Candidates Race Down the Home Stretch : Elections: After months of campaigning, they’re still trying to get their messages out. Debates enliven three of the closest contests.

Weary, tense and still largely unknown after months of campaigning, candidates in Orange County are digging in for the final stretch to the June 5 election with a vigorous attempt to reach most voters for the first time with a message they have been repeating for months.

Thursday was probably the most active day this year in Orange County politics, with contentious debates in three of the county’s most competitive races and the final release of each campaign’s finance statements.

The day’s events and disclosures underscored what many political watchers have known: With 10 days until the election, there are still some very close races to be decided.

“I liken this to Hell Week,” said Orange County political consultant Eileen Padberg. “The candidates are absolutely wacko, the consultants are going nuts and the voters don’t care.”

So far, the county’s busiest campaigns have raised a total of nearly $1 million distributed among a dozen candidates, including three in Assembly races and two in the hotly contested mayoral race in Irvine.

The most expensive race is in the 58th Assembly District, where five Republicans have raised a total of more than $500,000. Two of the candidates--a developer and a physician, neither with any experience in elected office--are responsible for almost $400,000.

The other competitive Assembly races are a Democratic primary in the 72nd District and a Republican primary in the 70th District.

Democrats Tom Umberg and Jerry Yudelson are in a close and increasingly nasty campaign seeking to challenge Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove). And Republican Phyllis Badham, daughter of a former congressman, is running in a primary against Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach).

Political experts had predicted that Badham might have a chance at winning the race if she could raise about $200,000. But her campaign reported Thursday that it has raised only $49,000 and was running a small debt.

The three county supervisors up for reelection--Thomas F. Riley, Don R. Roth and Harriett M. Wieder--reported a total of about $300,000, contrasted with less than $20,000 for the five challengers.

Wieder is facing the most competition with four opponents, including Westminster City Councilwoman Joy L. Neugabauer and businessman John Harper, who could force a November runoff for the seat if none of the candidates receives more than 50% of the vote.

Meanwhile, Orange County’s political insiders have also been watching the hometown candidates who are running for statewide offices.

The best race appears to be between two of the county’s Republican state senators--Marian Bergeson of Newport Beach and John Seymour of Anaheim--who are running for the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor. Since the campaigning began last year, this race has been considered up for grabs.

“The one that everybody is trying to second-guess is the lieutenant governor’s race, and I don’t think anybody has a good feel for it,” said Greg Haskins, executive director of the county Republican Party. “I haven’t heard anybody taking bets.”

Thursday’s debates in Orange County began at noon with a face-off between the candidates seeking to be mayor of Irvine--incumbent Larry Agran and Councilwoman Sally Anne Sheridan.

In Republican-dominated Orange County, where even competing candidates are usually of similar political stripes, the Agran-Sheridan contest has raised uncommon debate over some of the county’s biggest topics: development, transportation, the environment and corporate influence of government.

Agran is a nationally heralded champion of liberal environmental causes, largely because of the city’s much-copied ban on ozone-depleting chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons.

“Councilwoman Sheridan voted against our ordinance,” Agran reminded the audience at the outdoor event on the UC Irvine campus. “Now she has to be accountable for her record.”

Sheridan responded: “The mayor makes headlines and I make progress.”

The 72nd Assembly District is the only territory in Orange County where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

This year, Democratic Party officials figured they had a good chance against freshman Assemblyman Pringle, who was hurt by an Election Day scandal in 1988 in which his campaign was involved in the hiring of security guards at polling places.

Many Democrats had hoped to avoid a primary in that district--or at least a messy one. They have been disappointed. Last week, Yudelson charged in a mailer that his opponent is a “yuppie lawyer from Irvine.” Umberg responded that Yudelson was a “compulsive liar.”

Two of the candidates in the Republican primary in the 58th Assembly District, which stretches along the coast from Huntington Beach to Long Beach, have far more money than their three opponents. But the money has had an equalizing effect because the three under-financed candidates are all incumbent city council members, two from Long Beach and one from Huntington Beach.

The money candidates, Peter von Elten of Huntington Beach and Seymour Alban of Long Beach, have never run for office before. The other contenders are Huntington Beach Mayor Thomas J. Mays, and Long Beach council members Jan Hall and Jeff Kellogg.