GOP’s Hurtt Wins; Other Races Unclear

Conservative Republican Rob Hurtt, a wealthy businessman bankrolling his first run for office out of his own pocket, handily won an Orange County state Senate seat Tuesday in a special election.

Facing six little-known challengers, Hurtt had 75.2% of the vote with all 191 precincts s reporting. He had far more than the majority needed to avoid a runoff in the race to capture the 32nd District seat that had been held by Republican Edward R. Royce until last November, when Royce won a seat in Congress.

“This is a landslide victory in the making, and it demonstrates the solid strength of the conservative message in this county,” said Thomas Fuentes, Orange County Republican chairman.

In declaring victory, Hurtt said: “I feel like I’m ready to go to work immediately.”

But as of late Tuesday no clear-cut winners had emerged in low-profile special election contests in two other Senate districts, including one that touches on the Pasadena area and another on the state’s North Coast, and in a Fresno-area Assembly district.

In those races, if none of the candidates wins a majority, the top vote-getters from each party will square off in April 27 runoffs.

Tuesday’s balloting is expected to be the first of a wave of special elections triggered by the passage in 1990 of legislative term limits. With their terms restricted by voters, elected officials are seeking other offices or searching for more secure jobs before their terms run out.

As voters in 12 counties went to the polls, leadership of neither the Senate nor Assembly, both Democratic-controlled, was up for grabs.

In the marginally Democratic 16th District, Assemblyman Jim Costa (D-Hanford) and former Assemblyman Phillip D. Wyman (R-Tehachapi) were locked in a seesaw battle that both candidates predicted will lead to a runoff.

They were stumping to fill the remaining 21 months of the term left vacant by Sen. Don Rogers (R-Tehachapi), who won election last November to another Senate seat.

The district currently includes the eastern Antelope Valley and parts of Pasadena and Altadena, as well as farmlands in the San Joaquin Valley. But in the next regular election, the district’s boundaries will be out of date. Because of the reapportionment process, the map of the district has been redrawn into solidly Democratic turf that will no longer stretch into the Los Angeles area.

In the far north 2nd District, Democratic Sen. Mike Thompson was holding onto a strong lead against four candidates seeking to succeed veteran Democratic Sen. Barry Keene, who resigned late last year from the seat. Thompson moved his official residence from the Sonoma Valley wine country to the Navy town of Vallejo on San Francisco Bay to try to capture the seat. But Thompson was falling just shy of the majority needed to avoid a runoff with Margie Handley, the top Republican vote-getter. She is a wealthy business executive who previously had lost to Keene.

In Tuesday’s fourth special election, the 31st Assembly District in Fresno and Tulare counties was up for grabs because Democrat Bruce Bronzan resigned to take a post with the University of California.

In a four-way race, Democrat Cruz Bustamante, a former Bronzan aide, was capturing nearly 50% of the vote but appeared to be headed for a runoff with Republican Doug Vagim, a Fresno County supervisor.

Gladstone reported from Sacramento and Lesher from Orange County.