“The Democratic Party SUPPORTS Supervisor Katrina Foley,” reads the first major mailer to arrive in Fifth District voters’ mailboxes thus far.
While the next general election won’t be taking place for another six months, the June 2nd primary election is just over a few weeks away. Residents of Orange County’s Fifth Supervisorial District have started receiving—and will continue to receive—a deluge of political ads and campaign mailers.
That would make sense given that voters in the district have the opportunity to participate in an incredibly important race: the winner will almost assuredly decide which party will hold a majority on the Board of Supervisors in 2027.
The frontrunners are incumbent Katrina Foley, a Democrat, and Republican Assemblywoman Diane Dixon. If any candidate secures 51% of the vote, they win the race outright.
The first notable mailer, paid for by the Democratic Party of Orange County (DPOC), to arrive in voters’ mailboxes features a promotional photo of Supervisor Foley meeting with presumed constituents and reads “The Democratic Party SUPPORTS Supervisor Katrina Foley.” These mailers constitute independent expenditures, which requires that the DPOC and Foley not have coordinated on messaging, which households to target, and so forth.
Though this DPOC mailer will undoubtedly mobilize and motivate Democrat households, Foley herself seems less keen to champion the endorsements of left-of-center groups and organizations this cycle than in cycles past. Her Instagram account highlights only the endorsements of unions representing deputy sheriffs and firefighters, but not the DPOC or any of their usual coalition partners.
Last month, Foley did make one post thanking the Democratic Women of South Orange County for a “warm welcome in San Juan Capistrano,” but this is the exception to the rule, and it does not explicitly mention the matter of an endorsement.
That may have something to do with the makeup of the Fifth District, which leans conservative by several percentage points. The district itself runs through the coastal, suburban, and largely Republican cities of South Orange County as well as Newport Beach—picking up most of its blue voters in Foley’s own Costa Mesa and parts of Irvine.
To that point, Foley has also begun a text campaign to Fifth District voters in which she promises to “continue delivering results for Orange County families.” Unlike the DPOC mailer, the text messages avoid any strictly partisan messaging. They do, however, link to Foley’s campaign website, on which Foley appears wearing a pink Planned Parenthood shirt, though part of the logo is obscured by a jacket.
That’s somewhat notable given that at first glance Foley’s website lacks any official endorsement section, making it more difficult for recipients of the text ads to know which groups she affiliates with. Planned Parenthood does indeed endorse Foley’s 2026 Supervisorial race, but for whatever reason Foley has chosen not to trumpet this news this time around.
Technically, the endorsements list does exist, but it’s an orphaned page—a term which describes a webpage that is hosted on a server but is not linked to from any other page directly in the website’s navigation. In other words, you can find Foley’s endorsements if you know or have the URL, but it cannot be found via the sitemap.
Among other oddities, Foley’s website includes an embedded Google Forms signup sheet whereby supporters can presumably request a lawn sign—though at the bottom of the page, it still reads “Thank you for your support of Foley for OC Supervisor for District 5 in 2022!!”
In either case, Foley’s campaign is building early field presence through door-knocking and canvassing activity. Recent social media accounts highlight the work of volunteers lovingly dubbed the “Foley Force” in Rancho Santa Margarita, Costa Mesa, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Beach, and Irvine.
More mail is on the way, no doubt. Democrats have already put money in the field and begun defining Foley early. Republicans have a clear target and plenty of runway to respond. All signs point to no single candidate walking away with a landslide in June, but nothing is certain. All eyes are now on the “Fabulous Fifth,” as Foley calls it, to see how they will vote.
