IRVINE, Calif. — When Martie Lubetkin moved to Orange County in 1976, the region was such a conservative stronghold that a liberal friend drove around with a bumper sticker that read, “It’s OK to be a Democrat behind the orange curtain.”
“It was all orange groves and farmers and it was deeply, deeply red,” said Lubetkin, a retired speech-language pathologist from Irvine.
Democrats pulled down that curtain in 2018, sweeping all six of the county’s congressional seats. Among them was the 47th District, which was won by Katie Porter, a progressive law professor and minivan-driving single mom whose viral moments helped her attain a measure of celebrity unusual for a rank-and-file member of Congress.
