O.C. Congressmen See Winning Edge Narrow : Politics: None of the five were in danger of losing, but four of them found their margins of victory down significantly.

Four of Orange County’s five conservative Republican congressmen felt the sting of voter discontent Tuesday as their margins of victory slipped, in some cases dramatically, from their 1988 performances.

Conservatives said the election results represent only a small blip on Orange County’s political radar. But Democrats said the vote represented dissatisfaction with the conservatives’ failure to adapt to a changing world.

In the 39th District, the share of the vote for Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) slipped 65%, far below the 72% to 75% totals he has posted since 1980.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), whose 43rd District includes South Orange County, did not have a Democratic opponent. Yet he won only 68% of the vote, ceding 18% to a Peace and Freedom Party candidate and 14% to a Libertarian. He had won with 72% two years ago.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach) turned back a spirited challenge in the 42nd District, which includes northwest Orange County. But his share of the vote dropped to 59%, five points below his tally in 1988, when he faced the same Democratic challenger.

In the 38th district, Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) managed to win only 58% of the vote, even though his announced Democratic challenger officially withdrew from the contest months ago. Dornan won with just less than 60% of the vote in 1988.

Only Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) in the 40th District held his own, retaining the 67% margin he won in his first race two years ago.

“It was incredible,” said Packard, who has polled well over 70% of the vote since his second election to Congress in 1984. “I don’t think any of us anticipated that the anti-incumbent attitude was as strong as it was.”

The congressmen agreed that voters generally are angry about the package of tax hikes and spending limits Congress approved last month, a package that all five Orange County congressmen voted against.

“There are a lot of people who are fed up,” Rohrabacher said. “They’re voting for third-party candidates. They’re voting for term limitations (in California and Colorado), and I don’t blame them.”

Nevertheless, Dornan, Rohrabacher and Cox said they remain pleased about their still-comfortable victories.

“If you’re trouncing your opponent, as every single member of the delegation did,” Cox said, “you needn’t focus for too long on how you might have eked out another few percentage points.”

Some said their margins would have been higher had they faced challenges stiff enough to warrant full-fledged campaigns. Rohrabacher was the only incumbent who spent any real money campaigning, sending out three direct-mail pieces. Dornan mailed one. Neither Cox, Dannemeyer nor Packard devoted significant resources to campaigning.

Several congressmen and their aides attributed much of the slippage to the low turnout of voters in general, and conservatives in particular, due to the off-year election and the perception among conservative voters that the five Orange County congressional seats are safe.

Final figures showed Orange County voter turnout this year at 51%, down from 60% in the last off-year election in 1986. In congressional races, far fewer votes were cast than in 1988. In Dornan’s race, for example, only 94,894 voters cast ballots this year, compared to 140,089 two years ago.

Rohrabacher said many conservative Republicans probably stayed away from the polls because of their dissatisfaction with President Bush and his decision to agree to a tax hike as part of a final budget deal. Paul Mero, Dannemeyer’s press secretary, suggested that many conservatives who did not vote were turned off by the moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate, Sen. Pete Wilson, who barely defeated Democrat Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday.

“If there was a strong challenger to any member of the delegation, you’d see the Democrats being blown out again,” Mero said.

But a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington disagreed.

“Let me tell you what we saw yesterday,” said Howard Schloss of the DCCC. “Newt Gingrich is in a recount right now (in Georgia), Chuck Douglas was defeated in New Hampshire. . . . These old-line Republican right-wingers who insist on trying to conjure up Communism and ‘No New Taxes’ are now being perceived, even by their fellow conservatives, as being out of step. . . .”

The voters, Schloss said, “don’t respect politicians who can’t face up to reality.”

Barbara Jackson, who took 42% of the vote in the Dornan race months after withdrawing from the contest, said Wednesday: “I’m not surprised, quite frankly. . . . Mr. Dornan did himself in needing no help from me. (The voters) had someone else they didn’t even know anything about to vote for, (so) this is a pure rejection of Robert Dornan.”

Jackson, who works for Planned Parenthood, withdrew from the race last spring because she said she was concerned that the public would improperly perceive that Planned Parenthood was actively involved in the election.

Dornan took issue with Jackson’s analysis. He noted that his district is the only one in Orange County where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans, by a margin of roughly 49% to 42%. His margins in off-year elections, he said, always dip closer to the voter registration totals.

“I predicted that I’d be down two (points),” Dornan said. “I can’t believe that I dropped only 1.6 (points).

“I think that shows that in this district, in the worst of circumstances, with no enthusiasm for the Republican at the top of the (state) ticket, record-low turnout in Orange County, no help from below me (referring to the loss by GOP Assemblyman Curt Pringle), the first woman I’ve ever run against, (the result is) a miracle. I’m ecstatic.”

Dornan, however, said, he was “shocked” by the drop in the margins for Dannemeyer and Packard, attributing it to a general anti-incumbent feeling and the Wilson candidacy.

Final results released Wednesday showed Dornan winning with 55,158 votes to 39,736 for Jackson.

In the 39th District, Dannemeyer received 103,341 votes to 49,844 for Democrat Francis X. Hoffman and 6,169 for Peace and Freedom candidate Maxine B. Quirk.

Cox won in the 40th District with 128,186 votes, while Democrat Eugene C. Gratz received 62,776.

Rohrabacher garnered 99,685 votes in the 42nd District, while Democrat Guy C. Kimbrough received 62,496 and Libertarian Richard G. Martin earned 7,155.

In the 43rd District, which includes South Orange County and northern San Diego County, Packard won with 135,089 votes. Peace and Freedom Party candidate Doug Hansen earned 36,475 votes, and Libertarian Richard L. Arnold received 27,941.

RUNNING SCARED: California’s congressional delegation felt voters’ wrath. A35