Will O'Neill

Will O'Neill Husband; Father; Chairman of the Republican Party of Orange County; Former Newport Beach Mayor 2020 · 2024.

Newport Beach Mayor (2020); Current City Council Member; Husband; Father.

I have so many thoughts about Tuesday’s elections. Let’s do a lightning round on some.-The three biggest winners from t...
06/05/2026

I have so many thoughts about Tuesday’s elections. Let’s do a lightning round on some.

-The three biggest winners from the Governor’s race are Steve Hilton, Xavier Becerra, and Steyer’s consultants who convinced him to spend $216mm+ of his own money.

-The three biggest losers were Steyer, Katie Porter (less than 5% in Orange County??), and whoever thought there is a lane in today’s Democratic Party for a pragmatic Mayor like Matt Mahan.

-Orange County Republicans voted in big numbers this cycle. As of yesterday, ~41% of all ballots cast were Republicans compared to 38% of Democrats. Insiders know this is a big deal. This may narrow as more votes are counted, but OC Reps already voted at a higher clip than 2022.

-Every candidate endorsed by the OC GOP either won outright (county races) or made the top two to go to the general election (many are leading). Only one race remains undecided (see below).

- Dixon leads Foley for the OC Board of Supervisors, Dist. 5. Foley told her colleagues from the dais that she’d win in the primary and the OC Dem Chair told press that she was confident that Foley would win easily in June. With a majority of the district currently voting for change, there are some consultants in OC eating crow right now.

-Republican electeds Mari Barke, Dr. Stefan Bean, and Andrew Hamilton all won without opponents. Republican electeds Shari Freidenrich, Hugh Nguyen, Claude Parrish, and Lisa Sparks all won with over 72% of the vote. Wow.

-Sparks’s win means that the OC Board of Education remains 5-0 Republican and now the elected Superintendent is Republican too. Massive win for school choice and OC families.

-Democrats have voted for Chris Kluwe to be their candidate for Assembly District 72. Kluwe famously played for the Vikings where an investigation concluded that he made jokes about the child r**e at Penn State by tearing “a hole in the back of his shorts and said he was a victim of convicted child molester and former PSU assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.” So, there’s that.

-Now for the weeks of counting votes because CA is a third-world country….

(Thank you for today’s pic!)

Resources:

• OC counts - https://tracker.politicaldata.com/?type=County&value=CA+-+Orange+County&tab=0

• CIVIQ data - https://abev.civiq.vote/

• OC What’s Left to Count - https://ocvote.gov/results/whats-left-to-count

• OC vote results - https://ocvote.gov/results/current-election-results

• SI Now “Chris Kluwe apologizes on SI Now for Sandusky jokes” https://www.si.com/nfl/2014/07/21/chris-kluwe-vikings-lawsuit-penn-state

06/04/2026

CNN’s hosted me tonight and asked if California’s counting system is a laughing stock. Of course it is!

Last night was wildly late with the election results rolling in, so I have to apologize for a pretty spartan Update. Tr...
06/03/2026

Last night was wildly late with the election results rolling in, so I have to apologize for a pretty spartan Update. Trust me, you’ll get a better one on Friday.

On Monday, I quoted from Matthew Spalding’s book “The Making Of The American Mind: The Story of our Declaration of Independence.” He wrote two paragraphs that I wanted to quote, but were too long for the post.

Without further ado:

“Americans have always cherished liberty precisely because, though among the highest of goods, it is not the whole of human life. Liberty allows us to act freely in our lives based on our different opinions, passions, and interests, and to self-govern and to be governed based on what we believe is good for ourselves, our families, our community, and our country. Yet liberty itself is not an end but is in service of other ends. There is a comprehensive good that we all seek, and that good - according to the whole classical and Christian tradition, going back to the very beginning - is happiness.”

“Growing out of the long Western tradition of classical and Christian thought, the Founders understood happiness to be a full life lived in accord with the human virtues or excellences of character, the practice of which is essential to republican self-government.”

My goodness, so good.

(Thank you for today’s pic!)

Get up, get going, vote! Need a voter guide? I have you covered!
06/02/2026

Get up, get going, vote! Need a voter guide? I have you covered!

We are a day away from an important election here in California and a month away from celebrating our nation’s 250th bir...
06/01/2026

We are a day away from an important election here in California and a month away from celebrating our nation’s 250th birthday.

I encourage you all to vote. I have provided my own guide, which you can certainly use, but even if you don’t, please still vote. The act of civic participation in a representative democracy is truly special and incredible.

I recently read Matthew Spalding’s “The Making Of The American Mind: The Story of our Declaration of Independence,” which is worth your time this year. Though this quote is a bit lengthy, please read and consider his points:

“In America, patriotism of place and of principle are perfectly compatible and, indeed, inseparable. Having rejected the Old World’s rule of accident and force in favor of government by reflection and choice, the Founders understood education - heretofore an elite privilege of the upper class and often a tool of state control - to take on a new civic role in service to popular government. In a republican regime, built on equal rights and the consent of the governed, education not only shapes the private character that allows the individual to govern the self but also imparts the principles necessary for those individuals to practice the arts of self-government.”

Indeed, as English Christian writer G.K. Chesteron would observe from across the pond: “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed.”

A foundation on creed means that the status of your birth and the bloodline of your family does not dictate how high you can rise. Abraham Lincoln, born in a one-room log cabin, knew this better than most. In his famous “Electric Cord Speech” in 1858, he noted that men need not descend by blood to our Founding Fathers to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Instead, by understanding our founding principles: “they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration.”

Today or tomorrow, vote. And for the next month and beyond, claim our nation’s creed as your family’s own.

(Thank you for today’s pic!)

Resources:

• Lincoln “Electric Cord Speech” -https://www.uvu.edu/ccs/docs/lincolns_cord_speech.pdf

• Spalding “The Making of the American Mind” - https://www.amazon.com/Making-American-Mind-Declaration-Independence/dp/1641774878/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0

It’s time Newport Beach! Get to the polls this weekend, avoid the lines on Election Day, and vote for for the Orange C...
05/30/2026

It’s time Newport Beach! Get to the polls this weekend, avoid the lines on Election Day, and vote for for the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

Typically – but not always – the highest turnout typically goes in this order: Presidential general election; midterm ge...
05/29/2026

Typically – but not always – the highest turnout typically goes in this order: Presidential general election; midterm general election; Presidential primary; midterm primary; special election.

Tuesday (June 2) completes our 30-day election here in California for a midterm primary. Typically a low turnout affair. Republicans, though, are bucking the trend and voting in great numbers.

Out of 1.9m registered voters, 295,203 have voted. 21k more Republicans have voted than Democrats. 43% of all votes cast are cast by Republicans. This is a big deal.

(In politics, we talk about R+ and D+ percentages. If there are 40% registered Democrats and 42% Republicans, we would call that an R+2%. Got it? Ok.)

Orange County is a D+2.5% registration county (super purple), but the turnout right now is R+7.3%. That means Republicans are “overperforming” by 9.8%!! Huge!

Some folks claim that Democrats are holding on to their ballots because they’re scared of the governor’s race. To which I say, balderdash. At the same time four years ago (also a midterm primary), 99k Democrats had voted. But this time, 106k Democrats have voted. Does that sound like coordinated holdback?

The reason for Republican turnout optimism, though, is that 127.6k Republicans have voted this year compared to 99.2k four years ago. This matters a ton because now Republican candidates (and the OC GOP) can be more targeted toward people who haven’t voted. This turns out lower-propensity voters likely to vote for change. And boy, do we need some change in this state.

No district has benefited more from this change than Diane Dixon’s challenge for the Orange County Board of Supervisors, District 5. That district is an R+5.1, but voting at an R+13.1 clip. 46% of all votes there are Republican right now.

None of this matters, though, if we don’t finish strong. So here’s my plea: vote this weekend. Don’t wait until Tuesday. Vote in person and forward these Voter recommendations to your friends. We can win this and save our County. But we all need to participate and vote for our values, not Gavin Newsom’s.

Most folks don't know that the City of Los Angeles is bigger than San Diego and Orange Counties. Honestly, I had forgott...
05/27/2026

Most folks don't know that the City of Los Angeles is bigger than San Diego and Orange Counties. Honestly, I had forgotten that until I recently looked up the City’s registration data. Besides being a nerd, why was I looking up the registration data of Los Angeles? Two words: Spencer Pratt.

So, let’s just talk L.A. electoral numbers for a moment so that you can get a feeling just how steep the partisan divide is in the City of Angels and Homeless.

L.A. City (as opposed to L.A. County) has ~3.88 million residents. That’s more people than Connecticut, Utah, and Nevada. Whereas Orange County has ~1.9m registered voters, L.A. has ~2.2mm registered voters.

L.A. City is huge. It’s also comically blue.

Of those 2.2mm registered voters, 1.2m are registered Democrats, 326k are Republicans, and 668k are “other” (i.e., no party preference, green party, etc.). In other words, there are ~4x the number of Democrats than Republicans and ~2x the number of other registrations than Republicans.

That partisanship shows up in hyper-partisan races. Two years ago, Kamala Harris won ~70%+ of L.A. city’s vote. But in non-partisan races, Angelenos are more willing to give change a chance, especially when it comes to their safety. In the same Presidential cycle, Angelenos voted overwhelmingly to support Prop 36 (make crime illegal again initiative) and oust their Democrat District Attorney (George Gascon) in favor of No Party Preference candidate (and recent Republican candidate for Attorney General) Nathan Hochman.

And then there was Prop 50, where Angelinos voted overwhelmingly to choose who their neighbors in Orange County could vote for with gerrymandered lines (~1.1m yes; ~304k no).

Now you know why Karen Bass and the L.A. Times are trying so hard to remind voters that Pratt is a Republican. So far, though, L.A. voters are wildly apathetic. Only 5% have voted total and only 9% of Republicans have voted at all.

For Pratt to keep Bass under 50%, he will need Republicans to turn out bigly and major crossover from Democrats. We’ll see if this campaign keeps chugging along into November!

(Thank you for today’s pic!)

Resources:

• Crosstown (12/2024) “A city-country divide—more than 70% of L.A. voters picked Kamala Harris” https://xtown.la/2024/12/16/a-city-country-divide-more-than-70-percent-of-los-angeles-voters-picked-kamala-harris-for-president/

• So Does It Matter “Spencer Pratt, Karen Bass, And The Weirdest Mayor’s Race In America” sodoesitmatter.com/p/spencer-pratt-karen-bass-and-the

• Orange County ballot tracking - https://tracker.politicaldata.com/?type=County&value=CA+-+Orange+County

• City of Los Angeles ballot tracking - https://tracker.politicaldata.com/?type=City&value=CA+-+City+Of+Los+Angeles

• States by population - https://www.statsamerica.org/sip/rank_list.aspx?rank_label=pop1

• LA Times “Spencer Pratt jolts mayor’s race: The reality TV antagonist’s path to the 2026 election” https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-21/spencer-pratt-goes-from-reality-tv-villain-to-la-mayoral-candidate

• LA Times “Downtown L.A. businesses are in crisis. Owners want politicians to deal with it” https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-05-26/downtowns-demands-for-city-leaders

We observe Memorial Day today, which honors and mourns our U.S. military personnel who died while serving. Its first nat...
05/25/2026

We observe Memorial Day today, which honors and mourns our U.S. military personnel who died while serving.

Its first national observation occurred in 1868, when the Commander-In-Chief of an organization called “The Grand Army of the Republic” (GAR) designated May 30 as a memorial day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

As you may recall, the country had just concluded a long and bloody Civil War. Death in service of our nation affected everyone and fraternal organizations – like GAR – built up around their shared service and common bonds forged in the crucible of chaos.

Originally known as “Decoration Day,” the first national celebration took place at Arlington National Cemetery (where Union and Confederate soldiers were buried). Grave decorating had, of course, taken place before 1868 and there are disputes over where Memorial Day’s origins really lie. In this case, at least, the origins of the day are unnecessary to understand its current national significance.

Instead, we look upon this day with reverence, honor, and mourning. I still remember men who I knew as boys who grew up to fight and die for this nation. Who believed that the ideals represented by the flag on their uniform identified a nation worth defending.

I encourage you to find a place today to commemorate Memorial Day. If you are in the Newport Beach area, please visit Castaways Park to visit the 1,776 flags placed by our amazing Newport Harbor Exchange Club.

God bless this nation and the men and women who laid down their lives in its defense.

(Thank you to for today’s pic!)

The last eighteen months have reminded us repeatedly why informed voting matters. And the truth is that we have already...
05/22/2026

The last eighteen months have reminded us repeatedly why informed voting matters. And the truth is that we have already forgotten so many things thanks to fast-paced news cycles. I was reflecting on that today because a whole lot of people would have forgotten the Palisades Fires without Spencer Pratt’s campaign.

What else should we remember while we’re voting?

Sacramento legislators drew gerrymandered districts to benefit themselves at the expense of voters. But in the end, Democrats will be the net losers on redistricting throughout the nation.

Newsom’s Chief of Staff quietly resigned, was indicted on multiple felony counts, and recently pled guilty to multiple felonies.

Xavier Becerra’s former Chief of Staff has also pled guilty to stealing from … Becerra.

California has lost more population to other states than it has gained in EVERY SINGLE YEAR that Newsom has been Governor.

Voter ID qualified for the ballot thanks to massive volunteer efforts! (See you in November for that one!)

Billions of dollars in fraud have been discovered and Sacramento’s one-party rule legislature responded by criminalizing acts of journalism.

Eric Swalwell happened.

Katie Porter’s abuse of her staff and journalists was caught on video.

California voters passed Prop 36 (make crime illegal again) overwhelmingly, but Newsom won’t fund it.

Newsom’s $6.4 billion bond for mental health promised 20,000 homes, but hasn’t come close.

The state legislature (and Newsom’s parole board appointees) have authorized murderers and child rapists to leave prison early because prisoners over 50 are considered “elderly” and given an easy path out.

A Newport-Mesa Unified School District Trustee pled guilty following a hit-and-run on the night she became School Board President … and covered it up for years.

Get the picture? Then vote this weekend by mail or in person. Our county’s future depends on it!

(Thank you for today’s pic!)

Address

2618 San Miguel Drive, #173
Newport Beach, CA
92660

Telephone

+19494169313

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