Low Turnout Was Her Big Foe, Wieder Says

Harriett M. Wieder, the first county supervisor in a decade to be forced into a runoff, says she isn’t terribly worried about the prospect of a November race and blames low voter turnout--38% countywide--for her failure to capture an outright majority in Tuesday’s election.

“My enemy was apathy,” said Wieder, who finished with 47.1% of the vote in a race against four challengers. “I got the handwriting on the wall when it was determined that turnout was below 40%. . . . If it had been anything over 45%, I think I would have won.”

Wieder’s campaign manager, Allan Hoffenblum, agreed that the low voter turnout “skewed” the results.

“When more people stay home than turn out to vote, it’s hard to predict,” Hoffenblum said. “There is nothing in our surveys to indicate that the majority will have any reason not to reelect Harriett.”

As it was, no candidate came close to challenging Wieder for the top spot. Her nearest competitor, Westminster City Councilwoman Joy L. Neugebauer, got 19.9%, less than half Wieder’s share; John D. Harper and Sonia Sonju were outpolled 3 to 1. A fifth candidate, Marie Alexis Antos, got just 3.5% of the vote.

Collectively, though, the challengers beat Wieder by 6 percentage points, suggesting that after 12 years in office and a congressional campaign two years ago that left her shaken and bloodied, the first and only woman ever elected to the Board of Supervisors is indeed vulnerable.

“There were strong challengers, and each waged independent campaigns, so we split a lot of the vote,” Neugebauer said. “But there is strong feeling that the representation of constituents in this district by the incumbent is not sufficient.”

Harvey Englander, a political consultant who once ran Wieder’s campaigns, thinks the November race could be close.

“Obviously there’s some anti-incumbent feeling out there, so I don’t think November’s going to be a blowout,” he said. “It’s going to be very, very tough (for Neugebauer). But I tell my kids in Little League, on any given day, any team can beat any other team.”

Englander figures that Neugebauer must raise $250,000 to beat Wieder in November. He pointed out, however, that Wieder may have fund-raising troubles because she has already received the maximum allowable donations from many contributors under the county’s campaign-financing reform law for the supervisors.

Wieder spent more than $80,000 in the primary and still had close to $100,000 left over, whereas Neugebauer raised just $12,000.

“I don’t think she’s really in trouble, she just has to go through the agony of a second election,” Bruce Nestande, a former supervisor who resigned from office in 1987, said of Wieder.

Nestande noted that three of Wieder’s challengers have experience as city council members and, therefore, some built-in constituencies, and that winning a majority under those conditions would be tough for any incumbent.

“I think it’s remarkable that she finished as well as she did,” he said.

Supervisors who have been voted out of office have usually faced problems far worse than those troubling Wieder.

The last time a county supervisor faced a runoff was in 1980. Philip Anthony, facing an indictment, finished first among four candidates in June but lost his seat in November to Roger R. Stanton, who has held the seat ever since.

Wieder herself ousted an incumbent when she won her current seat in 1978.

But she does not see any parallel between that election and this one.

“The issues were different,” she said. “Larry Schmit (the incumbent), at the time, the press had questioned his activities in office, which made him vulnerable. I was actually encouraged to run.”

Wieder attracted a crowd of challengers this year after her unsuccessful 1988 congressional campaign. In that contest, she admitted having lied for years about having a college degree. In addition, she has at times been treated as an unimportant outsider by the four male supervisors and that she has a reputation for moving in more directions at once than her own staff and county bureaucrats can keep track of.

One of Wieder’s opponents, Sonia Sonju, circulated two mailers during the campaign attacking Wieder on the college-degree issue. Wieder said she thought that might have cost her some support, but “not very much.”

Neugebauer, however, said the issue “hurt her in this campaign, and it will hurt her in November. It will stay with her.”

Wieder said she is leaving for a three-day vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and that she will begin planning her strategy for November when she returns.

“It’s going to be a different race one-on-one,” Wieder said. “We didn’t have any candidates’ forums. I didn’t have the opportunity to speak out about what I’d do and what I’ve done.”

Wieder also said she hopes to debate Neugebauer at forums in the fall.

“The big thing is, I have to get my message out,” she said. “I look forward to it.”

Staff writer Jim Newton contributed to this story.