L.A. County may be key battleground for attorney general rivals

Los Angeles County will probably become a key campaign battleground for California attorney general as the district attorneys of L.A. and San Francisco square off in the November election, political analysts said Wednesday.

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley’s political track record with local voters makes him a formidable GOP candidate in a state in which registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 3 to 2. Cooley has won three nonpartisan D.A. elections in the heavily Democratic county, where the large numbers of voters — 4.4 million — traditionally plays an important role in electing the state’s top law enforcement officer.

“It’s very important,” said John J. Pitney Jr., a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. “For a Republican to win in a Democratic county like Los Angeles is a very big deal indeed.”

Pitney said Democratic nominee Kamala D. Harris would have to take the race to Cooley’s home base to boost her chances of becoming the state’s first woman, first African American and first Asian to win the post.

“I would expect to see her here a lot,” Pitney said.

Democrats have won the last three elections for attorney general, each time scooping up roughly twice the number of votes in Los Angeles County as their GOP rivals. By contrast, the last time a Republican held the position, Dan Lungren carried the county by 48% to 45% en route to his statewide victory in 1994.

Harris’ identity as a San Francisco Democrat will give her baggage in more conservative parts of the state, like the Central Valley, said Joseph Tuman, professor of political and legal communications at San Francisco State. Tuman said that means she would need to lock up the Bay Area and do well in Los Angeles.

But like other politicians, he said, Harris cannot assume the support of her own party anywhere, given the current climate of voter anger.

“Fidelity to the party is not what it was,” Tuman said. “There are a lot of voters who are pretty mad at both parties right now.”

Harris’ campaign manager said she planned to target Los Angeles, but noted that Harris already has endorsements from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton. Harris also comfortably won the county’s primary, beating two candidates who hail from the area: former City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and Assemblyman Ted W. Lieu (D-Torrance).

Kevin Spillane, Cooley’s campaign strategist, noted that his candidate easily carried Los Angeles on Tuesday and planned to take the battle to Harris in the Bay Area.

“She’s going to be trying to play on his turf and she’s not going to get very far,” Spillane said.

Cooley, a political moderate, won Tuesday’s primary with a commanding 47% of the statewide vote, fighting off attempts by his two rivals to portray him as too liberal for the Republican faithful. Former law school dean John Eastman drew 34%. State Sen. Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach) finished third with nearly 19%.

Harris sewed up the Democratic nomination with 33%. She overcame an aggressive challenge in which one of her rivals, former Facebook executive Chris Kelly, spent more than $12 million of his own fortune. Kelly drew 16%. Lieu and Degadillo each won just over 10% of the vote, finishing fourth and fifth respectively in a field of seven candidates.

Despite their shared job titles, the prosecutors sought immediately to distance themselves from each other.

Cooley criticized Harris’ opposition to the death penalty and called her “irresponsible” in dealing with illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

“We may have similar titles, but the contrast couldn’t be any greater,” Cooley said in a statement.

Harris’ campaign struck back, saying that a vote for Cooley was an endorsement of the “status quo” and promising that she would seek to combat crime and its root causes.

“Cooley is right about one thing: The contrast in this race couldn’t be any clearer,” said Harris’ campaign manager, Brian Brokaw. “It’s the status quo versus innovation.”

jack.leonard@latimes.com