O.C. Crossover Could Cross Up Lungren in Fall

There is new evidence that at least 10,000, and possibly as many as 20,000, Orange County GOP voters cast ballots for Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren’s Democratic opponents in the state’s first blanket primary in June.

The willingness of county Republicans to vote Democratic could spell trouble in November for Lungren, who will be counting on strong showings in traditional GOP strongholds like Orange County to offset the heavy Democratic vote that his opponent, Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, is expected to pick up elsewhere in California.

Republicans outnumber Democrats in Orange County by 227,000 registered voters, but trail Democrats statewide by 1.6 million voters.

The crossover voting in Orange County was concentrated in the governor’s race, according to a computer analysis of newly released Orange County voting data done for The Times by political analyst Dick Lewis of Newport Beach.

By contrast, only a handful of Democrats broke ranks to vote for former Republican Rep. Robert K. Dornan or three other GOP candidates against lone Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez in the county’s highest-profile congressional race.

And there was no evidence that local Democrats cast a significant number of ballots for either of the two Republicans seeking to oust Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer.

In more than half of the county’s voting precincts, however, the three Democratic candidates for governor garnered more votes than could have been cast by the Democrats, independents and minor-party voters who trooped to the polls. This means that Republicans made up the difference.

Exit polls conducted for the secretary of state’s office and by The Times on election day also found that Republican voters crossed party lines to cast ballots for Democratic gubernatorial candidates. Those polls taken as voters left polling places found a crossover rate of 20% to 25%.

Neither of these exit polls, however, gauged what went on in Orange County.

The new Orange County figures are based on the total number of votes and voters in each precinct, rather than on a sampling.

In Orange County, much of the crossover voting by Republicans was found in Newport Beach, where at least 8.6% of Republican voters overall cast ballots for Democrats Davis, Al Checchi or Rep. Jane Harman. In some Newport Beach precincts, 15% or more of Republican voters cast ballots for Democratic candidates.

California Republican Party Chairman Michael Schroeder of Irvine said the results are easily explained: Many Republican voters participated in choosing the Democratic governor nominee because Lungren essentially was unopposed. And Davis was the recipient of many GOP votes because he is considered the most vulnerable candidate in November.

“I had Republicans come up to me with big smiles on their faces saying they voted for Davis because he’s the easiest to beat,” Schroeder said. “That wasn’t the only factor, though. People wanted to express an opinion, but the marquee event was the governor’s race and the Republican side was uncontested. So they voted Democratic. We don’t have any reason to think they won’t come back [to the GOP] in November.”

But the Secretary of State’s exit poll, conducted by the Alvarez and Nagler Political Research Group of Riverside, found scant evidence in June of voting by so-called raiders, or people crossing party lines with the intent to nominate the candidate they believed to be the other party’s weakest choice.

In the governor’s race, about three-quarters of Republicans cast “sincere” ballots for Democratic candidates, the study showed, based on voters who said their choice was the candidate they considered best in the other party. The crossover voting had no effect on the outcome: Davis was far and away the top choice among Democratic voters.

Davis campaign manager Garry South said the campaign’s interviews with 2,150 voters in the days before the June elections showed that 26% of Republicans intended to vote for a Democratic candidate for governor, because they were “favorably inclined” to that particular candidate.

“No one can suggest with a straight face that one out of four Republicans voted for a Democrat for the heck of it,” South said.

Exit polling and focus group interviews showed that Republicans inclined to vote Democratic for governor were voters with “down-the-line views on things like the economy, crime and law-and-order issues, but somewhat libertarian on social issues and downright liberal on some environmental issues,” South said.

“Lungren is not a good fit for them,” he said.

The turnout in Orange County for Democratic governor candidates--222,773 votes compared to 233,494 for Lungren--isn’t great news for the GOP but certainly isn’t “fatal,” said Jack Pitney, an associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College who lives in Orange.

“It’s not a fatal sign because the November electorate is different,” said Pitney, a Republican. “First of all, it’s larger, and the difference in June was that you had competition in the Democratic primary. Competition draws interest and votes.”

In Washington state, which has a blanket primary like California’s, crossover voting in races with a contested primary in one party and a single candidate for the other has hovered around 25%, regardless of party, according to Schroeder. But in general elections, most voters return to their party of registration, he said.

Orange County traditionally has been a crucial battleground for Republican candidates statewide, because GOP voter majorities here are used to counterbalance Democratic majorities in Northern California. In 1990, Lungren won the post of attorney general over San Francisco Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith, a Democrat, by 26,000 votes on the strength of ballots from Orange County.

Davis is running strong in the Bay Area, where he leads 2 to 1 among voters in nine counties, according to Davis’ campaign manager. He also is counting on a strong turnout in the Central Valley, which Davis won in three statewide elections, and in coastal counties up and down the state, where his views on environmental issues are more in sync with those of the voters.

Davis also drew twice as many independent voters in June compared with Lungren, according to The Times exit poll.

Historically, Republican candidates have needed to grab at least 60% of the independent vote to be successful statewide.

“The only place he could hope to make up the difference is in Orange County,” South said. “And that means he’s got serious trouble.”

Schroeder said the real battleground in November will be among independent voters. He said Lungren needs to get 86% of the Republican vote and at least half of the independents to win.

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GOP Voters Cross Over for Governor

In 925 of Orange County’s 1,776 primary election voting precincts, Democratic candidates for governor collectively received more votes than could have been cast by Democrats and independent/minor-party voters alone. Here’s the picture from those 925 precincts:

Democratic candidates’ vote: 93,318

Democratic voters: 62,096

Independent voters: 20,930

Difference made up by Republicans: 10,292

Here are the 15 highest crossover precincts in Orange County and how the vote split. Votes for other candidates are not shown:

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Precinct No./ Democrat/ Ballots other Republican Lungren Checchi Davis location cast voters voters vote vote vote 53069 Newport Beach 197 9.8% 90.2% 69.5% 9.1% 9.1% 75110 Villa Park 184 14.5 85.5 63.0 11.4 13.6 53079 Newport Beach 357 19.8 80.2 59.4 8.1 16.2 53329 Newport Beach 167 17.4 82.6 68.3 9.6 13.8 53372 Newport Beach 299 19.9 80.1 63.5 7.4 14.7 53091 Newport Beach 239 23.8 76.2 57.7 9.2 20.1 43120 Emerald Bay 332 18.5 81.5 64.5 11.1 9.6 53075 Newport Beach 320 21.2 78.8 60.0 10.0 13.1 72197 East Tustin 254 23.4 76.6 57.1 11.0 14.6 53363 Newport Beach 262 27.8 72.2 50.8 9.2 21.4 53384 Newport Beach 216 20.5 79.5 60.2 6.9 15.3 75115 Villa Park 216 22.4 77.6 57.9 11.1 12.5 53083 Newport Beach 333 17.3 82.7 67.6 8.4 11.1 53308 Newport Beach 435 20.6 79.4 62.5 7.6 14.7 63066 Orange 266 20.6 79.4 62.4 10.5 12.8

Precinct No./ Harman location vote 53069 Newport Beach 8.6% 75110 Villa Park 6.0 53079 Newport Beach 11.2 53329 Newport Beach 7.2 53372 Newport Beach 11.4 53091 Newport Beach 8.8 43120 Emerald Bay 8.7 53075 Newport Beach 10.6 72197 East Tustin 10.6 53363 Newport Beach 12.2 53384 Newport Beach 9.3 75115 Villa Park 10.6 53083 Newport Beach 6.6 53308 Newport Beach 8.7 63066 Orange 7.5

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Source: Times reports

Researched by DICK LEWIS / For The Times