Elections ’92 : County Voters Buck Political Trends : Primary: Results show they are neither clearly anti-incumbent or pro-woman, as pundits had predicted.

Ventura County voters, always independent, have proved again that they do not speak with a single voice.

First, in a year when voters are presumed to be anti-incumbent, Ventura County sent three incumbents back to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. Eight challengers did not get enough support to force a single runoff.

Then the county’s traditionally conservative voters defeated four of six members of a “pro-life” slate that had tried to influence everything from county judicial races to congressional contests.

So-called “pro-family, anti-abortion” groups also lost in attempts to retain control of the county’s Republican Party Central Committee.

And, in the so-called Year of the Woman, there seemed to be no clear gender edge here. Some women won; some lost.

The results of Tuesday’s election--where just 46% of 320,655 registered voters cast ballots--suggest the following:

* The powerful Board of Supervisors will probably maintain its course toward approval of a giant housing project on Ahmanson Ranch near Simi Valley and will continue to look for alternatives to building a new landfill at Weldon Canyon between Ventura and Ojai.

* The Pro-Family Caucus of Ventura County, a new anti-tax, anti-abortion political committee will have to reassess its political strategy after settling for second- and third-place showings in races for the Board of Supervisors and the state Legislature.

* The county must wait until the general election in November for its first clear test of voters’ desire to oust incumbents and their support of women candidates running on gender issues such as abortion rights.

Congress District 23

Democrat Anita Perez Ferguson’s fall race against Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) will be that test.

“Everyone certainly has to admit that this is the year of the woman,” said Democratic consultant Jim Dantona of Simi Valley. “And Gallegly is going to have that anti-incumbent dilemma.”

Gallegly dismissed the gender issue. He said that despite voters’ anger with officeholders, he drew 75% of the primary vote Tuesday in areas where voters know him best, such as Simi Valley. Across the county, he received 63% of the vote over two GOP challengers.

“Anyone who knows Elton Gallegly knows that gender has never played a role as far as I’m concerned,” Gallegly said. “Three of my top-paid employees are female.”

The congressman said his chief campaign issue will be “the economy, whether my constituents are going to be able pay their rent.” He said he will stress his efforts to bring jobs to the county, including the granting of federal port-of-entry status to Port Hueneme Harbor last year.

Neither Perez Ferguson nor her campaign manager could be reached for comment Wednesday.

Dantona said Perez Ferguson, who spent about $80,000 in the primary, would have to spend at least $500,000 to beat Gallegly.

But a national Republican strategist said that it will cost Perez Ferguson $800,000 to have a chance to win. Even then, she must “wake up that huge Latino vote and coalesce with women who are behind her” to have a chance, he said.

Perez Ferguson has the support of the National Women’s Political Caucus in Washington, the National Organization for Women and Emily’s List, a national group that supports women candidates for Congress. She is also backed by several large labor unions.

Dantona said he learned Wednesday that national Latino groups, which sat out Perez Ferguson’s primary race against environmentalist Kevin Sweeney, were now ready to back her because of her easy victory.

Activist Andres Herrera said he thinks changes to include predominantly Latino Oxnard in Gallegly’s district--which encompasses all of Ventura County except Thousand Oaks--will help Perez Ferguson. The district, safely Republican before reapportionment last year, is now 45% Republican and 43% Democratic.

Herrera said he thinks that about 6,000 more Latinos may register to vote by November, prompted in part by Herrera’s candidacy for the Oxnard City Council and Councilman Manuel Lopez’s fall run for mayor.

He also said that the congressman’s proposed constitutional amendment, which would deny automatic citizenship to children of illegal immigrants, has rallied Latinos against him.

Gallegly, who enters the fall race with $300,000 in his treasury, said he is not worried about the Latino vote because he has support among Latinos who live here legally.

He said the proposed constitutional amendment is aimed only at illegal immigrants, who take jobs away from Latinos as well as other legal residents.

Congress District 24

The contest between Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) looms as a high-profile showdown of two career politicians who offer sharply contrasting personal styles and political ideologies.

McClintock, a take-no-prisoners conservative, won the right to face Beilenson, a low-key moderate-to-liberal, in the newly drawn district by defeating Republican rivals on Tuesday. McClintock won with 18,153 votes, or 34.6% of the tally.

The district, which includes portions of the San Fernando Valley, Malibu and extends through Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks in Ventura County, is considered Republican-leaning. Beilenson chose to run there to avoid an internecine battle with Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) when the new congressional map merged both Democrats into a single district.

The race is expected to be one of the most expensive and closely watched in the state.

A Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee official said Wednesday that Beilenson’s campaign ranks as one of the party’s highest priorities statewide. Les Francis, executive director of the committee, predicted that “it will be a real slugfest.”

McClintock, 35, a five-term lawmaker, said that the GOP has given him similar assurances about targeting the contest. The respective party committees can spend up to $60,240 on behalf of candidates and steer additional “soft money” for party support to the districts.

Beilenson, 59, says he plans to raise about $500,000. McClintock, who spent about $200,000 in the primary, said he was uncertain about his general-election budget.

McClintock vowed to go after Beilenson as a tax-and-spend Democrat who is part of the problem in Washington.

Beilenson said he will highlight the need to ban special-interest political action committee campaign funding--which he does not accept and McClintock does.

Congress District 22

Republican Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino, a Ventura County institution after 34 years in public office here, lost to multimillionaire Michael R. Huffington in a new district that covers Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Huffington, 44, received 49% of the vote to 42% for the 65-year-old Lagomarsino. “It’s time for a change and time to heal the Republican Party,” said Huffington, who spent $2.7 million on the race.

Huffington said he does not plan to spend close to that amount to try to defeat the Democratic primary winner, Santa Barbara County Supervisor Gloria Ochoa.

“No way,” he said. “It will be a lot less expensive.”

Huffington, heir to a Houston oil fortune, is husband of author-socialite Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington, and son of the U.S. ambassador to Austria. Huffington is also a member of Team 100, the group of wealthy Republican donors who contribute $100,000 every presidential election year to the Republican Party.

The district favors Republicans.

State Senate District 19

Simi Valley Assemblywoman Cathie Wright received just 38% of the vote in a bitter Republican state Senate primary that not only revealed an anti-incumbency mood but also a schism in the county’s emerging Republican right wing.

Auto mechanic and Fillmore Councilman Roger Campbell, a presumed also-ran who spent a fraction of Wright’s $300,000, captured 28.5% of the vote. Campbell said his supporters sent a message to professional politicians.

“It’s time to put the people back in control of Sacramento,” he said Wednesday. “And the politicians who did win better listen to that message.”

Campbell said his endorsement from the Pro-Family Caucus of Ventura County, which distributed nearly 100,000 flyers listing its preferred slate of candidates, was a last-minute boost to his campaign.

Republican political consultant Steve Frank said Campbell’s strong showing, coupled with Wright’s victory, showed the true strength of conservative Republican candidates in the east county.

He said Campbell was endorsed by one conservative faction of the Republican party but that Wright’s conservative credentials are just as strong. She was endorsed by the ultra-conservative California Republican Assembly, which Frank once headed.

Wright is the odds-on favorite to win in November because the Senate district is heavily Republican and conservative. She will face Democrat Henry Phillip Starr, a Bell Canyon lawyer, in the general election.

Wright’s 38% of the primary vote contrasted with 33.4% for former Assemblywoman Marian W. La Follette, who spent $199,000 of her own money in the campaign. Campbell spent $18,000.

“In Ventura County, the far right is always much more visible than in other counties,” Democratic consultant Dantona said. “I think Wright winning over La Follette is an indication that they have not lost their grasp on this end of the county.”

Wright cited her law-and-order positions and 12 years in the Legislature as reasons she appealed to voters.

“They were anti-incumbent, but they still wanted someone with experience,” Wright said.

La Follette, who moved from Orange County to Thousand Oaks earlier this year to run against Wright, said she is now seriously considering a move back to Corona del Mar.

She said she may not have enough money to buy a house in Ventura County because of the $199,000 she lent her campaign.

Assembly District 37

After a bruising Republican primary, Oxnard Mayor Nao Takasugi is moving on to another expensive race. In November he will face Democrat Roz McGrath, an elementary school teacher with a historic Ventura County name but no political experience.

The district, represented by McClintock for a decade, is 47% Republican and 41% Democratic.

Takasugi has already defeated the best funded anti-abortion candidate in the county, Newbury Park financial consultant Alan A. Guggenheim. But the mayor, who would be the first Asian-American in the Legislature since 1978, said the general election may cost even more than the $150,000 he spent in the primary.

McGrath, who was unopposed in the primary, said Takasugi must not only defeat a woman candidate but also overcome voters’ desire to rid Sacramento of longtime politicians.

“We’ve waited long enough,” she said. “I like to think that voters are looking for new faces, new energy and new ideas.”

A fiscal conservative, Takasugi said he expects a tough race against well-funded McGrath.

“I don’t take anyone lightly,” he said. “I run scared every time.”

Although Takasugi and McGrath are both pro-business and pro-abortion rights, Takasugi said his 16 years on the Oxnard City Council give him an advantage of experience.

Assembly District 38

In another heavily Republican district, conservative Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills) will face Democrat Howard Cohen in the general election.

Cohen, an unemployed citizen activist from North Hills, narrowly defeated better-financed Howard Blatt, a Northridge attorney.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Cohen, who raised just $8,000 to Blatt’s $26,000. “I’ve got a hundred bucks left.”

Cohen said he won partly because of cable television ads, which portrayed Blatt as a lawyer who represents drug dealers.

“I ran to the left of him on everything but crime,” Cohen said. “I was the one who said ‘all gang members who commit violent crimes should be sentenced to life in prison.’ ”

Cohen predicted he would unseat Boland in November.

“I’m going to beat her because . . . she’s anti-choice, anti-ERA, and I’m going to work my butt off,” he said.

Boland said that she expects to win easily and gain a second term in the district, which includes Fillmore and Simi Valley, but is centered in the northwest San Fernando Valley.

Assembly District 35

Assemblyman Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria), a former Oxnard school teacher, was unopposed in the primary and will face political science lecturer Alan O. (Lanny) Ebenstein in November.

Ebenstein, who works at Antioch University of Santa Barbara, survived a close race with financial analyst Paul Pillmore to capture the Republican nomination.

O’Connell, who was named speaker pro tempore of the Assembly last year after a decade in the Legislature, is favored in the mostly Democratic district. But Ebenstein is seen as articulate and well-versed on the issues.

The district is mostly in Santa Barbara County but also includes Ventura, Santa Paula and the Ojai Valley.

Times staff writers Ron Soble, Tina Daunt and Alan C. Miller contributed to this story.

COMPLETE RETURNS: B4