Elections ’92 : VALLEY-AREA ROUNDUP : Wright Beats Longtime Foe, Knight Defeats Odds in GOP Primary

Victory was sweet in two fiercely contested Republican primaries for combative Assemblywoman Cathie Wright and former Palmdale Mayor William J. (Pete) Knight. Wright defeated a longtime adversary in a state Senate race, and Knight beat the odds and two highly regarded opponents for the state Assembly.

Wright edged out former Assembly rival Marian W. La Follette, with whom she has feuded for years, in the newly drawn 19th State Senate District, which stretches from the northwest San Fernando Valley to Oxnard.

Wright took 38% of the vote, compared to 33% for La Follette, who threw $199,000 of her own money into the campaign and was endorsed by retiring state Sen. Ed Davis, another adversary of Wright.

Fillmore City Councilman Roger Campbell, who ran on a shoestring budget of $18,000, collected a surprising 29% of the vote.

Wright, who cited voter anger over the economy and her law-and-order stand as reasons for her victory, will run against Democrat Henry Phillip Starr in November in the heavily Republican district.

La Follette, who moved from Orange County to Thousand Oaks earlier this year to run against Wright, said that she has not made any definite plans, but is considering moving back to Corona del Mar.

In the new 36th Assembly District, which includes the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, Davis also backed a losing candidate, his longtime aide Hunt Braly.

Throughout the campaign, Braly, who has never held office, was treated by rivals as the front-runner. But Knight, who resigned his Palmdale council seat two months ago, confounded expectations by capturing 41% of the vote.

Braly won only 20% and Forrest L. McElroy, superintendent of the Palmdale Elementary School District, got 13%.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who backed Knight, said that “Davis has lost touch with the community.” The conservative Antonovich said Braly, who supported abortion rights and the state’s 15-day waiting period for handguns, was “too liberal on the social issues” for the district.

Knight’s 2-1 victory over his closest rival was based on his drawing power in the Antelope Valley. In his hometown, Knight won 39 of 40 precincts, losing one to McElroy, the local school superintendent. Knight’s pull was even greater in Lancaster, where he won all 64 precincts, sometimes by margins of 5 to 1 or 6 to 1 over McElroy and as much as 10 to 1 over Braly.

An unemployed political affairs consultant who lives with his parents defeated a prominent criminal defense attorney in the Democratic primary in the 38th Assembly District.

Howard Cohen, 29, who conducted his campaign out of the North Hills house he shares with his parents and grandmother, beat attorney James Blatt by 15,173 votes to 13,327.

Both candidates were surprised.

Cohen raised only about $8,000 for the race, while Blatt spent about five times that much.

Cohen, who got 52% of the vote to Blatt’s 48%, will face incumbent Republican Paula Boland of Northridge in the November election. Boland, first elected to the Assembly in 1990, was unopposed in the GOP primary.

Cohen faces a difficult battle against Boland in the conservative district, which includes portions of the northwest San Fernando Valley, as well as Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks in Ventura County. Registration in the district is overwhelmingly Republican.

Former Santa Monica Councilwoman and Mayor Christine Reed triumphed over a field of men who challenged her as too liberal to win the Republican nomination for the 41st Assembly District, which straddles the Santa Monica Mountains, stretching from Santa Monica to Tarzana and Westlake Village.

Reed’s victory puts her in a tough November contest with Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles), unopposed in the primary.

Reed attributed her victory to name recognition as a longtime Santa Monica officeholder and to her environmental record in what is partly a coastal district. Her opponents said they were at a gender disadvantage and were weakened by splitting the conservative Republican vote.

Reed won with slightly more than 32% of the vote. In second place with nearly 19% of the vote was political newcomer Stefan (Stu) Stitch, a recent USC graduate who was endorsed on at least two conservative Republican slate mailers.

In the GOP primary in the Pasadena-based 44th Assembly District, insurance broker Bill Hoge, a political newcomer with the right connections, defeated Barbara Pieper, a former La Canada Flintridge city councilwoman.

Among Democrats, Jonathan S. Fuhrman, a Pasadena business manager, narrowly edged out John Vollbrecht, a Los Angeles businessman. Besides Pasadena and adjacent cities, the district wraps around the north side of Verdugo Hills to include portions of the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-Los Angeles) easily defeated three Democratic challengers in the primary race for the 40th Assembly District, an office being vacated by retiring Assemblyman Tom Bane (D-Tarzana).

Friedman collected 71% of the vote, well ahead of second-place finisher Joel B. Kelman, who gathered 13.5%.

She received more than $170,000 in campaign contributions, nearly 20 times more than Kelman, in large part because of her ties to the political organization headed by U.S. Reps. Henry Waxman and Howard Berman.

A Democratic majority in the 40th District--which also includes portions of Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks, Encino and Woodland Hills--gives Friedman a secure advantage in the November election against Republican nominee Horace Heidt Jr., an apartment owner and music director for the Los Angeles Raiders. Heidt defeated two other Republican candidates--Jon R. Lorenzen and Brian Perry--receiving about 42%.

Longtime Republican incumbent Carlos Moorhead easily defeated three challengers in the 27th Congressional District primary, finishing with 61% of the votes. The district includes Glendale, La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, San Marino, Pasadena, South Pasadena and portions of Burbank and the west San Gabriel Valley.

Also running were Louis Morelli, who received 18%; Barry L. Hatch, who got 11%, and Lionel Allen Jr., with 10%.

Moorhead will face Democratic primary winner Doug Kahn, who edged John Grula 51% to 49% for his party’s nomination.

In the 42nd Assembly District, which stretches from Sherman Oaks to Universal City and across the Santa Monica Mountains to West Los Angeles, Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles) easily won nomination over attorney and gay-rights activist John J. Duran. Margolin will face Republican businessman Robert K. Davis in November in a district with strong Democratic demographics.

In the heavily Democratic 26th Congressional District, which includes most of the East Valley, Sun Valley hardware store manager Gary Forsch, a conservative, narrowly edged out Bill Glass, a moderate Republican accountant, for the right to square off against Rep. Berman in November.

In the 29th Congressional District, another Democratic bastion, Rep. Waxman easily brushed aside a challenge for the Democratic nomination from Scott M. Gaulke, a Studio City property manager. Waxman got 84% to Gaulke’s 16%.

Mark A. Robbins, a Los Angeles attorney, was unopposed for the Republican nomination.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Sam Enriquez, Nancy Hill-Holtzman, Amy Pyle, Richard Colvin and Carlos Lozano.