46th District Rematch a Runaway

Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez rolled to a crushing victory Tuesday night over Republican Robert K. Dornan in a bitter Orange County rematch that attracted a nationwide audience and became the most expensive congressional race this year.

With more than half the vote counted, the Democratic incumbent proclaimed victory, saying she hoped it would end debate over her narrow 1996 defeat of Dornan and the contentious voter fraud investigation that followed.

“Tonight, that cloud that hung over me and us for so long has evaporated,” the Garden Grove congresswoman told a packed crowd of Democrats at the Disneyland Hotel. “And the mushroom cloud that erupts tonight and rises tonight is over the ashes of Bob Dornan.”

Sanchez concluded: “Adios, Bob Dornan.”

Dornan vowed to run again, hinting that it is too early to write his political obituary. He toyed with the idea of running against Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) in the next election.

“I’m hurting a lot less than any of these other Republican people tonight because I knew all along I couldn’t win,” Dornan said. But he vowed Tuesday night never to concede publicly to Sanchez.

During Dornan’s speech at a gathering of Republicans in Newport Beach, an impatient supporter of state Treasurer Matt Fong began chanting, “Fong, Fong, Fong,” apparently because the Senate candidate was scheduled to take the podium next.

Offended by the outburst, Dornan’s son, Bob Dornan Jr., approached the Fong group and demanded, “Show some class.”

The confrontation briefly brought the younger Dornan’s sister, Kate, into the mix, but a California Highway Patrol officer quickly dragged her aside. That, in turn, sparked a shoving match between the officer and Kate Dornan’s boyfriend, Pete Caroline, who was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed. Newport Beach police later arrested Caroline.

As the tussle raged at a side of the stage, Republicans in the packed ballroom tried to drown out the noise of the melee by singing, “God Bless America.”

Thus concluded a fiercely fought congressional battle between two foes who did little to hide their antipathy toward one another.

The contest drew national attention, partly because of the contentious past between the two strikingly different candidates and partly because of the changing demographics in the central Orange County district.

Dornan had sought to overturn Sanchez’s narrow 1996 victory in a long challenge that kept open bitter wounds. The rematch, though, became a test of the emerging power of the Latino vote in one of the nation’s most conservative counties.

In a year when candidates stayed close to the political center and voters seemed more interested in the stock market than in ideology, the contest between Dornan and Sanchez was the exception.

Strikingly different in their views, the candidates personify the growing schism between Orange County’s conservative image and its reality, especially in its ethnically diverse central cities.

The race pitted one of the nation’s most committed conservatives against a mainstream Democrat, an Irish Catholic veteran against a young Latina, a sworn enemy of President Clinton against a woman who owes much of her political success to the Democratic administration.

On nearly every issue, from education to defense, from abortion to the environment, Sanchez and Dornan came down on opposite sides.

They ran hard for the seat for most of the past two years, and their efforts turned the contest into the most expensive congressional race in the country this year, and the second most expensive in history. Together, Dornan and Sanchez raised more than $6.3 million.

Dornan ran a massive nationwide direct mail operation, bringing in most of his money from outside California. Sanchez launched a sophisticated nationwide telemarketing campaign. She also garnered significant support from women’s groups, labor, gay and lesbian groups and abortion rights activists, who consider Dornan a powerful foe.

But her most potent support on election day seemed to come from Latinos, who were the voting bloc that pushed Sanchez over the top two years ago.

Lorena Garcia, 21, of Santa Ana explained her vote simply: “She’s a female and she’s a Latina.”

Dolores de Leon, 47, of Santa Ana, said she was motivated to vote for Sanchez because of her anger over what she saw as Dornan’s anti-Latino attacks during his bitter quest to regain his seat. The former congressman claimed that Sanchez’s victory came with the help of hundreds of noncitizens, mainly Latinos, who voted illegally.

“He’s never helped the poor or the Latino community,” De Leon said. “But when he started accusing us of cheating too, that’s when I got mad.”

Dornan’s attempts to cater to the Latino vote this time around--contending his Catholic upbringing and emphasis on family values gave him more in common with Latinos than Sanchez--struck some voters as hypocritical.

The Garden Grove Republican hoped to woo the largely Catholic Latino voters by emphasizing his opposition to abortion. His first major campaign flier had an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe with graphic portrayals of abortion procedures inside.

“I don’t think he was genuine about it,” said Edgar Serratos, 24. “It was just a political move on his part. He realizes the Latino community is beginning to mobilize, and it was an effort to grab hold of some of those votes.”

Other voters said they were venting their anger at Republicans over continuing Clinton impeachment talk.

“Maybe they’ll realize after tonight,” said Michael Feinstein, 46 of Garden Grove. “They’ll start listening to us that we just don’t care about Mr. President’s sex life.”

Democratic and Republican party organizations poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the race in the blue-collar, ethnically diverse district that includes Santa Ana, Anaheim and Garden Grove.

The campaign was at times a personal grudge match. Sanchez, whose narrow 984-vote victory in 1996 was challenged by Dornan, said during the campaign that she was determined to defeat Dornan this time by as many votes as necessary to put to rest doubts about her earlier victory.

Dornan’s allegations became the subject of a House investigation that lasted 14 months. The investigation found that more than 700 illegal votes were cast by noncitizens that year, not enough to invalidate the election.

In the rematch, Dornan continued to decry the illegal voting in the previous election, making the issue a major rallying cry.

But compared to the 1996 race, when negative mailers flew from both campaign headquarters, this year’s contest was subdued. Dornan held few campaign events.

While several Dornan fund-raisers drew Republican leaders from around the country, his campaign rallies were by and large sparsely attended. He and his son Mark Dornan, his campaign manager, showed up several times in the final weeks of the campaign at Sanchez appearances, but did not confront the congresswoman.

Sanchez also did little campaigning of her own. She spent much of the campaign season in Washington, tied up in last-minute budget negotiations. When she did come back to the district, her appearances were generally billed as regular congressional business rather than campaign stops.

Her campaign was a top priority for Democratic organizations nationwide. It enlisted the moneyed and the famous and capitalized on the congresswoman’s celebrity status to raise money.

Sanchez, meanwhile, ran her first term in office as something of a perpetual campaign, returning to her district most weekends to shake hands with constituents and attend ribbon-cutting ceremonies and other events.

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Contributing to tonight’s election coverage were Times staff writers Agnes Diggs, Virginia Ellis, Megan Garvey, John Glionna, Matea Gold, Greg Hernandez, Carl Ingram, Eric Lichtblau, Eric Malnic, Seema Mehta, Jean Merl, Josh Meyer, Tina Nguyen, Robert Ourlian, Tony Perry, Amy Pyle, David Reyes, Lisa Richardson, Beth Shuster, Hector Tobar, Peter M. Warren and Phil Willon, correspondents Steve Carney, Jack Leonard and Richard Winton, and photographers Don Bartletti, Alex Garcia, Richard Hartog, Karen Tapia and Geraldine Wilkins-Kasinga.