years, Lopez spent her time—alongside other progressive Santa Ana council members—bolstering rent control policies and building an immigrant defense fund. But even with that record, few people outside her orbit believed she could pull off another upset in the assembly race.
Penaloza, by contrast, arrived with backing that seemed designed for Orange County’s political habits. The campaign had the support of the Orange County and California Democratic Party establishment. including current 68th District Assemblymember Avelino Valencia. who is running to represent the 34th Senate District. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. and Katie Porter. a former Orange County congresswoman who ran unsuccessfully for governor this year.
Penaloza’s campaign mailers and video ads were so widespread in the final weeks that they filled Lopez’s mailbox and interrupted her evenings watching Hulu’s “Vanderpump Villa.”
Then came the other side—an increasingly expensive attempt to stop Lopez. Anti-Lopez mailers and commercials were funded by nearly $2.7 million in independent expenditures. Still, Lopez kept moving forward.
As of Wednesday evening, the latest Orange County Registrar of Voters election results had her in second place, less than 1,000 votes away from Penaloza.
This time, Lopez didn’t frame her campaign as a personal vindication. She framed it as a test of who gets to call the shots in California.
“Voters proved that while money can influence politics, it can’t buy community support,” Lopez said this week as she unsuccessfully tried to enjoy tacos and guacamole at Lola Gaspar in downtown Santa Ana. Well-wishers kept calling her and congratulating her in person.
“This race is about the future of California — whether we answer to corporations and insiders or to the hard-working people we’re elected to serve.”
With Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento easily winning reelection. and Unite Here Local 11 co-president Ada Briceño currently coming up short in her bid to represent the 67th Assembly District—which includes parts of Los Angeles County—Lopez may be the lone O.C. Latino progressive running in November for a seat beyond the local level.
If she holds this momentum into November, the contest may come down to more than who wins a seat. It could become a referendum on whether Orange County’s Latino voters continue moving left—or whether the political center holds.
“I’ve chosen my side,” Lopez told me. “I’m proud to stand with working people.”
Then she excused herself. Someone else wanted to say what’s up.
Jessie Lopez David Penaloza Orange County 68th Assembly District Santa Ana progressive Latino politics recall election rent control immigrant defense fund independent expenditures