Down-ballot races hold some surprises

Californians’ anger at Sacramento appears to have claimed some political victims in Tuesday’s primary election.

Former Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines could be headed toward defeat in his bid for insurance commissioner at the hands of a political unknown who spent less than $5,000. And in the race for state schools chief, Larry Aceves, a retired superintendent, bested two sitting legislators with more than a decade of experience, knocking veteran state Sen. Gloria Romero (D- Los Angeles) out of the running.

Voters set up some intriguing November matchups in statewide offices, including a showdown between two of California’s rising political stars — Democrat Gavin Newsom and Republican Abel Maldonado — over the lieutenant governorship, a symbolic race for a largely ceremonial post.

But Villines, a Republican from Clovis, who had been expected to waltz through the primary, was the week’s big surprise; as of late May, he had stashed more than half of his campaign treasury away for a general election battle instead of spending it on the primary. He was not conceding Wednesday to Brian FitzGerald, a Department of Insurance attorney whose own campaign blog jokingly referred to him as “Fitz the Unknown,” even though he trailed FitzGerald by more than 11,000 votes, with 49.6% of the ballots cast.

“I’m trying to take this all in,” FitzGerald said.

Hundreds of thousands of provisional, damaged and mail-in ballots have yet to be tallied, according to a survey of county election officials. “It’s a race that isn’t over,” said Mary-Beth Moylan, an elections law professor at Pacific McGeorge Law School in Sacramento.

Villines, once a darling of the GOP activists, became a top target of their ire after he helped engineer a 2009 budget pact that raised taxes temporarily. Talk radio hosts, led by John and Ken on KFI-AM in Los Angeles, repeatedly blasted him over the airwaves; Villines fared poorly in the voter-rich Southern California Basin.

“People are angry,” said Steve Frank, a conservative GOP activist in Simi Valley. “The only way Republicans could ‘thank’ Mike Villines for his tax increases is to vote against him, even if it meant voting for somebody that nobody — except for FitzGerald’s family and close friends — has ever heard of.”

In the Democratic insurance commissioner primary, Assemblyman Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) handily defeated Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate) with 61% of the vote.

Maldonado overcame his own rocky relationship with the conservative wing of the GOP to seize the lieutenant governor nomination from five competitors with a 43% plurality. He was aided by months of appearances alongside Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appointed Maldonado to the post late last year. State Sen. Sam Aanestad (R- Grass Valley) finished with 31%.

On the Democratic side, Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, dispatched Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, with 55% of the vote to her 34%.

Thad Kousser, visiting professor of political science at Stanford University, said the Maldonado-Newsom matchup of 42-year-old politicians would be a battle between two of California’s next generation of leaders.

“You’ve got two candidates who really have the chance to be the heir apparent in their parties,” he said.

In other races, three incumbent Democratic state officials, each unopposed in the primary, learned who their GOP opponents would be this fall.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen will face Damon Dunn, a 34-year-old former football player who marched through the GOP primary with 74% of the vote, topping Republican Orly Taitz, a leading figure in the “birther” movement that claims President Obama was not born in the United States.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer will face Sen. Mimi Walters (R- Laguna Niguel), who was also unopposed in her primary. And Controller John Chiang will see a rematch of his 2006 campaign, running against Sen. Tony Strickland (R- Moorpark), who won 60% of the GOP primary vote.

In the packed primary for state superintendent of public instruction, California’s only nonpartisan statewide office, Aceves, a former president of the Assn. of California School Administrators, advanced to a November runoff by finishing first, with 18.8% of the vote. Assemblyman Tom Torlakson (D- Antioch), grabbed the second spot with 18%, edging out Romero, who pulled in 17.2%.

In the contests for California’s tax board, the Board of Equalization, three incumbents, Betty Yee and Jerome Horton, both Democrats, and Michelle Steel, a Republican, coasted through the primary with little opposition. In the lone competitive race, Sen. George Runner (R- Lancaster) won 36% of the vote, edging out former Assemblyman Alan Nakanishi (R-Lodi) and interim tax board member Barbara Alby, who finished with 29% and 25% of the vote, respectively.

shane.goldmacher@latimes.com