Democrats Heighten Efforts to Snare Votes

Democrat Dan Chavez is a general in the Battle for the South Bay Vote.

He sits in a small office in Torrance, trying to figure out where to deploy troops to maximum advantage in an unprecedented campaign to turn out the Democratic vote for Michael S. Dukakis.

As in a military campaign, Chavez, an attorney who lives in Carson, has maps showing his strongholds and enemy redoubts. Lawn signs--flags showing Democratic territory--are going up by the hundreds. Subordinates run into his office with the latest intelligence. Aides plot the logistics of moving thousands, come Election Day, to the polls. Phone banks are firing away day and night; Republican phone banks answer.

Chavez is part of a massive statewide Democratic effort to buck Vice President George Bush’s lead in the polls, which typically sample “likely” voters, by focusing on “occasional” voters--many of them so-called Reagan Democrats.

Pushing for Dukakis

The idea is to see if traditional get-out-the vote techniques, which have taken a back seat to expensive media campaigns in California, can eke out a victory for Dukakis.

The Republicans, too, have a get-out-the-vote effort in the South Bay, but one that, by their own description, is more decentralized and less intense.

Their first priority is reaching registered Republicans who are likely to vote, rather than Reagan Democrats or Republicans who only vote occasionally, according to Kathleen Crow, Los Angeles County chairwoman of the Bush campaign.

The Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder’s office predicted a 72% turnout of the county’s 3.7 million registered voters.

In the South Bay, Chavez’s territory ranges from the beach cities and the Palos Verdes Peninsula through Hawthorne and Torrance to Gardena, Carson, Wilmington and San Pedro. It also extends to Long Beach.

In the 53rd Assembly District, which includes Carson, Hawthorne, Gardena and Lawndale, 199 precincts are targeted. In the 51st, which includes the beach cities, Torrance, Lomita and the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Chavez is working on 163 precincts. In that district, about 35 of the precincts are in east Torrance, 12 are on the Republican-dominated Palos Verdes Peninsula and most of the rest are in the beach cities. In the 57th, he has 203 targeted precincts, including Wilmington and San Pedro.

Reagan Democrats

Winning back the Reagan Democrats who abandoned the party 4 years ago is essential to a Dukakis victory, said Chavez. Reagan won all three assembly districts in 1984.

Chavez has two groups of occasional voters in his sights:

Loyal Democrats who sometimes fail to turn out in large percentages.

75,000 Reagan Democrats--residents of precincts where Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale lost in 1984, but where U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) did well 2 years later.

The first task is to identify voters who say they favor Dukakis, and then, on election day, get them to the polls.

By Tuesday, Chavez expects his troops to have contacted each of the targeted Democrats by phone and, if that doesn’t work, to go to their door. The campaign figures that 35% of those they have targeted are unreachable, either because they have moved, died or are not at home.

Of the balance, Democrat workers have reached more than 50,000 voters and more than 91% in most target precincts, Chavez said. Dukakis’ opposition to off-shore oil drilling is winning votes in the upscale beach cities and his support of economic revitalization wears well in working-class neighborhoods inland, he said.

“Sixty-five percent (of those contacted) favor Dukakis. These are Reagan Democrats. That is what is so pleasing,” he said.

“People in Torrance have told me all month they have never seen this kind of activity by the Democratic Party here.” He added that the most eager volunteers are coming from the beach cities and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

The calls also have produced a crop of more than 600 volunteers who are aiding the effort. This weekend, Democrats will re-contact voters who have said earlier that they are for Dukakis, are leaning toward him or are undecided. On Election Day, station wagons and vans will pick up voters who cannot get to the polls.

GOP Counter-Efforts

The Republican effort to turn out traditional GOP voters is organized mainly along assembly districts in the South Bay, according to Vickie Fouce, congressional district chairwoman for the 27th District.

Another Republican staffer said that GOP voter registration efforts and phone banks have been active for weeks before the registration deadline and “virtually” every precinct in the 51st Assembly District has been covered on foot.

Crow said campaigners hope to contact each of the area’s registered Republican voters at least once. But she said the Republican get-out-the-vote effort has been hampered by a lack of yard signs.

“We keep hearing about the Dukakis people,” she said. “They have a lot of yard signs. They have a lot of volunteers.”

In the final push to encourage the troops in the southern half of Los Angeles County, both sides are sending in their big guns.

Ronald Reagan is to appear Monday at a rally at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) spoke to senior citizens Saturday in Torrance.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen spoke to precinct workers and others Saturday in East Los Angeles. Dukakis’ will make a campaign appearance Monday at UCLA. Cranston appeared Saturday at a Dukakis rally in Lakewood.