County’s Congressmen Sweep to Easy Victories

San Diego County’s four congressmen easily won reelection victories Tuesday night, maintaining the Republican Party’s 3-to-1 edge.

Although most of the challengers repeatedly professed optimism this fall about their prospects for an upset, the four local congressional campaigns were, from the outset, races more in name than in reality. Each of the four incumbents was reelected by a margin of at least 29% in 1984, and represents a district in which his party holds a major voter registration edge and heavily outspent his major opponent this fall.

Arguably the most interesting and competitive of the four races was that in the 44th District, in which Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) won a third two-year term by turning back a spirited, often acrimonious challenge from former Republican San Diego City Councilman Bill Mitchell.

Throughout the campaign, Mitchell relentlessly hammered away at Bates as being soft on drug abuse and national defense, touching off the mutual name-calling and well-publicized drug test and lie-detector challenges that characterized the race. In the end, however, Mitchell’s ability to attract headlines and his door-to-door style of politicking were no match for Bates’ 2-to-1 fund-raising edge and the Democrats’ 24% voter registration advantage in the 44th District, which covers downtown and southern San Diego, Lemon Grove, National City and Chula Vista.

Libertarian Dennis Thompson, Peace and Freedom Party candidate Shirley Isaacson and Socialist Workers Party member Allan Grady, a write-in candidate, finished well behind the two major candidates.

In the 41st District, Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego) was reelected to a fourth term over Democratic nominee Daniel Kripke, a La Jolla psychiatrist who conducted a largely negative campaign in which he attacked Lowery for everything from locating his headquarters above a pornographic bookstore downtown to being declared physically unfit to serve in the military during the Vietnam War. Libertarian Dick Rider and write-in candidate Rick Singer also ran in the 41st District, which covers parts of downtown and much of northern San Diego.

Solidifying his hold on the seat that he won in a historic 1982 write-in campaign, Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad) defeated Democrat Joseph Chirra, a Vista lawyer, in the heavily Republican 43rd District, which includes North San Diego County and South Orange County. Libertarian Phyllis Avery, who also ran against Packard two years ago, finished a distant third.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado) won his fourth term Tuesday by defeating Democratic candidate Hewitt Fitts Ryan, a physician and the brother of a former New York congressman, in the 45th District. Libertarian Lee Schwartz finished third in the district, which extends from Coronado and Imperial Beach east through Imperial County to the Arizona border.