Poway Mayor Goldsmith Leading Race for 75th Assembly District Seat : Ahead: Assemblymen Robert Frazee and Steve Peace appeared headed to victories in the 74th and 79th.

By a more than two to one margin, early returns showed Poway Mayor Jan Goldsmith capturing the 75th Assembly District seat, and incumbents in other Assembly races appeared to have easily won re-election.

By Tuesday morning, Goldsmith had already booked a Wednesday morning flight to Sacramento to meet with Republican state legislators in anticipation of his victory.

“We have a full plate in dealing with our problems of the economy,” Goldsmith said Tuesday night. “In California some of our state policies are directly causing an impairment to the economy and that has got to be the number one assignment.”

Assemblymen Robert Frazee and Steve Peace also appeared to be cruising to easy victories in the 74th and 79th Assembly districts, respectively.

The race in the 77th District between Republican Steve Baldwin and Democrat Tom Connolly was too close to call in late returns.

Baldwin and Connolly have waged a bitter battle, accusing each other of being conservative and liberal extremists, respectively.

Thirty-six-year-old Baldwin, a property manager for a commercial real estate company, supports tuition tax credits and the use of public money for a private education voucher system. He wants a more decentralized government and seeks to privatize many areas of government.

He has outstripped his opponent in campaign spending by a factor of ten, and defeated former Chula Vista Mayor Greg Cox in the June primary in a battle that mirrored the statewide struggle between moderate conservatives and the far right for control of the Republican party.

Baldwin, who has worked as national director for the Young Americans for Freedom and as deputy director of the College Republican National Committee, worked to elect Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 and helped Bill Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) in his unsuccessful bid this year for a U.S. Senate seat.

Baldwin calls his opponent an “ultra-liberal, pro-big-government, pro-tax, ACLU trial attorney” who, if elected would be “the most liberal state legislator in the history of San Diego County.”

For his part, Connolly, a 46-year-old Vietnam veteran who is actually a children’s law attorney and does not work for the ACLU, said Baldwin is “an organizer of the religious right movement” who is “masterminding the right-wing takeover of the Republican Party locally.”

Connolly supports abortion rights and a comprehensive national health care system similar to Canada’s single-payer plan, under which government establishes fees, pays the bills and collects taxes to cover the cost.

Connolly wants to repeal the state’s snack tax and reduce some capital gains taxes.

Both candidates support the death penalty, welfare reform and the consolidation of government services.

In other local Assembly races, incumbents Peace (D-Chula Vista) and Frazee (R-Carlsbad) faced challenges from local businessmen with little experience in politics.

In the 74th District, Frazee, who faced a challenger in the Republican primary for the first time in his 14 years in office and is accustomed to having only token opposition, has waged a vigorous campaign in response to the prevalent anti-incumbency sentiment.

Frazee, 64, has raised more than $73,000, compared to his opponent, Democrat businessman Ken Lanzer, who has only topped the $3,200 mark.

Lanzer, a 44-year-old law school graduate from Escondido and former New York City police officer, is relying on the anti-incumbent attitude and portraying Frazee’s record as one of “resounding mediocrity.”

In the 79th District race, 39-year-old Peace faced Raul Silva-Martinez, who has been courting the area’s Latino population, which makes up more than half the residents in the district.

The Republican Silva-Martinez, 42, wants to create a binational border authority that would deal with problems such as immigration, crime and toxic waste that plague both countries.

Goldsmith heavily outspent his opponent, Democrat Dante Cosentino, in their race for the open 75th Assembly District seat. Goldsmith, who defeated ultra-conservative Connie Youngkin in a bitterly contested primary, also has outspent Cosentino heavily, raising more than $450,000, compared to Cosentino’s paltry $8,600.

Cosentino, a Ramona high school teacher, has run on a platform of universal health care and education reform.

In the 73rd District, which lies mostly in Orange County but includes parts of Oceanside and Fallbrook, Republican Bill Morrow enjoys a 57% GOP registration, compared to 30% for the Democrats.

Morrow, a former Marine Corps officer, has run on a conservative platform, and is against abortion, except in cases of rape, incest and endangerment to a mother’s life. He is also against gun control.

His opponent, Democrat Lee Walker, is a community college professor who has characterized Morrow as an “ultra-conservative, right-wing Christian” who is “out of the mainstream of Republicanism.”