Democrats expect bigger majorities

Barack Obama’s victory spread to California, as Democrats were poised to widen their majority in the state Legislature, while Republicans battled to hang on to long-held congressional seats.

California voters Tuesday decided 53 congressional races, all 80 Assembly seats and half of the 40 seats in the state Senate.

Most of those seats were gerrymandered to favor one party, but Democrats, flush with money and buoyed by registration gains, hoped to pick up two congressional seats and expand their majorities in the state Senate and Assembly.

“Clearly, it is not a very good night to be a Republican,” said Republican consultant Ray McNally, whose firm managed Republican Dean Andal’s flagging attempt to reclaim a Northern California congressional seat won two years ago by Jerry McNerney.

Democrats already hold 34 of the state’s 53 congressional seats. But they were emboldened this year as Republicans struggled with a highly unpopular president, an economy in crisis, an unpopular war and a lack of campaign money.

Democrats had said they were targeting two seats held by Republicans: a vacated seat in suburban Sacramento and another held by Rep. Brian Bilbray of Carlsbad in northern San Diego County. Bilbray was beating back a challenge by first-time candidate Nick Leibham, an attorney.

Democrats focused money and effort on the suburban Sacramento seat long held by Rep. John Doolittle, who is stepping down amid federal investigations.

The Republican standard-bearer in the race is state Sen. Tom McClintock, a conservative stalwart who lives in the Sacramento area but long represented a district 400 miles to the south that includes parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Democrat Charlie Brown was locked in a tight race after painting McClintock as a career politician unfamiliar with the plight of everyday Californians.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $783,000 on television ads mocking McClintock, using Photoshopped pictures of him hitchhiking. McClintock, never a prodigious fundraiser, was not airing television ads in the closing days of the campaign, instead favoring robo-calls.

Republicans were scarcely on the offensive.

Andal, a former GOP assemblyman from Stockton, sought to unseat McNerney (D-Pleasanton) and reclaim a Northern California seat that until two years ago was held by a Republican, Richard Pombo.

But Andal ran short of money in the closing weeks of the campaign, while McNerney amassed a war chest that bulged with more than $2.2 million. The Democrats’ campaign committee, which has spent $78 million statewide, also dumped $585,000 into the race.

Duncan Hunter Jr., the 30-year-old son of the retiring Republican congressman by the same name, was headed to victory in his San Diego County seat.

Republican voters and party leaders reported receiving mystery robo-calls before polls closed Tuesday evening in which the speaker declared a “breaking news alert” that “the Obama landslide is a virtual certainty.”

The call, which included no disclaimer or identifying information, said Democrats would have “large majorities in both houses of Congress, regardless of final results from Western states like Colorado and California.”

“It is pretty outrageous,” Republican consultant Wayne Johnson said. “The idea was to suppress turn-out. It is pretty close to a violation of the Civil Rights Act. The problem is tracking it.”

In Sacramento, the balance of power is close to a tipping point. Democratic gains would have an effect on major issues related to spending and taxation, which were at issue during the negotiations that brought the budget in 85 days late, a record delay.

The most expensive contests were in the state Senate, where term limits forced out a dozen legislators, including such notable Southern Californians as Sheila Kuehl of Santa Monica and McClintock, the Republican hoping to move to Congress.

Democrats hold 25 of the 40 Senate seats and needed to pick up two to achieve the two-thirds majority required to pass budgets without GOP support and to override vetoes.

Fran Pavley was headed to easy victory in Kuehl’s seat, but there was a pitched battle to replace McClintock that cost more than $7 million -- more than most congressional races.

Former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, a Democrat and attorney from Santa Barbara, opened a lead over former Assemblyman Tony Strickland, a Republican who once worked for McClintock and, like McClintock, made a point of opposing all tax increases.

Both candidates sought to portray themselves as moderates and environmentalists.

Outside groups spent $2.3 million on the race, as real estate interests and apartment owners backed Strickland, and police and firefighter unions backed Jackson.

In the Assembly, appeared to be headed for victories in two districts held by Republicans, one in Contra Costa County and the other in San Diego County. One Republican in Kern County was leading in the fight for a seat now held by a Democrat.

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dan.morain@latimes.com

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com