Peace Looks Like Winner in Race for State Senate : Politics: Assemblyman apparently defeats Joseph Ghougassian in San Diego County’s 40th District. Turnout is low.

After an expensive and bitter campaign, Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista) apparently has defeated Republican businessman Joseph Ghougassian in a special election Tuesday for a vacant state Senate seat from southern San Diego County.

With all 170 precincts counted, Peace had a 52% to 48% lead. That reflected a 2,300 vote margin, but 4,800 absentee ballots were yet to be counted. For Ghougassian to win, he would have to take three-quarters of those votes, expected to be counted today or Thursday. Of the 29,000 absentee ballots counted Tuesday, the Republican took only slightly more than half.

If Peace, 40, winds up victorious, he would complete the final year of the term of his political mentor, Wadie Deddeh (D-Bonita). Ghougassian, 49, owns a trade and export consulting firm and was once U.S. ambassador to Qatar.

Although Democrats enjoy a 49% to 35% edge over Republicans in voter registration in the 40th Senate District, Ghougassian was aided by a low voter turnout and a massive Republican effort to encourage GOP voters to file absentee ballots.

The turnout was estimated to be about 17%, and election officials said absentee ballots may have accounted for more than 50% of the votes cast.

Although few voters might have been listening, each candidate tried to link his opponent to a bogyman.

Peace, who served 11 years in the Assembly, maintained that Ghougassian is a puppet of Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove) in a right-wing attempt to take control of the state Legislature and banish moderates from the Republican Party.

A gun owners group backing Ghougassian sent out a last-minute mailer blaming Peace for stopping legislation that would have kept Richard Allen Davis, the accused killer of Polly Klaas, and other repeat offenders in prison. The group argued that because the Assembly refused to consider the legislation, Peace could be held responsible.

The election was forced by Deddeh’s surprise resignation in August to go back to teaching political science at Southwestern Community College in Chula Vista rather than serve the final year of his third term.

In November, Peace led a six-candidate primary field but failed to get a majority of the votes. As a result, Peace and Ghougassian were forced to campaign during a season when voters were more interested in buying gifts and enjoying holiday cheer than evaluating political candidates.

In one sign of the out-of-kilter nature of the campaign, the effectiveness of political mailers, a major weapon in legislative campaigns, may have been blunted.

Peace’s and Ghougassian’s mailers arrived at voters’ homes buried under the crush of holiday cards and advertising circulars. On Saturday, the day that in a normal campaign each candidate would unleash his most devastating mailers, there was no delivery because it was Christmas.

“The adage in political campaigns is that 50% of the money you spend is wasted,” Peace said during the campaign’s final days. “In this campaign, it’s probably 80%.”

Ghougassian’s media adviser, John Allan Peschong, agreed: “This was a weird campaign.”

Total spending by the two sides is expected to approach $2 million. On a per-vote basis, the campaign proved to be the costliest ever for any legislative seat in the county.