States Offer Window Into ’02 Election

No matter who wins the race for Los Angeles mayor, national Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe already is claiming victory. That’s because James K. Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa are both Democrats, meaning the party soon will be 1 for 1 in its bid to sweep the four big political contests taking place this year.

The races for Los Angeles and New York City mayor and for Virginia and New Jersey governor may be local affairs for the people who vote in them. But for the major political parties, the elections are an important test for 2002, when control of Congress and 36 governorships are at stake.

Both parties are expected to invest millions of dollars and hundreds of staff hours in this year’s races, particularly the two gubernatorial contests.

A Democratic sweep, which seems possible, would give a big lift to a party still suffering from the excruciating loss of the White House. But there is more than symbolism at stake. A strong showing this year can rally grass-roots activists, yield a better crop of candidates for next year’s critical races and, perhaps most important, boost fund-raising prospects heading into 2002.

“It enables the parties to say, ‘Hey, look what’s happening here. The writing’s on the wall. You’d better write checks,’ ” said Stuart Rothenberg, a Washington political analyst.

As a dry run, this year’s elections also offer the parties and their candidates an opportunity to test market themes and fine-tune the mechanics of getting their supporters to the polls. Democrats have already begun studying the ways that labor unions in Los Angeles spurred Latino turnout, which helped push Villaraigosa past Hahn in April’s first round of mayoral balloting. The hope is to replicate that success in New York, New Jersey, Florida and other states with big Latino populations.

In a broader sense, the so-called off-year elections can also gauge the country’s mood and how various issues are playing. As such, they offer something of a referendum on the party controlling the White House, along with the performance of the nation’s politician in chief.

GOP Spokesman: ‘We Were Feeling Our Oats’

In 1993, as President Clinton bumbled through the first months of his administration, the verdict was decidedly negative. Republicans swept all four major races, starting with Richard Riordan’s mayoral victory in Los Angeles. The GOP also won a special U.S. Senate election in Texas and a lieutenant governor’s race in Clinton’s home state of Arkansas.

Haley Barbour, the puckish chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent out Christmas cards with six wreaths celebrating the party’s comeback after losing the White House a year earlier. “We were feeling our oats,” said Ed Gillespie, the party spokesman at the time.

With good reason. In 1994, the Republicans enjoyed a historic landslide, capturing control of the House and Senate and a majority of governor’s seats without losing a single incumbent.

Looking back, analysts agree that 1993 marked the start of that Republican tidal wave. The races that year foretold the power of the tax and crime issues and the strong anti-government sentiment that fueled a nationwide GOP surge.

The pattern has occurred in other off-year contests as well. Abortion rights helped elect Democratic governors in Virginia and New Jersey in 1989 and went on to play an important role in the 1990 elections. Health care boosted Democrats in a U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania in 1991 and helped put Clinton in the White House the following year.

It is still too early to say what, if any, lasting issues will emerge from this year’s contests, most of which will not be decided until November. Energy is obviously an urgent matter in California, but not so in the Los Angeles mayor’s race or in New York, Virginia or New Jersey, where the contests are still gelling.

Indeed, for all the attention they receive, it is not at all clear that this year’s campaigns will necessarily predict next year’s outcome. The search for big-picture meaning can obscure the fact that local issues and individual personalities often matter far more in mayoral and gubernatorial races than national trends.

“Usually there’s less there than meets the eye,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster. “Unless we do very well,” he added, tongue in cheek, “in which case I would say it’s a dramatic foreshadowing of things to come.”

Incumbents Feel Pressure of Challenge

If the early skirmishing suggests anything, it is the downside of incumbency; that bodes ill for Republicans, who control all four major offices up for grabs this year. As observed by Jack Pitney, an analyst at Claremont McKenna College, “People can get sick of Republicans just as easily as they get sick of Democrats.”

Even party strategists privately concede Republicans will have to fight hard to avoid a November shutout.

Democrats were guaranteed a win in Los Angeles when Republican Steve Soboroff placed third in April’s field of six major candidates, setting up Tuesday’s runoff between Hahn and Villaraigosa. Democrats appear similarly poised to reclaim the mayor’s seat in New York City. They enjoy a 4-1 registration edge over Republicans and a strong multi-candidate field in the race to succeed Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani.

The closer contests will likely come in the statehouse races in Virginia and New Jersey.

In Virginia, Democratic millionaire Mark Warner has already launched a series of statewide TV ads as Atty. Gen. Mark Earley and Lt. Gov. John Hager wage a bitter fight for the GOP nomination. The party will pick its nominee at its state convention Saturday.

The atmosphere there is further poisoned by a bitter fight between term-limited Gov. James S. Gilmore and fellow Republicans in the Legislature, who opposed his plan to keep trimming the state’s auto tax despite an economic slowdown. Things got so bad that members of the state Senate hired a public relations firm at one point to press the case against their own governor.

In New Jersey, the tone is a bit more civil on the GOP side. But not much. While Woodbridge Mayor Jim McGreevey runs unopposed for the Democratic nod, Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler is battling both former Rep. Bob Franks and the state Republican establishment in a nasty primary.

The more moderate Franks is seen by party regulars as the stronger of the two candidates and something of a savior, having entered the race after acting-Gov. Donald DiFrancesco stepped aside amid ethics allegations.

Given the odds Republicans face, it is not surprising that Gilmore dismissed the larger significance of this year’s contests. “At the end of the day, sophisticated political observers understand all these races are run on local conditions, local issues and local candidates,” said Gilmore, who doubles as the GOP’s national chairman.

McAuliffe, just as predictably, disagreed. “Someone says these races are not important, are not bellwether races, that’s a clear signal to me they know they’re in trouble and they know they’re going to lose.”