Coast Cities Gave MacDonald an Edge; Inland Did In Eckert

Oceanside City Councilman John MacDonald dominated the voting in his hometown and three other coastal communities to finish first in the June 3 primary election for a seat on the county Board of Supervisors, according to final results released by the registrar of voters this week.

And Escondido attorney Clyde Romney won his spot in the November runoff against MacDonald by finishing first or second in 21 of 26 communities, including most of those east of Vista.

Incumbent Paul Eckert, dumped in his bid for a third term representing North County’s 5th District, was eliminated in the seven-candidate primary race because he failed to hold enough votes in his former strongholds in San Marcos, Escondido, Fallbrook and the rural backcountry to offset the drubbing he took along the coast, where he has never been popular.

The four remaining candidates--Vista Mayor Mike Flick, La Costa private detective Richard Repasky, Carlsbad Councilman Richard Chick, and Escondido auto parts salesman Edmund Fitzgerald--finished no higher than third in any community in the district, which stretches from Encinitas to Orange County and inland to the Imperial County line.

Official results show MacDonald finished with 23,261 votes (29.5%); Romney, 20,679 (26.3%); Eckert, 19,040 (24.2%); Flick, 6,154 (7.8%); Repasky, 3,858 (4.9%); Chick, 3,261 (4.1%), and Fitzgerald 2,492 (3.2%).

A look at the town-by-town results confirms what MacDonald has said since election night: the former president of MiraCosta College has a lot of work to do in the district’s vast inland areas, where MacDonald hardly campaigned but where Romney was able to erode Eckert’s once-strong support.

MacDonald got 57% of his votes from the four coastal communities of Oceanside, Carlsbad, Leucadia and Encinitas, where voter turnout was much higher than it was inland. Taking away those four areas from each of the candidates, MacDonald drops from first to a distant third. Romney would have finished first without those votes, with Eckert a close second.

Inland, MacDonald finished third in Escondido, San Marcos and the rural areas to the north and east, including Valley Center, Pauma Valley and Rincon. Romney and Eckert alternated first and second in those areas, and in every case MacDonald finished far behind them.

Romney finished first in Escondido, Rancho Santa Fe, Del Dios, Olivenhain, Fallbrook, Bonsall, Rainbow, Buena, Rincon, Pauma Valley, Bear Valley and Palomar. He finished second in Carlsbad, Leucadia, Encinitas, San Marcos, Valley Center, Borrego, Warner Springs, Pala, and Oak Grove.

Eckert’s poor showing along the coast was no surprise, but his weak inland returns were more startling.

Four years ago, when Eckert beat Leucadia businessman Bill Saltzman and Vista housewife Elizabeth Matthews in the June primary, he rang up percentages of 60% or higher in more than a dozen communities. In Valley Center, Eckert got 70% of the vote in 1982 and 40% this year. In Pauma Valley, he dropped from 75% to 33%.

The raw vote totals provide even clearer evidence of Eckert’s collapse: In Escondido, he collected 8,341 votes in the 1982 race, compared to just 3,676 this year, even though almost the same number of votes were cast districtwide. In Rancho Santa Fe, Eckert dropped from 1,255 to 323.

Despite Eckert’s talk before the election of possibly winning in the primary with more than 50% of the vote, the Vista moving and storage company owner got more than a majority in only one community: Borrego, where he took 61% of the vote. Eckert also finished first in Vista, San Marcos, Valley Center, Warner Springs, Pala, Oak Grove, De Luz and Camp Pendleton, but with far fewer votes than he had in those areas four years ago. 5th DISTRICT VOTE BY NEIGHBORHOOD

COMMUNITY MACDONALD ROMNEY ECKERT Oceanside 7,426 2,216 2,861 Carlsbad 3,978 1,990 1,475 Vista 2,153 1,658 2,331 Leucadia 935 669 244 Encinitas 962 804 387 Rancho Santa Fe 125 498 323 Olivenhain 629 848 279 Escondido 2,111 3,832 3,676 San Marcos 634 1,176 1,246 Buena 1,267 1,794 1,466 Fallbrook 1,253 1,742 1,123 Valley Center 347 700 941 Rincon 430 991 752 Rural & Absentees 1,011 1,761 972 Total 23,261 20,679 19,040

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