Election Good News or Bad for Illegal Migration Foes?

The newest member of Congress, Orange County’s John Campbell, flew to Washington on Wednesday to claim his House seat as both sides in the debate over illegal immigration declared victory after a race closely watched as a possible preview of the 2006 elections.

Backers of Campbell, an Irvine Republican, said his Tuesday night win with 45% of the vote over Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the civilian Minuteman border patrol, showed that a tough stance on immigration issues was not enough to sway voters -- even in the birthplace of Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot measure that targeted illegal immigrants.

“It looks like it didn’t work out for Jimmy One-Note,” said Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh. “This race was over the day John Campbell filed papers.”

But advocates of a border crackdown took heart in Gilchrist’s 25% showing as an insurgent running under the banner of the American Independent Party, saying it proved the power the issue could have next year in congressional races across the country.

“When you can get that many people stirred up in a district that is so solidly Republican, just think about what this means,” said Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican and one of the foremost congressional advocates of a border crackdown, who broke GOP ranks to support Gilchrist. Both major parties, Tancredo said, had “better start paying attention.”

Others without a direct stake in the immigration issue agreed.

“It’s not at the very top tier. It’s not up there with combating terrorism or protecting jobs. But it’s certainly in the second tier,” said pollster Andrew Kohut, president of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, who said illegal immigration could become a hotter issue with increased concern about the economy and U.S. engagement abroad.

Campbell won the seat by placing first in a field of five, but the competition between him and Gilchrist dominated the race. A day after the special election to replace veteran Congressman Christopher Cox, now chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, both men were looking ahead.

“Right away, I expect to be voting to make the Bush income tax cuts permanent, to cut the growth in future domestic spending programs and to allow drilling for oil in the vast domestic supply fields of Alaska,” Campbell, 50, wrote in his online journal. He took office after being sworn in Wednesday by House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois.

Gilchrist pledged to seek office again next year -- by facing Campbell a second time, challenging Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, running for lieutenant governor or even trying for governor. “This is only round one,” Gilchrist said. “Even Rocky Balboa didn’t win in the first round.”

He noted that he outpolled Campbell on election day, winning 35% of the ballots cast Tuesday to Campbell’s 30%. The difference was Campbell’s huge advantage in the absentee and mail-in vote, which is where the institutional support of the Republican Party had been brought to bear.

The affluent 48th Congressional District stretches from Newport Beach to Dana Point and ranges inland as far as Tustin. With the GOP enjoying a 2-to-1 registration advantage, there was little doubt that Republicans would place one of their own in the seat, which Cox had held since 1988. Democrat Steve Young had 28% of the vote in unofficial returns, to finish a distant second behind Campbell.

The biggest question from Tuesday’s vote was how far the immigration issue could carry Gilchrist, and what that might portend in next year’s midterm elections, when a third of the U.S. Senate and the entire membership of the House comes up for reelection.

The issue has created anxiety among some Republican strategists by pitting two key party constituencies against one another. Though powerful business groups welcome the supply of cheap labor provided by illegal immigration, many conservatives say stricter laws are needed to stem its costs and the erosion, as they see it, of the country’s culture.

The issue has also created tension between President Bush and leaders of the national Republican Party -- who wish to expand the GOP’s appeal among the nation’s fast-growing Latino population -- and others who believe the party is selling out its core values by pandering.

Pointedly, party leaders ignored Gilchrist and the immigration issue in the statements they issued Wednesday congratulating Campbell. Not so Democrats. Party Chairman Howard Dean issued a statement in Washington saying “the resounding defeat of the Minuteman candidate last night in Orange County sent a powerful message that voters are tired of the politics of hate and divisiveness.”

Bill Burton, a Democratic Party spokesman, said the election underscored “a clear division within the Republican ranks over what direction to go on the issue of immigration.... They are going to have a tough time figuring out where they stand when Bush is in one place, Republican leaders in another and candidates around the country in their own place.”

Others, however, cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from an off-year contest that drew the interest of only about one in four eligible voters. There were a number of factors unique to the Orange County election, they said, starting with the high national profile that allowed Gilchrist to raise about $600,000 as an underdog third-party candidate.

“It’s not as if this guy was just a total kook that didn’t spend a dime and won 25% of the vote,” said Amy Walter, who analyzes House races nationally as senior editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “Rarely is a race going to get as much attention [focused] on immigration as this one. Gilchrist didn’t have to compete for attention with a governor’s race and 52 other congressional races. He had it all to himself, and even that wasn’t quite enough.”

Indeed, the timing of the election seemed particularly fortuitous for Gilchrist, a 56-year-old retired accountant in Aliso Viejo who was making his first try for public office.

Cox’s appointment to the SEC was announced in July, just two months after Gilchrist burst into national prominence with the Minuteman Project, which organized citizen patrols along the U.S. border. As a third-party candidate, Gilchrist was assured of advancing to the runoff against Campbell and Young, granting him a high-profile election platform.

His singular focus on illegal immigration made it the dominant issue in the campaign and forced the Republican front-runner to alter his strategy.

Campbell, a former accountant and car dealer, started out emulating Cox, who built a reputation as an expert on fiscal and budget issues.

But soon he was on the defensive; he even repudiated two of the votes he cast as a member of the state Assembly. One gave in-state tuition to illegal immigrants at state colleges and universities. The second recognized Mexican consulate cards as valid identification.

By the end of the campaign, Campbell had joined Gilchrist in opposing Bush’s guest-worker plan to allow foreign workers into the country temporarily and endorsed a proposal to create special border police in California. Only after a harder crackdown on illegal immigration, Campbell said, would he favor some type of temporary-worker program to ensure a labor supply for California’s agricultural industry and other business interests.

Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Campbell’s victory showed that a candidate focused on immigration could elevate the issue, but not enough to prevail without something more to say.

He also cautioned against looking too far beyond the results in Orange County. With Congress poised to take up immigration legislation next week, the issue “very easily could be taken off the table by the time the elections occur” in November of 2006, Forti said.

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Times staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.