On Monday I wrote about longtime Solis aide Benita Duran’s entry into the CA-32 special race.  Now, I tend to agree with Mr. Dayen’s assessment that Benita Duran stands just about as much of a chance of winning a six-week sprint to the finish while trying to construct and campaign and fundraising apparatus as I do–and I’m not even a candidate in the race.  Which, of course, might engender speculation as to exactly why Duran announced so last-minute.

But that’s relatively small potatoes in comparison to the latest news from CA-32.  I checked the candidate filing page to see who else had filed, and one thing caught my eye: Judy isn’t the only Chu in the race.

It turns out that a certain Betty Tom Chu is running on the Republican ticket.  Simple name coincidence, you might think?  Anything but.  Betty Tom Chu is a former Monterey Park City Councilwoman, just like Judy used to be, who decided to run again.

Now, here’s where things get interesting:  I’ve heard from a couple of different sources, though I have been unable to confirm this independently, that Betty Tom Chu is Judy Chu’s aunt.  And this must have made for some very interesting politics in the Chu household, because Betty Chu turned out incumbent Monterey Park City Councilwoman Sharon Martinez, whom Betty’s niece Judy had endorsed for re-election.  For what it’s worth, my sources also seem to indicate that Betty and Judy don’t really get along too well.

So now, let’s talk about the political ramifications of this as it may turn out on May 19th.  All the candidates will appear on the same ballot, regardless of Party–which should mean that Betty and Judy will appear right next to each other on the ballot.  That right there could lead to a lot of voter confusion on the ballot.  But even more than that, it seems fair to reason that the appearance of another prominent Chinese candidate on the ballot, especially one who just won an election in March in an area that Judy is really counting on to win, does Judy no favors.  To further complicate matters, it seems like Betty should be able to actually self-fund a decent campaign, seeing as how she founded East West bank, which is a decently-sized retail bank serving the Asian community in Southern California.

Of course, Betty Chu is running on the Republican ticket, which means that she will stand little chance of defeating whichever Democrat emerges from the field in an overwhelmingly Democratic district.  And given the fact that Betty stands no chance of winning in July and was just elected to City Council, it’s definitely feasible to speculate that Betty Tom Chu has entered the CA-32 race specifically to sabotage her niece from taking the seat.

All of which is making me say: if you want to know who’s going to come out of the Democratic primary in this low-turnout special, you really should flip a coin.