How to Beat Incumbents: It’s Almost Impossible

Here’s a recipe for defeating an incumbent state legislator or congressman in San Diego County, courtesy of several local political consultants:

Take one attractive, articulate, well-financed challenger. Mix with a not-too-impressive officeholder whose incumbency has more to do with a gerrymandered district than with his own skills or achievements. Then heat and stir in some thick controversy--perhaps a disclosure that the incumbent has been selling state secrets to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, was arrested on a morals charge or, preferably, both.

“Then, maybe you’d have a chance--if you’re lucky,” said campaign consultant Nick Johnson, only half jokingly.

Though San Diego’s Assembly members and congressmen--as well as most of those throughout California--may not be quite as politically inviolate as that unlikely “recipe” suggests, Tuesday’s election results underline how difficult it is for challengers to overcome the daunting advantages that all but ensure incumbents’ reelection.

All 13 congressional and state legislative incumbents on the San Diego County ballot won easily, reflecting a statewide pattern in which no state legislators or congressmen running for reelection were defeated anywhere in California. Eleven of the 13 won in landslides, by 30-plus percentage-point margins; the smallest victory margin was 16.6 percentage points.

Incumbents’ performance, the strength of their challengers, statewide or national conditions and other issues obviously figure heavily in any election. However, when every single congressional, state Senate and Assembly incumbent of the more than 100 running for reelection statewide wins, most of them overwhelmingly, other factors clearly are at work.

Many local political consultants and the candidates themselves argue that the overriding explanation for the incumbents’ clean sweep lies with district boundaries that have been manipulated--or gerrymandered--for partisan advantage, leaving most incumbents in a virtually impregnable position. (The word gerrymander originated in 1812, when the Massachusetts Legislature created an oddly shaped district, which some said resembled a salamander, to benefit Gov. Elbridge Gerry’s party. Critics dubbed the district a “gerrymander,” and the word has been part of the political lexicon ever since.)

“Just being a good candidate and having money isn’t enough if you’re running against an incumbent in these districts,” consultant Jim Johnston said. “Because unless the other guy screws up in a major way, you’re probably not going to win. It’s not that the guy himself is so unbeatable. It’s that it’s almost impossible to beat those registration numbers.”

By virtue of controlling the state Legislature at the time of the 1980 census, the Democrats were able to design “safe” congressional and legislative districts for themselves. The drawing of safe districts top-heavy with registered Democratic voters also created other safe Republican seats as a necessary byproduct.

“Democrats . . . created the beast,” said Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad). “Now they have to live with it.”

With the exception of Democratic Assemblywoman Lucy Killea’s 78th District, local Assembly members and congressmen are blessed with districts in which their respective parties hold voter registration edges of 10 to 30 percentage points--a formidable, all-but-insurmountable advantage that one local political consultant likened to “a 10-yard head start in a 100-yard race.”

“It’s disingenuous to even call these charades ‘political races,’ ” said 75th Assembly District Democratic candidate Michael Lasky, who was overwhelmed by Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas), 69% to 26%. “You could conclude the results without ever running the election. Everyone knows that.”

While the word “upset” served as a mantra for many challengers this fall and “I’m taking nothing for granted” was the operative phrase for incumbents, the outcomes in most local congressional and legislative races were widely viewed within political circles as virtual faits accomplis months before Election Day.

“It’s more than an uphill climb for any challenger--it’s an almost impossible task,” consultant David Lewis said. “That’s why these races were such yawns.”

“You definitely begin at a disadvantage,” admitted Republican Bill Mitchell, who lost to Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) by a 63%-34% margin--a gap 5 points wider than the Democrats’ voter registration edge in the 44th Congressional District. “I still think this district is winnable for a challenger, but you do start out with some ground to make up.”

Others regard even Mitchell’s cautious comments as overly optimistic, arguing that the lopsided local legislative and congressional districts virtually preordain incumbents’ victories.

“The fact is that we don’t have fair races here,” said consultant Johnson, whose clients have included Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, Bates and various other local candidates. “These (district) lines weren’t drawn to make races competitive. They were drawn to eliminate competition and protect incumbents.”

The voter registration breakdown in each district bolsters Johnson’s contention. Killea’s district, in which the Democrats hold only the slimmest of edges--43.6% to 43.4%--is the only local legislative or congressional district that has a competitive balance between the two major parties.

Because Republicans traditionally turn out in higher numbers than Democrats, an oft-heard political rule of thumb is that districts with less than a 10- to 15-percentage-point Democratic registration edge are vulnerable ones for Democratic candidates. Killea’s three consecutive, convincing Assembly victories, consultants say, is an impressive testament to her ability to draw votes from Republicans and independents.

The registration edges in the other Assembly districts range from a 13.4-point Republican bulge in GOP Assemblyman Larry Stirling’s 77th District to the Democrats’ thoroughly intimidating 30.3-point advantage in the 79th District. That margin enabled Democrat Pete Chacon to easily deflect a relatively strong challenge from the Rev. Robert C. Ard.

In the four local congressional districts, the registration disparities range from 10.4 percentage points in the 45th District to 25.4 in Packard’s 43rd District--and in each district, the edge belongs to the incumbent’s party.

Those lopsided figures not only give incumbents an obvious advantage at the polls, but they also help to entrench officeholders by discouraging credible challengers--a mutually reinforcing process that generally culminates in election results that are more one-sided than the registration numbers.

In Tuesday’s election, about two-thirds of the local congressional and state legislative candidates won by margins that were more than double--and, in many cases, triple or quadruple--their district’s registration edges.

Moreover, a major reason that several candidates failed to, in political jargon, “double the numbers,” is that their district’s registration figures are slanted so much in their favor as to make doubling that margin almost politically, if not statistically, impossible. The fact that Bates’ 30-point victory margin is “only” about 5 percentage points higher than the Democratic registration edge in the 44th District, or that Chacon won by a margin only 4 points higher than his district’s 30-point registration gap can hardly be viewed, for example, as signs of potential political weakness.

In Election Night interviews, many victorious incumbents, following a script repeated with little variation election after election, attributed their electoral success to their constituents’ satisfaction with their records, voters’ judgments after a full airing of the issues and other explanations that sounded as if they were lifted from Civics 101.

“Obviously, they’re not going to stand up there and admit that most of these races are over before they begin,” losing Assembly candidate Lasky said. “That would lift the mask from this masquerade.”

Incumbents rarely are candid enough to acknowledge that their political longevity may have more to do with their carefully crafted districts than with anything they do or do not do in office.

“Lets’s face it . . . this just isn’t a district that a Democrat can win under normal circumstances,” admitted Assemblyman Bill Bradley (R-Escondido), whose party holds a 54%-34% registration edge in his district. Bradley’s whopping 49.4-percentage-point victory margin over a relatively weak Democratic challenger convincingly proved his point.

How can a challenger hope to overcome such formidable obstacles? The slim chance of doing so, many consultants contend, hinges on the infrequent convergence of several critical factors--an impressive challenger with the ability to raise at least several hundred thousand dollars, a rather pedestrian incumbent, a district where registration is not ridiculously imbalanced and, perhaps most importantly, major blunders by the incumbent, or, to use consultant Lewis’ words, “the self-destruction factor.”

“Unless incumbents get caught at noon on Broadway in the act of doing something unmentionable, they’re simply going to be reelected,” Johnson added. “And even if that happens, they still might win in San Diego. That’s the reality facing challengers. Even if you have everything going for you, you still have to hope that the incumbent does something stupid or wrong.”

Some of last Tuesday’s challengers had several of those necessary ingredients working in their favor, but none had all of them. For example, Democratic congressional candidates Joseph Chirra and Hewitt Fitts Ryan, who lost to Packard and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado), respectively, drew generally high marks in terms of their qualifications but suffered from paltry campaign treasuries and low name recognition.

Mitchell, meanwhile, entered his race with a high profile and benefited from a Bates blunder--an ill-advised comment about studying the legalization of drugs--but was heavily outspent and committed errors of his own, including his much-ridiculed drug test challenge to Bates.

The candidate who, in the eyes of several consultants, perhaps came closest to having all his political stars properly aligned was Republican Earl Cantos Jr., Killea’s opponent.

A handsome 30-year-old lawyer and former Assembly GOP committee consultant in Sacramento, Cantos had been hand-picked by state Republican strategists to oppose Killea in the evenly balanced 78th District. Though a political novice, Cantos, the son of retired Municipal Court Judge Earl Cantos Sr., benefited from having a name that was well-known within political circles.

With a major infusion of money from Sacramento, Cantos spent more than $300,000 in his race. Killea, meanwhile, is widely seen as a relatively effective, but hardly flashy legislator who is generally ranked in the middle of the pack of the local delegation in terms of her record. And yet, in the absence of any major stumbles by Killea throughout the campaign, Cantos was outpolled by a substantial 57%-40% ratio.

“I think we did everything just about right and had a lot of pluses,” Cantos said. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the only way a challenger can win a race is for the incumbent to lose it. But gerrymandering and the power of incumbency definitely put a giant obstacle in front of any challenger.”

As with any rule, however, there are exceptions. One of the more notable ones in recent years was Hunter’s 1980 upset of nine-term incumbent Rep. Lionel Van Deerlin (D-San Diego), whose fatal blunder was seriously underestimating his challenger until it was too late.

“I guess the thing that surprises me is that, despite all these problems, the system seems to work and occasionally someone like a Hunter slips through,” consultant Johnston said.

However, Johnston’s business partner, Lewis, acknowledges that for every Hunter, there are dozens of Chirras and Ards and Laskys and Ryans. And while his advice to such candidates might not make good business sense from his perspective, it makes eminently good political sense.

“We’re not going to take someone’s money if they don’t have at least an outside shot at winning,” Lewis said. “So, to most of them, I’d say, ‘Save your money. Don’t waste your time.’ ”

THE INCUMBENT’S EDGE

DISTRICT INCUMBENT REGISTRATION VICTORY GAP MARGIN 41st Congressional Bill Lowery (R) 11.3 37.3 43rd Congressional Ron Packard (R) 25.4 48.9 44th Congressional Jim Bates (D) 24.1 29.6 45th Congressional Duncan Hunter (R) 10.4 55.6 38th State Senate Bil Craven (R) 18.2 70.1 40th State Senate Wadie Deddeh (D) 20.7 39.8 74th Assembly Robert Frazee (R) 23.7 74.8 75th Assembly Sunny Mojonnier (R) 18.3 43.2 76th Assembly Bill Bradley (R) 19.9 49.4 77th Assembly Larry Stirling (R) 13.4 47.7 78th Assembly Lucy Killea (D) 00.2 16.6 79th Assembly Pete Chacon (D) 30.3 34.0 80th Assembly Steve Peace (D) 16.7 30.4