Ex-Assemblyman Wyman Wins Election to State Senate

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. Wyman’s victory restored the district to Republicans but did not alter the balance of power in the Senate.

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. Of the 50,254 registered voters in the Los Angeles County portion of the district, 7,211 went to the polls and gave Costa 70.7% of their vote to Wyman’s 29.2%.

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. Thompsonled by only 671 votes out of the 99,585 cast, although an unknown number of ballots remained to be counted.