{"id":344772,"date":"2026-06-03T13:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T13:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/344772\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T13:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T13:30:11","slug":"2026-election-results-in-californias-ad-68-race-mayra-ruiz-pulls-ahead-for-the-open-seat-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/344772\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Election Results: In California\u2019s AD-68 race, Mayra Ruiz pulls ahead for the open seat \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayra Ruiz<\/a>, a Santa Ana business owner and the sole Republican candidate in California\u2019s 68th Assembly District race, pulled into a slight lead ahead of three Democratic candidates early Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

Democrat David Penaloza, a councilmember from Santa Ana, had taken an early lead Tuesday evening, and now follows closely behind. His Santa Ana City Council colleague Jessie Lopez<\/a>\u00a0trailed in third.<\/p>\n

Returns for the June 2 primary election continued to pour in after the close of polls Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Democrat Shannon Wingfield<\/a>, secretary for the Juane\u00f1o Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation Tribal Council, was in fourth.<\/p>\n

Geographically, the district covers Anaheim, Santa Ana and Orange. The two candidates who get the most votes will appear on the general election ballot in November.<\/p>\n

Joined by family and friends at Perla Mexican Cuisine in the heart of Downtown Santa Ana, Penaloza said he is \u201csuper grateful\u201d and obviously very happy with the initial results, adding that he felt the issues brought to the forefront of his campaign \u2014 including affordability, public safety and immigrant protections and rights \u2014 were ones that resonated with the public.<\/p>\n

While the results were encouraging, the Santa Ana councilmember also acknowledged how unpredictable elections can be and recognized that it is still in the reporting.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Also see: June 2 Primary Election Results<\/a><\/p>\n

Politically, voter registration data suggests the district leans left, with 48% of voters registered as Democrat, 22% registered as Republican and 25% registered as no-party preference.<\/p>\n

The seat currently is held by Assemblymember Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim), who is running for a state Senate seat rather than seeking re-election.<\/p>\n

Election officials will continue to tally votes daily until all are counted. Continue to check back here for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayra Ruiz, a Santa Ana business owner and the sole Republican candidate in California\u2019s 68th Assembly District race,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1400,163,165,164,7,141430,204,23387,100,611,8047,13],"class_list":["post-344772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-2026-elections","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-california","tag-california-legislature-elections","tag-election","tag-election-results","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orange-county-elections","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}