Today's newsletter was written by Associate Editor Shelby Grad. Anita Chhabria will be back next week.

If you think election denial is just for rural Republicans, take the 405 to Orange County.

Sure, OC was once known as a conservative stronghold — it's now a deep purple state, with Democrats making big gains in recent decades — and it's also one of the wealthiest and best-educated places in the country. But A recent UC Irvine poll:

• Twenty-six percent of adults say they don't believe Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election, and an additional 17% say they're not sure.
• A majority of Republicans polled (55%) believed Biden did not win fairly.

Remember, this isn't the Orange County of John Wayne and the Reagan Revolution: Voters rejected Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020 and supported Hillary Clinton and then Biden.

I was intrigued by the results of this poll because I covered Orange County for The Times in the 1990s, and the majority of politicians I covered were Republicans, which left some skeptical of the Los Angeles reporter's political leanings (though I don't vote and can honestly say I have no political affiliation).

Old OC stereotypes

There have been plenty of moments where Orange County politics have fit the stereotype. During my first weekend shift as a 20-year-old intern, prominent politicians were called to gay rights protests. To tell“I'm a retired Marine. I'm not scared of a few faggots out there.”

But looking back, I don't think many of the Republican sources I spoke to at the time would have claimed the election was stolen without any evidence, and I don't think this is simply nostalgia for a less politically divided time.

In 1996, one of the most closely watched congressional elections in the country pitted Representative Robert K. Dornan, an avowed far-right Republican, against Representative Loretta Sanchez, an up-and-coming Democrat, in a district in central Orange County that was rapidly becoming less white and less Republican. The Republican Party had foreseen the demographic shift and had been working for several years to build a strong Democratic Party. “Poll monitors” were appointed. Police officers attacked officers trying to intimidate voters at polling places in Latino neighborhoods, but that did not stop the inevitable outcome.

“B-1 Bob” is fighting a losing battle

Election Day 1996 came and went, and the outcome was hard to predict. Dornan, claiming voter fraud and trailing Sanchez, fought on. Weeks passed with no clear winner. “B-1 Bob” was a right-wing legend known for his bombastic speeches in the empty House chamber and as a guest host on “The Rush Limbaugh Show.” He wasn't going to go down without a fight.

When the final results showed he had lost by 984 votes, A recount was requestedWhen a recount didn't change the vote count, he said foreigners had voted in Latino areas and vowed to go to court, setting off months of investigations into serious allegations of fraud by state and local officials, newspapers and Congress itself.

But it did not prevent Rep. Sanchez from taking office; she continued to represent her district as an elected official while the allegations were being investigated. When the House formally rejected Rep. Dornan's challenge, The vote was 378 to 33. Dornan wanted to return to his old job and ran against her in 1998, but was defeated.

Dornan Reportedly filed a complaint Some Republicans fully support himAnd he never received much support from the notoriously right-wing editorial page of the Orange County Register.

Conservative, but not scorched earth

The Register's editorials were surprisingly cautious by today's “politics is war” standards. They demanded that the allegations of fraud be taken seriously, and fought for a full investigation when some Democrats balked. But they never attacked Sanchez outright, nor did they demand action before all the facts were known. The overwhelming message was: Follow the law and the truth will come out.

The Register's owners at the time were well-known liberals: they supported the radical John Birch Society, and their most prominent Red Scare campaigns were fierce critics of “taxpayer-supported schools.”

But they also have a history of speaking truth to power, especially government power.

In my experience, they never went easy on Republican officials when they were wasting taxpayer money or getting into trouble.

When the U.S. government internment of Japanese Americans began at the beginning of World War II, most newspapers (including this one) rejoiced. But the Register was virtually the only one to oppose it. RC Wheels He said the government was exceeding its authority and that overall it was very un-American.

“Few believed the withdrawal of Japanese troops was constitutional. It was the result of emotion and fear, not of anything contrary to the Constitution or the inherent rights of all citizens,” the Register wrote in the 1990s. Editorial from 1942.

Although Hoyles' crusades earned him enemies at the time, they have been viewed very favorably in the eyes of history.

It's worth noting that Fox News debuted just a month before the election of Sanchez-Dornan. The late 1990s was a time of decline for the dominance of local newspapers, before the Internet and other market forces shifted public attention, hollowing out print newsrooms and giving rise to business models based on telling people what they wanted to hear.

Fox News The authorities are quite clear And why they support Trump's claims even though many people don't believe them. It came down to business..

I suspect very few UCI poll respondents got their news about Trump’s election lies from the Register or their local paper.

This is not to say that old journalistic practices were perfect or better: one need only look at the shameful cheer my newspaper showed against the incarceration of Japanese Americans to see the heroism of RC Hoyles.

But as we wonder why our politics have become so divided, we also need to ask how we get the facts that form our opinions.

Must read: Why Juneteenth Didn't End Slavery in Texas
San Francisco Special: Why a San Francisco bookstore is shipping queer books for free to conservative states
LA Times Feature: California elections are simmering over border and immigration issues, with control of the House of Representatives in jeopardy

P.S.: Goodbye Giants.

Here is our obituary.

Willie Mays was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2015.

(Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)

—
Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.

Times librarian James Kim contributed to research for this newsletter.