TONY STRICKLAND (center) at press conference. At left is Mayor Pat Burns; at right is Councilmember Gracey Van Der Mark.

By Jim Tortolano/Orange County Tribune

Republican Tony Strickland has successfully completed his effort to return to a seat in the California State Senate.

According to the California Secretary of State’s office, at the close of business on Tuesday, the Huntington Beach city council member had polled 51.3 percent of the vote in a special election to fill a vacant seat representing the 36th District.

The results will be officially certified on Thursday (March 6).

Reaching a majority enables him to avoid having to compete again in a runoff election. By winning he will return to the upper house of the state Legislature where he held a seat from 2008 to 2012.
He held a press conference on Monday and said, “We did it!”

He thanked his supporters and praised “the people in this district who drew a line in the sand and we’re going to take our beautiful state back. This is your victory.”

Strickland went on to claim that people were fleeing California “due to the policies of Governor Gavin Newsom and his [Democratic] supermajority” in the legislature.

“Today is the first step in taking our state back, and making California golden again.”

Strickland totalled 80,946 votes. In second was Democrat Jimmy Pham with 43,683 votes (27.7 percent), followed by Democrat Julie Diep with 22,614 votes (14.3 percent) and Republican John Briscoe with 10,514 votes (6.7 percent).

The seat was vacant because incumbent Janet Nguyen resigned in the wake of her election to the Orange County Board of Supervisors representing the First District.