Vote Totals Show O’Connor Carried Republican Areas

Former San Diego City Councilwoman Maureen O’Connor won this month’s mayoral election by rolling up majorities in traditionally Republican communities and carrying Mid-City and beach neighborhoods that she lost to former Mayor Roger Hedgecock in 1983.

Official vote totals released by the county registrar of voters also showed that O’Connor, a Democrat who traditionally has run well in the minority communities in the southern half of San Diego, solidified that base in the June 3 race, clobbering City Councilman Bill Cleator by ratios as high as 5 to 1 in many Latino and black neighborhoods.

“I’d like to think it shows that our issues, the candidate and our organization were right on target,” O’Connor said. “Organizationwise, we learned from ’83 and worked very, very hard to turn those numbers around this time.”

The registrar’s official canvass of the June runoff returns showed that O’Connor received 112,308 votes (55.3%), compared to 90,811 (44.7%) for Cleator. O’Connor carried all but a handful of city neighborhoods in her victory, as she swept six of the city’s eight council districts, narrowly losing the 2nd District (which Cleator represents) and the 7th District to her Republican opponent.

In the 14-candidate Feb. 25 primary, O’Connor had outpolled Cleator, 46% to 30%--a deficit that Cleator strategists hoped to overcome in the nominally nonpartisan mayoral runoff with a large Republican turnout for the party’s U.S. Senate primary. Cleator managed to narrow the gap between himself and O’Connor, but the two-term councilman was unable to overcome what O’Connor termed the “nice big cushion” that she carried into the runoff.

“We came so close (to a majority) in the primary that, to win, Bill would have had to get almost all of the remaining votes,” O’Connor said. “That’s almost impossible for anyone to do. We had a much shorter distance to travel to get to 50%. But it sure wasn’t easy.”

The vote totals released by the registrar’s office show that O’Connor changed the voting patterns that dominated the 1983 mayoral election, in which she was narrowly defeated by Hedgecock, 52% to 48%. Three years ago, there was a clear north-vs.-south division of votes, with Hedgecock receiving much of his support from the largely white, relatively affluent neighborhoods north of Interstate 8, while most of O’Connor’s votes came from poor and middle-class communities populated heavily by racial and ethnic minorities--traditional strongholds for Democratic candidates.

Obliterating that political line of demarcation, O’Connor this year maintained her strong base in southern San Diego but also carried some of the northern, heavily Republican neighborhoods won by Hedgecock in 1983 and again in his successful 1984 reelection bid against businessman Dick Carlson.

In the process, O’Connor attracted much of the so-called “Hedgecock coalition” vote--the amalgam of environmental, neighborhood and homosexual activists who formed the core of Hedgecock’s political base.

O’Connor, for example, edged Cleator in Rancho Penasquitos, 52% to 48%, and ran ahead of Cleator by margins of up to 3-to-2 in areas such as Del Mar Heights, University City, Mira Mesa and Serra Mesa--communities in which she was outdistanced by Hedgecock three years ago.

Although environmentalism is a potent political issue throughout San Diego, it is particularly so in those northern neighborhoods, largely because the city’s Growth Management Plan calls for much of north San Diego to remain undeveloped until late this century.

While O’Connor’s popularity among environmentalists is not as strong as Hedgecock’s was, she did co-author the Growth Management Plan in the 1970s and is considerably more moderate on environmental issues than Cleator--factors that the mayor-elect believes contributed to her solid showing in north San Diego.

“Voters had a much clearer choice this time on growth management than they did last time,” O’Connor said. “Roger and I both have pro-environment records. I think Bill progressed a lot during the campaign and came around to supporting some environmental programs, but there still was a bigger gap between the two candidates on environmental issues this year than in ’83.”

Attracting another key component of Hedgecock’s support, O’Connor also carried Hillcrest, which has a large homosexual population, with 2,363 votes (60.2%) to Cleator’s 1,564 (39.8%).

In addition, O’Connor swept many beach and Mid-City communities that she had lost to Hedgecock in 1983, including Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, Mission Hills, North Park, Normal Heights and the San Diego State University area. Many of those areas were targeted, O’Connor explained, in her campaign’s get-out-the-vote effort.

Cleator carried most of the major communities that line Interstate 15, including Rancho Bernardo (a heavily Republican area that he narrowly carried by a 51%-49% margin), Scripps Ranch and Tierrasanta. Throughout the mayoral campaign, Cleator emphasized the need to expedite construction of freeways to relieve traffic along the I-15 corridor, which he often characterized as “basically the world’s biggest parking lot during rush hour.”

The Republican councilman’s strongest showing came in the Point Loma area, where he outpolled O’Connor, 60% to 40%. Both Cleator and O’Connor live in Point Loma, which is included in Cleator’s council district. Cleator also ran ahead of O’Connor in La Jolla and San Carlos.

The most dramatic gap between the two mayoral candidates, however, was in the minority communities of southern San Diego, where O’Connor eclipsed Cleator by margins ranging up to nearly 5 to 1.

In Southeast San Diego, Encanto, Paradise Hills and the Chollas area, O’Connor received 12,565 votes (74.4%), compared to 4,322 votes (25.6%) for Cleator. O’Connor’s victory margin was even greater within some of those individual communities, as in Southeast San Diego, where she received nearly 83% of the vote.

O’Connor also easily outdistanced Cleator in the heavily Latino South Bay communities of San Ysidro, Otay and Nestor, receiving 4,119 votes (62.3%) to Cleator’s 2,496 ballots (37.7%).

Although pleased that she displayed strong, evenly balanced support throughout the city, O’Connor, stating the obvious, noted Tuesday that she derives her greatest satisfaction from the fact that she led with “the only number that really counts.”

“To me, 55% is the best number,” O’Connor said. “That’s the one that matters.” VOTE BY NEIGHBORHOOD

NEIGHBORHOOD O’Connor Cleator Rancho Bernardo 3,831 3,966 Penasquitos 2,402 2,196 Del Mar Heights 1,598 1,013 University City 4,505 3,239 La Jolla 4,303 4,623 Mira Mesa 3,881 3,160 Scripps Ranch-Miramar 1,498 1,536 Clairemont 11,737 10,050 Tierrasanta 1,877 2,032 San Carlos-Navajo 7,783 8,903 Serra Mesa-Linda Vista 4,942 3,754 Pacific Beach 5,185 4,356 Mission Beach-Bay area 815 787 Ocean Beach 2,342 1,872 Midway-Old Town 1,093 837 Mission Hills 1,687 1,387 Hillcrest 2,363 1,564 North Park 3,981 2,730 Normal Heights 4,106 3,292 State College area 2,553 2,331 South Park-East San Diego 7,577 5,438 Downtown-Golden Hill 2,874 1,749 Loma Portal 1,679 2,494 Point Loma 1,403 2,387 Southeast San Diego-Chollas- Encanto-Paradise Hills 12,565 4,322 South Bay-Otay-Nestor- San Ysidro 4,119 2,496 Absentee ballots 9,609 8,297 Total 112,308 90,811

Chart based on figures supplied by San Diego County Registrar of Voters