Ex-Assemblyman Wyman Wins State Senate Election

Former Republican Assemblyman Phil Wyman has won a special election to the state Senate from a sprawling district that includes a large chunk of the rural San Joaquin Valley and a little piece of suburban Los Angeles County, returns showed Wednesday.

Wyman defeated Assemblyman Jim Costa (D-Hanford), 46,563 to 41,296 votes, or 55.8% to 44.1%. Districtwide, nearly 25% of the registered voters turned out Tuesday. A conservative, Wyman retired from the Assembly last year to run unsuccessfully for Congress.

He and Costa battled for the seat abandoned last year by Sen. Don Rogers (R-Bakersfield), who won election in a safer district nearby.

Costa won in the district’s predominantly Democratic pocket of Pasadena and Altadena, but it was not enough to offset Wyman’s heavy margin in Kern County.

Elsewhere, Sen. Mike Thompson (D-Vallejo) appeared to have squeaked past GOP businesswoman Margie Handley of Ukiah to fill a Senate vacancy in the North Coast’s 2nd District. Thompson led by only 671 votes out of the 99,585 cast, although an unknown number of ballots remained to be counted.

Thompson jumped from his adjacent inland 4th District to run for the vacancy created late last year by the midterm resignation of former Sen. Barry Keene (D-Benicia). Under reapportionment, the 4th District that Thompson has represented since 1990 is expected to tilt toward Republicans in 1994, whereas the realigned 2nd District is likely to favor Democrats.

If Thompson is certified as the winner, another special election will be called to fill the unexpired 18 months of his term in the 4th District.

In a third special election, Democrat Cruz M. Bustamante of Fresno easily beat Republican Doug Vagim, a Fresno County supervisor, for the Assembly seat left open by the resignation of veteran Democrat Bruce Bronzan. Bustamante, a former aide to Bronzan, defeated Vagim, 18,048 votes to 13,409.