Dornan Claims Win; State’s Democrats Holding Their Edge

Republican Rep. Robert K. Dornan, a flamboyant and eccentric Garden Grove conservative, claimed victory Tuesday as he jumped to a healthy lead in a heated Orange County election slugfest with Democratic challenger Richard Robinson, but Democrats seemed sure to hold on to a commanding majority of California’s 45 congressional seats.

Shortly before midnight, Dornan claimed victory, taunting Robinson, a veteran assemblyman, for waging what Dornan called an ineffective and invisible campaign.

“I don’t believe I had a very formidable challenger,” Dornan said. “I’ve seen him twice in eight months.”

Earlier, surrounded by family members as he watched televised returns from a South Coast hotel suite, Dornan noted that his apparent victory over the acid-tongued Robinson came despite a Democratic registration edge in the district.

“I have made this into a safe conservative district,” Dornan declared as he played with his year-old grandchild.

It appeared that the congressional balloting would produce no surprises and the makeup of the state delegation--which comprises more than one-tenth of the House--would remain static at 27 Democrats and 18 Republicans.

Though early returns were fragmentary, a trio of Republican newcomers held on to comfortable leads in races to replace the three incumbents--all GOP lawmakers--who are retiring from Congress this year.

Simi Valley Mayor Elton Gallegly was coasting toward an easy victory in the race to replace Rep. Bobbi Fiedler of Northridge in the 21st District, while Assemblyman Ernie Konnyu appeared on track to take over from Rep. Ed. Zschau of Los Altos. Assemblyman Wally Herger also seemed likely to assume the seat of Rep. Eugene Chappie of Chico. Chappie retired from Congress, while Fiedler and Zschau battled each other in the June primary for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, which Zschau eventually won.

“I feel very, very, very good,” Herger told reporters after returns showed him leading his Democratic challenger in all of his Northern California district’s 12 counties.

On the whole, California congressional races have become predictable affairs because of wholesale gerrymandering engineered by Democrats in 1980, which turned most districts into safe enclaves for Democratic and Republican incumbents.

The Orange County seat held by Dornan for the last two years was one of the few swing districts left by the map makers, with voters displaying a decidedly conservative tilt even though registered Democrats slightly outnumber registered Republicans.

Dornan, a former TV talk-show host, had been a three-term congressman from Santa Monica until the Democratic redistricting plan eased him out of the old 27th District in 1982. He moved to Garden Grove and took on Democratic Rep. Jerry Patterson in 1984, beating the incumbent by a margin of 8% after a high-spending, bruising contest in which Patterson dismissed Dornan as “nearly a lunatic” and Dornan scored Patterson as a “sneaky little dirt bag.”

The debate this year between Dornan and Robinson did not get much loftier or substantive. The tough-talking combatants spent most of their campaigns attacking the credibility of each other’s military records. Dornan accused Robinson of hyping his resume to make it appear he was a Marine aviator in Vietnam when he was not. Robinson claimed that Dornan, a peace-time Air Force pilot, had issued misleading biographical material, falsely implying that he had fought in Korea and Vietnam.

Robinson also accused Dornan of ignoring local needs and concerns while jetting around the world to push a militaristic, right-wing foreign policy agenda. Dornan, on the other hand, attacked Robinson for allegedly accepting prostitutes and other favors from jailed Anaheim businessman W. Patrick Moriarty, who was convicted in a political corruption scandal.

In stark contrast to the Orange County battle, the outcome of the general election contest for Fiedler’s 21st District seat had never been in doubt. The staunchly Republican district sprawls from the western San Fernando Valley across southern Ventura County and even includes far-off Santa Catalina Island.

Clawed Way to Top

Last June, Gallegly clawed his way to the top of a bruising GOP primary against Tony Hope, a longtime Washington lobbyist who is the son of comedian Bob Hope. Underscoring the inevitable, Gallegly this fall outspent his Democratic rival, Avalon City Councilman Gilbert R. Saldana, by about 5 to 1.

An unflinching backer of President Reagan, Gallegly, 42, will become the first national lawmaker from the the fast-growing eastern Ventura County region. Gallegly, a realtor, campaigned largely on his record as mayor of the city of 90,000. He pointed to Simi Valley’s impressive record of economic growth and his success at restructuring its police force as evidence of his management skills.

Unlike the 21st District, the 12th District Silicon Valley seat being vacated by Zschau featured an almost even split between registered Republicans and Democrats. Still, it had been in the hands of moderate Republicans for nearly two decades, first former Rep. Pete McCloskey and more recently Zschau.

Champion of Workfare

During the campaign, Konnyu, a 49-year-old Hungarian emigre, heavily outspent his Democratic opponent, political newcomer and Cupertino attorney Lance T. Weil. Konnyu was first elected to the state Assembly in 1980 and established himself as a champion of Workfare, the recently enacted bipartisan program that requires certain welfare recipients to work or go to school in exchange for public aid.

In the far northern 2nd District, Democrat Stephen C. Swindiman, a Shasta County supervisor, had hoped to capitalize on growing frustration with Reagan Administration farm policies to knock off his Republican opponent, Herger, in the race to replace Chappie.

But, despite a Democratic edge in registrations in the district that stretches from the Sacramento area to the Oregon state line, Herger, a three-term assemblyman, was expected to benefit from a voter tendency in the area to favor hard-line conservatives like himself.

Though Herger, 41, says he is an enthusiastic supporter of most Reagan Administration policies, he echoed Swindiman’s complaints during the campaign about Washington’s inability to reduce the nation’s trade deficit and force Japan to import more American farm products and other goods.