Harman, Not Flores, Is Voters’ Choice : The Democrat’s $1.3-million campaign pays off in the redrawn 36th Congressional District. By contrast, Republican Steve Horn uses a low-budget approach to upset Evan Anderson Braude in the 38th.

Democratic attorney Jane Harman, whose $1.3-million campaign promised “choice” and “change,” soundly trounced Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores in a newly drawn coastal district that political observers had thought would become a safe Republican seat.

Early returns had shown Flores maintaining a slim lead. But by midnight, the difference had dwindled to a near-tie and soon became a virtual Harman landslide. The final tally left Harman with 48.8% of the vote, Flores with 41.7%, and three minor party candidates splitting 9.5% among themselves.

“The turnout’s so much higher than we expected,” Flores campaign director Dora Kingsley said as the loss became apparent. “With a high turnout, you tend to get unexpected results.”

Harman attributed her win to an intense grass-roots campaign and her efforts to reach women and moderate Republicans in the 36th Congressional District, which runs from San Pedro to Venice.

“My guess is that I got a lot of non-Democratic votes across the district,” she said. “I think my victory had more to do with what I talked about and did than with the Clinton coattails. . . . It’s not that there were no coattails. There were. But my focus on the defense industry and jobs for this district were key.”

In another Tuesday night surprise, Republican Steve Horn, a Cal State Long Beach political science professor, defied the odds to beat Long Beach City Councilman Evan Anderson Braude in the 38th District, which includes part of San Pedro and Long Beach, extending north to Downey.

Horn managed not only to defeat the Democrat in a district favoring Democrats, but did it without contributions from special-interest political action committees or help from professional consultants.

And he succeeded despite his controversial dismissal as president of Cal State Long Beach after a budget crisis.

Horn took an early lead in the race and never lost it, ultimately defeating Braude by about 8,000 votes. The professor credited his victory to his vow that he would work with both Democrats and Republicans.

“I’m willing to work with anyone to rebuild the economy,” Horn said. “I made it very clear that I could work with either president . . . President Bush, President Clinton or President Perot.”

The following is a district-by-district wrap-up of results in the South Bay’s four congressional elections:

35th District

Despite the best efforts of Republican challenger Nate Truman, incumbent Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) had no trouble winning in this overwhelmingly Democratic district, which encompasses Inglewood, Hawthorne and Gardena.

Garnering 82.3% of the vote, Waters, easily outdistanced Truman, who finished with a 13.6% share.

The Democratic Party’s lopsided 79% to 12% voter registration advantage in the district did not stop Truman, who claims to be a distant relation of Harry S. Truman, from conducting a vigorous campaign featuring promises to create enterprise zones.

36th District

Flores, the Los Angeles city councilwoman, initially expected to win easily in the coastal 36th Congressional District, attributed her 7-point loss to Democratic challenger Jane Harman to “the three Cs: Cash, coattails and choice.”

The cash came from Harman herself, who loaned her $1.3-million campaign nearly $700,000 to finance an unusual series of last-minute commercial television ads. The coattails were Clinton’s, Flores said, as frustrated voters in the economically beleaguered district looked for a clean slate. And choice, she said, came into play because of Harman’s unceasing reminders that she favors abortion rights while Flores does not.

“I really don’t want to be negative . . . but there’s no question that her money played an important role,” Flores said, after seeing her early lead disintegrate into a resounding loss. “Most people do not have the ability to call up their bank and say, ‘Transfer $400,000 into my campaign account.’ ”

Harman acknowledged that the last-minute cash infusions helped her cause. But it was her message of change and its appeal to moderate Republicans and independent voters that made the victory a resounding one, she said.

“We never thought we could win this with only Democrats,” Harman said.

She also credited the Democratic voter registration efforts in the South Bay with erasing the GOP’s original 4-point advantage in the newly drawn district. By election time, the Democrats’ share of registered voters had risen to 42.4%--nearly even with the Republicans’ 42.8%.

It was a bruising race, with Flores painting Harman as a carpetbagger from the Washington Beltway and Harman casting Flores as an entrenched career politician whose anti-abortion stance was out of step with the district’s voters.

The contest was one of only three congressional races in the nation pitting a woman who supports abortion rights against one who does not. But observers said concerns about the district’s defense-based economy probably played a more important role in the voters’ decision than did the debate about abortion rights.

Harman repeated her campaign vow to immediately begin work on a high-tech jobs program for the district and to seek a seat on the House Armed Services Committee to keep an eye on the district’s defense interests. The seat has already been promised her by the committee’s chairman, Les Aspin (D-Wis.).

37th District

Compton Mayor and Democratic primary winner Walter R. Tucker III didn’t even wait until the general election before starting his new job as congressman for this heavily Democratic turf, which stretches from Wilmington to Watts.

Facing no major party opposition after winning a bruising primary, Tucker had begun scouting Washington for a house and had picked his chief of staff before the polls opened on Tuesday.

Tucker’s only opponent Tuesday was Peace and Freedom candidate B. Kwaku Duren, a lawyer and activist who ran a spirited but underfunded campaign. Duren won an impressive 14% of the vote, more than any other third-party candidate in a southeast Congressional race, but a 76% Democratic share of registered voters in the district proved too much for Duren, and Tucker won easily.

“It’s really exciting,” Tucker said. “The winds of change are blowing and I think we have the makings of a team that can really do some things . . . that understands what really concerns the people in this area, most of whom are minorities and people struggling with unemployment, poor education.”

38th District

Horn, the Cal State Long Beach professor, said his victory over the early favorite Braude in a Democratic-leaning district illustrates one thing.

“I think this candidacy with the volunteers and no PAC money proved that it can be done, that you don’t need to be bought lock, stock and barrel by all the special interests and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to win,” Horn said.

The self-styled “Republican for Reform” criticized Braude throughout the campaign for accepting contributions from special-interest political action committees.

Early Wednesday morning, Braude said he could offer no reason why he lost the race to Horn, and speculated that he had not done enough to show voters that he is not the “career politician” Horn made him out to be.

“I really don’t know what went wrong,” he said wearily as the last of the precincts were being counted. “I’m just sort of resigned to the fact that (Horn’s victory) is going to happen and there’s nothing I can do at this point. What happens, happens. There will be a tomorrow.”

The Democratic-leaning district was left open when Braude’s stepfather, Rep. Anderson retired, and Braude was considered the favorite going into the race.

“People might ask why did the voters elect Horn when they rejected all the other Republicans,” said Joel Lubin, a local Democratic party activist. “The reason is Horn is not one of those kind of Republicans. . . . Evan ran a good race but unfortunately he ran against a candidate who pushed all the right buttons, who seems to be a genuine reformer and who was not tied in with the failed Bush Administration.”

Staff writers Deborah Schoch and Stacy Wong contributed to this report.

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