Close Races Put Fireworks in Republican Assembly Contests

Democrats hold all five Assembly seats that include parts of the South Bay, but the liveliest races were in the Republican primary.

Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor Steve Kuykendall beat better-financed opponent Jeff Earle in the Republican 54th Assembly District contest to face incumbent Betty Karnette (D-Long Beach) in November.

In another close Assembly race, insurance agent Julian Sirull beat insurance claims adjuster David Bohline for the GOP’s 53rd District nomination to face incumbent Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey).

In the only contested Democratic primary for a South Bay Assembly seat, incumbent Willard H. Murray Jr. easily defeated former Compton City Councilwoman Patricia A. Moore and Los Angeles businessman Stephen Hamlin.

Republicans say they have the best chance of defeating Karnette. Democrats hold only a slight edge in voter registration in the 54th District, which includes the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Long Beach.

Both Republican candidates criticized Karnette, saying that she would accept an Assembly pay raise that a citizens commission recently granted to legislators. Karnette’s spokesman said she has taken no position on the raise.

Kuykendall spent Monday and Tuesday walking the precincts encouraging people to go to the polls. He had phone banks targeting registered voters that his campaigners had identified as supporters, especially in Long Beach.

Earle also staged an Election Day effort to get out the vote, standing with supporters at Pacific Coast Highway and Hawthorne Boulevard and waving at traffic.

Earle, 35, who runs the Red Onion restaurant that his family owns in Rolling Hills Estates, said he will endorse Kuykendall in the general election. He said that Kuykendall’s name recognition was “a tough obstacle to overcome” in the primary.

“It was pretty close for a taco-flipper from Palos Verdes,” Earle joked of his narrow defeat.

Earle assembled a list of high-profile Republican endorsements, ranging from former Senate candidate Bruce Herschensohn to former Reagan Administration Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III. Kuykendall was endorsed by former Gov. George Deukmejian.

Earle also had more campaign funds. By May 21, he spent $87,000 to Kuykendall’s $59,000.

“There was no way we were going to match him dollar for dollar,” Kuykendall said. “But we (had) a huge base of people working for us. It’s a tremendous base that money can’t buy.”

But he expects the Democrats to invest money in Karnette’s campaign.

“It’s going to take a very hard campaign,” said Kuykendall, 47, a mortgage banker. “You can be assured she’ll be very well financed.”

In the 53rd Assembly District, which stretches from Venice to Palos Verdes Estates, Sirull and Bohline differed on only a few issues. Sirull favored a ban on assault weapons; Bohline did not. Sirull said he would accept the recent Assembly pay raise; Bohline said he would not.

But Sirull spent about $2,000 to Bohline’s $10,000.

“I can’t believe it,” Sirull said Tuesday night when early reports showed him in the lead. “I was afraid I was going to get killed, that I was going to be embarrassed.”

Sirull, 36, cooked spaghetti at the Redondo Beach apartment of a friend and watched the election returns on television.

Bohline, 26, said Sirull did a better job of targeting absentee voters. Bohline fell behind by nearly 700 votes after the absentee votes were tallied and never overcame the deficit.

Some Republicans have all but conceded Bowen’s reelection, but Bowen was an unknown when she won the seat two years ago.

“She hasn’t done anything controversial,” Sirull said. “But she hasn’t done anything great either.”

Democrats make up 43% of the voters in the district to the Republicans’ 41%. “With the Republican registration in this district being as high as it is, I think we have a great chance to recapture the seat,” Sirull said.

In the 52nd District, Assemblyman Murray was painted by critics as ineffective and arrogant, but cruised to an easy victory as he defeated Moore for the second time in two years.

Murray, 63, said his victory was vindication for unpopular legislation he authored that allowed the state to take control of the insolvent Compton school district last year in exchange for a bailout loan. Murray had long defended his actions as being necessary to save the struggling school system, and said voters would understand.

“I never had any fear about losing,” Murray said as returns showed him clinching the primary.

The campaign was expected to generate fireworks, considering the controversies generated by Murray and Moore. Compton civic leaders complained that Murray had grown out of touch with the district, which includes Gardena, Paramount, Lynwood and part of south Los Angeles. Moore’s critics described her as a political opportunist.

But for all its potential, the race failed to attract widespread interest, and neither candidate campaigned aggressively.

Murray appears to be headed for his fourth term. He faces Republican Richard A. Rorex, a Gardena engineer, in November in the heavily Democratic district.

Assemblywoman Juanita McDonald (D-Carson) appears to be headed for reelection in the 55th Assembly District. She was the lone candidate in the Democratic primary and will face only a Libertarian candidate, Daniel Dalton, in the general election.

In the 51st District, Assemblyman Curtis R. Tucker Jr. will face Republican businessman Adam M. Michelin in November. Neither of them faced primary opposition.