No Guarantees for GOP in O.C. This Election

When Orange County’s political engine is revved for high performance, it is capable of swamping its opposition with enough Republican votes to offset all the Democrats in their strongholds of Los Angeles and San Francisco combined.

That’s one reason Pete Wilson is governor of California. Orange County gave him a 2-to-1 winning margin in 1990, enough to wipe out all of Dianne Feinstein’s Democratic support in Southern California and in her San Francisco hometown.

President Bush got the same boost when he narrowly beat Democrat Michael S. Dukakis in California four years ago.

This year, in Tuesday’s election, the Orange County Republican machinery will be put to one of its most difficult tests ever.

Democrats are claiming a newfound political momentum that has increased their voter registration and found their candidates leading the races for President and two U.S. Senate seats.

County Republican officials say they are still hopeful about boosting their candidates over the top again in California. But based on data from recent polls, it would take an unprecedented effort. An analysis of election returns since Ronald Reagan’s presidential victory in 1980 shows the high standards Orange County has set for itself. Consider these examples of Orange County’s past political horsepower:

* No Republican candidate for state or federal office has won in California since 1980 without receiving 60% of the vote in Orange County, with the exception of Dan Lungren’s bid for attorney general in 1990.

That race was so close, however, that Democrat Arlo Smith won the vote on Election Day and it was reversed after a subsequent ballot count. Even then, Lungren received 58% of the Orange County vote, double the 29% given to Smith.

Also since 1980, no Republican candidate has received more than 60% of the vote in Orange County and lost a statewide race except one--former Rep. Ed Zschau (R-Palo Alto). In 1986, Zschau beat Democratic U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston in Orange County 62% to 35%, but he lost statewide by about 2% of the vote.

* It is in the close races where Orange County’s vote has been decisive.

California has voted in 26 statewide races since 1980, most of which were not closely contested by Election Day. Just six of those races were decided by a margin of less than 5% of the vote. But of those six, Republicans won the four races in which Orange County voters gave the GOP candidate a 2-to-1 edge. The Republicans lost in the two races where the Orange County margin was less than 2 to 1.

Wilson and Bush are two of the candidates who owe their narrow California victories to Orange County. The other two are George Deukmejian, who won a tight race for governor in 1982, and Lungren.

The two Republican candidates who lost close statewide races are both moderates who had trouble exciting Orange County’s conservative troops. Zschau fell just short of the mark in 1986. And former state Treasurer Thomas Hayes, who was not even registered as a Republican when he was appointed to the office by Wilson, lost in 1990 to Democrat Kathleen Brown.

* Orange County has voted for every Republican candidate to run statewide since 1980 except for two GOP challengers in 1986. It is a pattern that has gone against the state’s political tide, even during the Reagan years. In contrast with Orange County, 17 GOP challengers have lost statewide in the last 12 years and nine have won.

The two Republican candidates who failed to carry Orange County in 1986 were Bruce Gleason, running for attorney general, and former Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande, who lost the race for secretary of state to Democrat March Fong Eu.

* In the presidential race, Orange County’s legacy is even more unshakable. Every GOP candidate for the White House has carried Orange County since the Republican governor of Kansas, Alfred M. Landon, lost in the 1936 landslide reelection of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In the 13 presidential elections since Landon, no Republican has received less than 55% of the vote in Orange County. And in the 24 years since Richard M. Nixon first won the White House, no Republican ticket has received less than 62% of the vote in Orange County.

In such a historical context, the GOP challenge in Tuesday’s election appears daunting.

There have been about half a dozen polls of Orange County voters since the Republican National Convention in August. And if they are correct in forecasting a tight contest in the county, a statewide win by the Republican candidates would be unprecedented.

Instead of a 2-to-1 victory margin in Orange County, a poll published Tuesday by The Times found Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton locked in a virtual tie among the county’s voters.

And while just one Republican has won in California since 1980 with less than 60% support in Orange County, the poll found Bush scoring just 34% of the vote. Clinton had 35% and independent candidate Ross Perot had 24%.

The two Republican U.S. Senate candidates--John Seymour and Bruce Herschensohn--were not winning enough Orange County support to meet the historical standards for victory either.

Herschensohn was doing the best with 50% of the vote in Orange County, 11 points ahead of his rival, Barbara Boxer. Seymour, however, had 44% of the vote, one point behind Democrat Feinstein.

GOP county officials said they were still optimistic, but they would not predict that their candidates would break the 60% threshold.

“This is a race you can’t find a precedent for,” said Greg Haskins, executive director of the county Republican Party. “There hasn’t been a presidential race like this in modern times, so we don’t have a good gauge to tell what we will see on Election Day.”

Both major parties--as well as the supporters for Perot--are planning to blanket neighborhoods throughout the county on Election Day to make sure their voters reach the polls.

For Orange County Democrats, long the butt of inside political jokes, the effort is breaking new ground.

The Orange County Democratic Party reached an all-time high in voter registration for this election at 428,035 voters. Republicans hit their historic peak in 1988 at 650,348 and dropped about 1,400 members for this year’s election.

Howard Adler, chairman of the Orange County Democrats, said his party has already spent more than $200,000 to get its local voters to the polls, more than twice the amount it had in 1988.

“I’ve been at this for 30 years, and this is the largest effort we’ve ever had,” Adler said. “Potentially, we could have 1,500 people working in the campaign on Election Day.”

Orange County Republicans, meanwhile, have the largest GOP operation in the state, and they are expected to top the Democrats in spending again this year.

Haskins said the county party’s annual election year budget is about $500,000. And this year it expects to have 25 campaign offices on Election Day, staffed by at least 2,000 people.

“We have never been better organized,” said Thomas A. Fuentes, chairman of the Orange County Republican Party.

Many campaign officials predicted an increase in voter turnout this year because of the extra activity as well as the heightened interest in this election year and the newcomers brought into the process by Perot.

Orange County’s turnout in the last presidential race was about 77%, its lowest rate in more than 50 years. Still, the county’s voters are some of the most loyal in California. Turnout in Orange County has also exceeded the statewide level in every election for more than 50 years.

This year, while most experts are reluctant to make firm predictions, many expect the turnout could reach 80% for the first time since 1976.

At the same time, however, some strategists believe that turnout could drop again due to the perception by many frustrated voters that all three major presidential candidates are flawed.