CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS ASSEMBLY, SENATE : Anti-Incumbent Move Never Materializes : Politics: Norwalk Assemblyman Bob Epple was expected to have a battle but won handily. Four other incumbents also scored easy victories.

Assemblyman Bob Epple (D-Norwalk) had just declared victory early Wednesday morning when he laid out his legislative agenda for his second term in Sacramento--fight drugs and gangs.

“I’m going to work to make sure we have the resources in (the 63rd District), that includes law enforcement and education,” Epple said at his victory celebration in Santa Fe Springs.

The race for the 63rd District Assembly seat was supposed to be a battle but turned out to be more of a massacre as Epple easily defeated Republican Diane P. Boggs.

The 63rd District includes Artesia, Cerritos, Downey, Hawaiian Gardens, Santa Fe Springs, most of Norwalk, and parts of Lakewood, southern and eastern Whittier and Long Beach.

Epple won his first term two years ago by a mere 220 votes over then-Assemblyman Wayne Grisham. The race was so close that it took election officials two weeks to count all the ballots.

Republicans were expected to push hard to recapture Epple’s seat because of the slim margin. The conservative nature of the district’s Democrats also makes the 63rd District attractive to Republicans. Democrats outnumber Republicans 55.7% to 36.3% in the district, but have provided crossover votes in the past that accounted for GOP victories.

Epple, 41, had geared up for a tough fight, amassing more than $291,000 for the race, according to campaign disclosure statements.

The former Cerritos College trustee spent his evenings during the past couple of months walking precincts in the district and attending community functions. He ran as a law-and-order candidate and called attention to his “drug-free zone” legislation, which stiffens penalties for anyone convicted of selling, using or possessing drugs near schools.

Boggs, a Downey councilwoman, acknowledged she was running uphill when she announced her candidacy earlier this year. She used $50,000 of her own money to jump-start her campaign and hoped to pick up strong Republican Party support.

That appeared to be the case when the California Republican Party sent out a mailer, signed by Gov. George Deukmejian, listing the 63rd District race as one it would target. But strong party help never arrived--Boggs was able to raise only $74,876, including her own $50,000, according to a campaign disclosure statement.

Four other incumbents and four new assemblymen--two Democrats and two Republicans--scored easy, and anticipated, victories Tuesday in area races. The newcomers won seats that were vacated by incumbents, who moved on to higher offices and other endeavors.

The much-ballyhooed prediction that voters, tired of the status quo, were going to oust incumbents never materialized.

Assemblyman Willard H. Murray Jr. (D-Paramount) easily won a second term in the 54th District. Republican Emily Hart-Holifield, a 49-year-old Compton College trustee, had the breakdown of registered voters and a lack of funds working against her.

Democrats account for 64.1% of the registered voters in the 54th District, while Republicans represent 28%. Murray, 59, raised $80,953, while Hart-Holifield had $17,145, according to campaign disclosure statements.

Libertarian Arthur C. Olivier and Peace and Freedom candidate Norman E. Lynn finished well back.

The 54th District includes Compton, Paramount, Lakewood, Bellflower and a small part of Long Beach.

In the 57th Assembly District, incumbent Dave Elder (D-San Pedro) won a seventh term in Sacramento by beating Republican challenger Rodney D. Guarneri.

Guarneri, a welfare case worker from Long Beach, surprised some of his supporters by disclosing at an Oct. 25 candidates’ forum that he had used and sold drugs as a youth.

But the poorly funded and little-known challenger’s chances of victory were already slim. The longtime incumbent raised more than $120,000, while Guarneri raised less than $5,000.

Elder also benefited from the district’s voter registration: Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1.

The 57th District covers much of Long Beach, San Pedro, Wilmington and Harbor City.

Party registration and fund raising also weighed decisively in four area districts that had no incumbents seeking reelection.

The most bitter of those races was in the 52nd District that stretches from La Mirada and Whittier into the San Gabriel Valley.

Republican Paul V. Horcher, a Diamond Bar councilman, used more than $300,000 of his own money to score a victory over Democrat Gary Neely, a marketing consultant from Diamond Bar. The seat was vacated when Frank Hill (R-Whittier) was elected to the state Senate.

Voter registration in the district is 48.1% Republican and 42% Democrat. But a bitter primary left Republican voters fragmented and Horcher tried to unify the party. Two Republican groups came out in opposition to Horcher, whom they accused of flip-flopping on various issues. In addition, three of Horcher’s Republican primary opponents refused to endorse him, saying he had alienated them with his campaign tactics.

Throughout the race, Neely, a marketing consultant, had hoped to benefit from a divided Republican party. On Monday, he claimed that 30% of the Republicans his campaign contacted by telephone said they would vote for Neely.

But the anti-Horcher camp wasn’t influential enough to defeat Horcher, who stressed that he favors abortion rights and portrayed himself as an environmentalist.

Horcher raised $441,740, and Neely raised $32,589.

In the 58th District Assembly race, Republican Thomas J. Mays defeated Luanne Pryor, a Long Beach public relations executive and longtime community activist. The 58th District seat was vacated by Dennis Brown (R-Los Alamitos), who left after six terms to become a minister.

The odds were against Pryor, a Democrat seeking a seat in a district where voter registration is 50% Republican and 39% Democratic. Mays, the mayor of Huntington Beach, also outspent Pryor by more than 3 to 1.

A third candidate, Libertarian Scott Stier, trailed with only a small percentage of the votes.

The district includes parts of Long Beach and Huntington Beach, and all of Seal Beach, Signal Hill and Santa Catalina Island.

The battle between two political newcomers for the 59th Assembly District ended as little more than a cake walk for Democrat Xavier Becerra, a deputy district attorney who ran a law-and-order campaign.

Drawing upon support from Democratic voters who vastly outnumber Republicans, Becerra, 32, won his first political seat over Republican Lee Lieberg, 27.

He will take the office formerly held by state Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier), who in April won a special state Senate election to replace Joseph B. Montoya. Montoya resigned after being convicted of political corruption charges.

Becerra’s war chest swelled to nearly $220,000, while Lieberg raised about $15,000.

The 59th Assembly District includes Alhambra, Montebello, Monterey Park, and parts of Pico Rivera and Whittier.

As expected, Marguerite Archie-Hudson won an easy victory over Republican Gloria Salazar in the 48th Assembly District, replacing Maxine Waters. Waters, who held the seat for 14 years, was elected to Congress on Tuesday.

Voter registration proved decisive: Democrats outnumber Republicans 8 to 1.

Archie-Hudson said she would concentrate on legislation dealing with job training, education programs and economic development of small businesses in the district, which includes Lynwood, South Gate and South-Central Los Angeles.

“Maxine began the process and I’m going to pick up the mantle and carry it on,” said Archie-Hudson, a former chief of staff for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

In the area’s final two Assembly races, Assemblywomen Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles) and Teresa P. Hughes (D-Los Angeles) ran uncontested.

Roybal-Allard has held her seat since 1987. Her 56th District includes Commerce, Maywood, Bell Gardens, Vernon and part of East Los Angeles. Hughes has been in office since 1975. Her 47th District covers Huntington Park, Bell, Cudahy and parts of Los Angeles.

There were three races for state Senate in the Long Beach and Southeast areas; the incumbents won easily.

The districts include parts of Bell Gardens, Commerce, Maywood, Montebello, Pico Rivera, Paramount and parts of Long Beach.

In the 30th Senate District, incumbent Ralph C. Dills (D-Gardena) won a seventh four-year term by defeating little-known Republican Timothy Poling.

Dills asserted that the results in his and other state Assembly and Senate races showed that despite the passage of tough legislative term limits Tuesday, voters are pleased with their individual lawmakers.

“The attitude was, ‘Throw the rascals out, but don’t throw my legislator out,’ ” Dills said on election night. “This puts the lie to the so-called voter dissatisfaction.”

In the 24th Senate district, Republican opposition attacks on incumbent Art Torres’ (D-Los Angeles) drunk-driving convictions evidently had little impact as Torres beat Republican Keith Marsh.

Marsh, 47, had hoped to score points against Torres by sending out mailers that highlighted Torres’ problems with alcohol. Torres was arrested twice on suspicion of drunk driving, but has undergone treatment for alcoholism.

Torres said he plans to concentrate on alternatives to the extension of the Long Beach Freeway through Pasadena and plans for the Los Angeles River basin.

In the 26th Senate district, Calderon, who in April won a special election to fill the seat of Montoya, won the right to serve a full term as senator in the district.

Calderon, 40, who had served as state assemblyman until April, faced weak challenges from Republican Joe Aguilar Urquidi and Libertarian Kim Goldsworthy. Calderon had defeated both Urquidi and Goldsworthy in the April primary.

Times staff writers Irene Chang, Tina Griego, Lee Harris, George Hatch and Roxana Kopetman contributed to this story.