Orange County Elections : GOP Holds Wide Margin in County Voter Registration

Orange County Republicans are heading toward the Nov. 4 election with 203,521 more registered voters than the Democrats, according to final pre-election figures from the county registrar of voters.

Voter rolls for the election closed Oct. 6, but the official computer tallies were not available until Wednesday. They listed 1,090,137 registered voters, 591,381 or 54.1% of them Republicans and 387,860 or 35.6% of them Democrats. The percentage gap between the parties is the widest margin in 54 years, registrar’s officials have said.

Even though the Democrats were outnumbered nearly everywhere in the county, local Democratic Party Chairman John Hanna was encouraged by the numbers for the 38th Congressional District and the 72nd Assembly District, where there are hotly contested races. In those two districts, the registration remained predominantly Democratic and the percentage of Democrats grew slightly between June and Oct. 6.

‘Tools to Win’

In those two districts, Hanna said, “We’ve beaten the Republicans in registration. We’ve given them (the two Democratic candidates) the tools to win, and now they can go out and win.”

However, Shirley Deaton, chief deputy registrar, was less impressed with the gains in those areas, which she called “highly Democratic” for years. Still, she said, “If you’re behind, any gain helps.”

Also unimpressed with the Democratic edge in those areas was county Republican Party Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes.

“We’re in better shape in those two areas than we were two years ago,” Fuentes said. “The Democrats in their strategy made a Custer’s Last Stand in the 72nd and they abandoned the rest of Orange County.

“That made the rest of our work easier. And whether that will allow them to keep the one office (the 72nd Assembly District, held by Democrat Richard Robinson for six terms) is doubtful in our opinion.”

Both areas were targeted in a Democratic voter-registration drive that began Aug. 1 and included paid part-time workers and volunteers walking door to door.

In the 38th Congressional District, where Assemblyman Robinson (D-Garden Grove) is trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), the rolls closed with 48.4% of 199,683 voters registered as Democrats and 41.8% registered as Republicans. In the 72nd District, where Santa Ana Mayor Dan Griset, a Democrat, is vying with Realtor Richard Longshore, a Republican, for the seat Robinson is vacating, the final pre-election tallies showed 50.5% of the district’s 108,836 voters registered as Democrats and 39.6% registered as Republican.

Overall, Fuentes said, “We’re, of course, ecstatic” about the Republicans’ more than 200,000-voter margin over county Democrats. The numbers “are in excess of anything we had hoped for in our wildest dreams . . . . I think that it is a very strong early indication that the county has proclaimed itself a Republican bastion, and these folks are not going to change their minds in three weeks.”