Lana Negrete's Rightwing Astroturf Group Endorses Lana Negrete

In this year’s Santa Monica city council election, the Blue Wave Democratic Club has endorsed Lana Negrete, Ashley Oelsen, and Doug Trussler.

But what is the Blue Wave Democratic Club? It’s obvious enough what the name is intended to suggest. But looking at the group’s listed leadership, it quickly becomes clear that this is a rightwing astroturf operation operated by Negrete’s childhood friend and political ally Greg Morena; another political ally Los Angeles city councilmember Traci Park, whose district borders Santa Monica; and by Negrete herself.

The below screenshot shows the first capture of the group’s leadership page by the Internet Archive, from 5/19/2023.

Greg Morena is a former Santa Monica city councilmember and as mentioned above, political ally of Negrete. The vice president at the time, Jacob Burman, is listed as a senior advisor to Los Angeles city councilmember Traci Park (whose district borders Los Angeles) on her official website. Rick Taylor is a longtime consultant to Park. Park was a longtime registered Republican before switching her party registration to Democratic to run for her council seat.

Justin Gordon? Big Traci Park supporter.

Julie Milligan? A westside political operative and one of the Park donors who triggered an $8,000 fine for excess contributions against Park in 2022.

In 2024, Blue Wave’s endorsements included then-incumbent Phil Brock and disgraced Los Angeles city councilmember Kevin de Leon (whose racism scandal occurred a year before they endorsed him). They also endorsed John Putnam, a Santa Monica city council candidate in 2024, who is another lifelong Republican until running for office in 2024. His donation history includes $25,000 to Mitt Romney and GOP PACs in the 2012 election cycle, a $2,500 max donation to Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 election cycle, and a donation to Republican Larry Elder in the 2021 recall against Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.¹ In June of this year, Putnam was on Fox News talking up Republican Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt.

Today, Blue Wave’s listed leadership is five of the same seven individuals as in 2023.

Newcomer Josh Yeager, the legislative director for John Lee, a longtime Republican who became a registered independent after being involved in a massive corruption scandal for his then-boss Los Angeles City Councilmember Jose Huizar.

And from at least 2/2/2026 to 4/20/2026 (the last capture of the page by the Internet Archive as of now), the interim president of the club was, as mentioned at the start of the article, none other than Negrete herself.

I’m sure Negrete had to work extremely hard “to have earned the endorsement of the Blue Wave Democratic Club”. She thanks for the club’s members for their endorsement in that Instagram post, but unlike the Santa Monica Democratic Club, the official arm of the Democratic party in Santa Monica, this astroturf organization provides zero transparency about their endorsement process. The SM Dem Club process involves every candidate being considered for endorsement filling out a questionnaire and conducting a video interview, both of which are posted online for SM Dem Club members to consider before voting collectively on the endorsements. This year, the SM Dem Club also held a candidate debate a week before the club’s endorsement vote. Following the vote, the club releases vote totals for each round of voting. The Blue Wave Democratic Club releases none of this, and membership in the astroturf organization also costs three times as much as membership in the real Dem Club.

In an upcoming article, I’ll explore why Negrete fits in so well with this collection of LA County rightwing politicians.

I can be reached on Signal at the username jason.917