It’s only days since the certification of the November election results, and Orange County candidates for the 2026 elections are coming out of the woodwork.
Buena Park Vice Mayor Connor Traut was first out of the gate on Wednesday morning with an e-mail, text and social media push announcing his candidacy for the seat of termed-out 4th District Supervisor Doug Chaffee. The 4th Supervisorial District includes all or portions of the cities of Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton, La Habra, Placentia, and Stanton.
The 30-year old Democrat also unveiled a raft of endorsements from city council and school board members – plus the backing of Democrat Supervisor Chaffee and Supervisor Katrina Foley, Congressman Mike Levin, State Senator Josh Newman, Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva and Assemblyman Avelino Valencia.
Traut is positioned as the Democrat Establishment candidate and is moderate liberal by contemporary Democratic Party standards. Noticeably absent from the endorsement list is Supervisor Vince Sarmiento, who has been establishing himself as a sort of chieftain of OC’s tribe of Left-Progressive activists.
Traut’s campaign – which is being run by Overland Strategies – followed up with an announcement that the young vice mayor already has $100,000 cash-on-hand. This was accomplished by transferring funds from his council campaign account and “funds raised in the campaign’s first 24 hours.” In June 2024, Traut reported having $102,598.96 in his council campaign account, so it’s fair to assume 95%-plus of his supervisor campaign warchest consists of transferred funds.
Traut is an attorney and works at his family’s personal injury law firm. He has been politically active from a young age. In 2012, while in high school, he was a member of the Ladera Ranch Civic Council. In 2013 his family moved to north Orange County. In 2014, while a junior at Chapman University, he was elected to the Centralia School District Board of Education. In 2015, he engineered a takeover of the West Anaheim Neighborhood Council as part of a Democrat “Take Back Anaheim” campaign, and was widely expected to run for Anaheim City Council.
However, in 2018, Traut moved to Buena Park to run for city council there in one of the newly-drawn council districts. Traut won decisively and was re-elected in 2022.
Other candidates will jump in. Tim Shaw, a member of the Orange County Board of Education and former La Habra councilman, is expected to run.
Shaw, a Republican, ran for the seat in 2018 and lost in a squeaker to then-Fullerton Councilman Doug Chaffee.
The district Shaw represents is largely analogous to the 4th Supervisor District.
There are 341,494 voters in the 4th Supervisor District. The partisan breakdown is 40.4% Democrat, 30.5% Republican, and 23.1% No Party Preference.
In November, Kamala Harris carried the district, garnering 50.8% to Donald Trump’s 44%.
