ELECTIONS ’92 : STATE SENATE : Absentee Ballots Hold Key to Hayden’s Lead

The final outcome of a fierce Democratic primary firefight over a new state Senate seat that spans the Santa Monica Mountains remained in doubt Wednesday as Assemblyman Tom Hayden clung to a 277-vote lead over state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal.

An unknown number of uncounted absentee ballots holds the key to the fate of the two liberal lawmakers in one of the state’s hottest and most expensive legislative primary battles. Los Angeles County election officials said Wednesday that it could be next week before updated results are known in the 23rd Senate District race.

After trailing in an agonizingly slow vote count Tuesday night, Hayden edged past Rosenthal in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday. When all 771 precincts were tallied, Hayden had 44,803 votes, or 36.80%, compared to 44,526 votes, or 36.58%, for Rosenthal. Pacific Palisades public relations consultant Catherine O’Neill ran a distant third with 32,387 votes, or 26.60%.

Neither lawmaker would claim victory or concede defeat. There was no Republican on the ballot in the solidly Democratic district that stretches from the Westside to the San Fernando Valley.

Before flying to the United Nations-sponsored Earth summit conference in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, Hayden savored his lead, but he was uncertain if it would hold when the outstanding absentee ballots are counted.

“I believe I will win,” Hayden said in an interview. “I’m glad to be arriving in Brazil as the winner. I hope I come back the winner.”

The race became a $1.3-million battle in the mails between Hayden’s Santa Monica-based political movement and the Democratic political organization headed by Reps. Howard Berman of Panorama City and Henry Waxman of Los Angeles. “I was running in the year of the woman on the one hand and against the biggest political machine in California on the other,” the 52-year-old former anti-war activist said. “I’m very proud of the victory.”

But because Rosenthal led by seven percentage points in early absentee returns Tuesday night, neither side was sure who would prevail. Rosenthal campaign manager Lynnette Stevens said the final outcome might not be known for some time. “We’re not going to know anything for at least a week,” she said. “We’ll have to see what the absentee count is. We’ll see how close we are and see if a recount is in order.”

For Rosenthal, who had never faced a serious election challenge during his 18 years in the Legislature, it was a tough night after a rough campaign.

As he waited at his Sherman Oaks campaign headquarters, Rosenthal said he thought O’Neill’s vote explained the closeness of the race between he and Hayden. “The woman vote made the difference. I think they just went right down the ballot (voting for female candidates).”

Rosenthal acknowledged that he had “never really had a campaign,” since he was first elected to the Assembly in 1974 and to the Senate in 1982. “This was more dramatic,” he said.

Whatever the outcome, Rosenthal will stay in Sacramento for at least two years, finishing the remainder of the term he was elected to in 1990. If he ultimately is declared the winner of Tuesday’s Democratic primary and captures the four-year term against minor-party candidates in November, a special election will be held to fill out his term.

Hayden has more to lose. His political future is on the line in the primary. Forced by redistricting to chose between a new and less-than-safe Assembly seat or a race for the Senate, Hayden opted for a run at the upper house.

Armed with more than $700,000 of his own money and that of his political organizations, Hayden mounted an aggressive attack in the mail against both Rosenthal and O’Neill, who sought to ride a wave of voter anger at incumbents and surge of interest in female candidates.

Faced with the need for a large campaign war chest, Rosenthal raised more than $500,000, most of it from special-interest groups in Sacramento and a dozen Democratic colleagues in the Senate. At first, he responded slowly, but built to a late mail blitz that included targeted mailers likening Democrat Hayden to Republicans George Bush and Richard Nixon.

Hayden was angry at the comparison. “Only Hersch had the chutzpah to compare me to George Bush and then it became Bush and Richard Nixon,” the Santa Monica Democrat said.

But Rosenthal campaign manager Stevens said the attack was deserved. She branded Hayden’s effort a “slimy and fictional campaign.”

O’Neill joined in the chorus of criticism, accusing Hayden of being a “pathological liar” and a “vicious campaigner.”

Although Hayden said he extended his respect and congratulations to each of his challengers, the race seems likely to leave a bitter aftertaste.

Elsewhere in Southland primaries, three members of the Assembly won their races for four-year terms in the Senate, according to final unofficial returns. Barring unforeseen circumstances, they are expected to win in November.

Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), a longtime political foe of retiring Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita), swept past former Assemblywoman Marian LaFollette, 38% to 33.4%, to win the GOP nomination to succeed Davis. Wright is favored over Democratic nominee Henry P. Starr in the heavily GOP district.

A beaming but feisty Wright credited her win over LaFollette, who was endorsed by Davis as his heir apparent, to her own incumbency in a supposedly anti-incumbent year and to LaFollette’s switch of residences from Orange County to Thousand Oaks in Ventura County.

“Voters were anti-incumbent but they still wanted someone with experience,” Wright told a reporter as she waited to catch an early morning flight to Sacramento. “Marian LaFollette made a mistake trying to run against Cathie Wright. You can’t move across two counties and expect to take it.”

A neutral Senate GOP elections strategist, who asked not to be identified, credited Wright’s victory chiefly to a faster and better organization at the outset of the campaign, including access to funds as a sitting legislator.

“I think Marian was a little naive to think she could raise funds from the outside as a non-incumbent,” the source said. “Eventually, she put her own money into the race but it was too little, too late.”

In a new district that includes riot-wrecked parts of South-Central Los Angeles, Democratic Assemblywoman Teresa Hughes easily outdistanced Paul Richards, a Lynwood city councilman, 63.7% to 36.3%, to succeed retiring Sen. Bill Greene (D-Los Angeles).

Hughes said she believes she won her race, in part, because “I wasn’t one of the old-boy network.” “I’m not a power broker.”

She pledged to do all she could to help rebuild riot-ravaged neighborhoods, stressing that “people shouldn’t have to be afraid in their homes.”

In a newly redrawn Senate district that includes far-flung parts of San Diego, Imperial and Riverside counties, Assemblyman David Kelley (R-Idyllwild) defeated Assemblywoman Carol Bentley (R-Santee), 52.4% to 47.5%. In the Assembly, the two conservatives had virtually identical records, but election tacticians credited Kelley with a superior campaign operation, including use of absentee ballots and financial support of physicians.

Although Bentley was generally perceived as holding an edge going into the primary, Kelley, a seven-term member of the Assembly, on Wednesday cited strict adherence to a campaign game plan for his victory.

“We were not thrown off course by anything she did,” Kelley said.

Analysts said that Kelley also was the beneficiary of support from angry backers of Bentley who defected to her opponent when she endorsed moderate Republican candidates for the Assembly. “By doing that, she alienated a lot of conservative and right-to-life folks who went to the polls and pounded the pavement,” a GOP analyst said.

The primary also found veteran Republican Sen. Robert G. Beverly of Redondo Beach finishing with only 46.7% of the GOP vote, making him potentially vulnerable to a Democratic attack in November.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Gerald Faris, Carlos Lozano and Patrick McDonnell.