With all 276 precincts reporting early Wednesday, Democrat Sharon Quirk-Silva appeared to have scored an upset victory over incumbent Republican Chris Norby in the 65th Assembly District.

Quirk-Silva had a 1,000 vote lead pending a count of provisional votes.

Norby had beaten the Fullerton mayor by 18 percentage points in June, but the newly drawn district was, on paper, Orange County’s most competitive with a narrow gap between Republican and Democratic registrations.

In the county’s other tight race, the 72nd Assembly District, Huntington Beach financial planner Travis Allen led Los Alamitos Mayor Troy Edgar in a contest that pitted two Republicans against each other, thanks to the state’s new top-two primary system.

Voters in the 69th Assembly District also elected a new face to the Legislature, Tom Daly, the county clerk-recorder, who will replaced the termed-out Jose Solorio.

Incumbent Republicans won in the county’s other six legislative races.

Statewide, the big question for the Legislature was whether Democrats would be able to achieve their goal of securing a two-thirds majority in both the state Senate and state Assembly.

A supermajority in both houses would give Democrats the ability to raise taxes in the Legislature without a single Republican vote. Democrats felt confident they could get a two-thirds majority in the Senate this year after the California Citizens Redistricting drew new Senate boundaries in 2011 that overall leaned Democratic, but few were predicting a supermajority in the Assembly. Early Wednesday, a two-thirds majority appeared within the Democrats grasp in the Assembly as well.

Contact the writer: bjoseph@ocregister.com