2 favorites emerge in race for Congress

With only six weeks for a campaign season, the race to fill the congressional seat of the late Juanita Millender-McDonald has been an all-out sprint.

The candidates -- 17 on the ballot and one write-in -- have been in a mad dash to raise funds, set up offices and websites, send out mailers and seek endorsements.

Now, with Tuesday’s special election at hand, the two top contenders have emerged as clear leaders in the race to represent the 37th Congressional District, an area encompassing Compton, Carson, much of Long Beach and parts of South Los Angeles.

“This is the home stretch,” sighed state Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach).

“It’s now survival of the fittest,” echoed Assemblywoman Laura Richardson (D-Long Beach), the other leading candidate. “If you don’t have a campaign office up and people walking the streets and making phone calls, you’re in trouble.”

Richardson and Oropeza, both fresh off November state victories, were quick to rev up their congressional campaigns to full throttle, garnering more money and endorsements than any of the other candidates. Meanwhile, Valerie McDonald, who has strong support from Rep. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles), local churches and other political leaders, has struggled to get her message out in the district formerly represented by her mother. She has distributed only a few mailers and has no website.

“They had faster starts, but this is a grass-roots campaign and I’m not discouraged,” said McDonald, executive director of the African American Women Health and Education Foundation in Carson, a nonprofit founded by her mother.

But some potential voters were disappointed when McDonald didn’t appear at Wednesday’s campaign forum, sponsored by the NAACP Carson-Torrance Branch. McDonald, who sent a representative, said she was unable to attend because of a commitment to a campaign fundraiser in Washington, D.C.

“She should have showed up,” said Sybil Brown, who is active in voter education in the Carson community. “Her mother paid her dues, but we don’t know her in Carson.”

In the final days of the campaign, the top two candidates released polls each showing that person in the lead. Richardson’s campaign said she had a nine-point lead over Oropeza; Oropeza’s results showed she held a three-point edge. Both surveys indicated large numbers of undecided voters.

“The race between Oropeza and Richardson is now too close to call,” said state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles), a Richardson supporter who commissioned a poll earlier in the campaign showing that McDonald or Richardson, both African American, would beat Oropeza if only one of them ran but that Oropeza would win if both stayed in the race.

With the exception of Watson, most black political leaders have rallied to Richardson, considered the more seasoned candidate with the best chance of winning the seat, traditionally held by an African American.

Should Oropeza win, she would become the first Latina to represent the ethnically diverse district where blacks make up roughly 25% of registered voters and Latinos about 20%.

“This has been evolving over the last 10 or 15 years,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a USC professor and expert on California politics. “As the population of Latinos increases, so will their percentage in the electorate. The question is how fast and how much and what will that mean for blacks.”

In the heavily Democratic district, where nearly a dozen political forums have been held leading up to the special election, there has been little disagreement over the war in Iraq.

Oropeza and Richardson have called for an end to the war.

Oropeza, who has two nephews who have fought in the war, said she favors a pullout that does not punish the soldiers who are already there. Richardson has said that the billions of dollars used to fund the war would be better suited to revitalizing the domestic economy. Both have voiced concerns about port security, traffic and air pollution.

Voter turnout in Tuesday’s contest is expected to be low. There are 265,000 registered voters in the district, but it is estimated that as few as 20,000 people will cast ballots. Meanwhile, as many as 8,000 absentee ballots have already been mailed in, according to the county registrar-recorder.

On Saturday, both of the top candidates had scores of volunteers working telephones and walking the streets.

Oropeza’s get-out-the-vote campaign was given a boost days before the election when a Riverside County Indian tribe spent $270,000 on her behalf.

The hefty expenditures by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians outweigh other donations in the relatively quiet race.

The Morongo outlay, which by law cannot be done in consultation with the candidate, exceeded the $219,000 Oropeza reported raising in direct donations as of June 6. It is more than 2 1/2 times the $105,000 that Richardson reported collecting by the same date. McDonald reported $18,500.

But if Oropeza scored a blow with the tribe’s contributions, Richardson captured a major prize when the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor voted to back her.

In announcing the endorsement, Maria Elena Durazo, who heads the federation, said “delegates representing over 350 affiliated unions spoke loud and clear” in making their decision.

“Everyone says this is a race between blacks and Latinos,” said Ridley-Thomas. “It may be a bigger race between labor and the Indian tribes.”

Signs of labor’s impact could be seen Saturday. Richardson’s volunteers outnumbered those of the other candidates.

Richardson, a former aide to Millender-McDonald who served on the Long Beach City Council until she was elected to the Assembly in November, is also backed by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and the California Legislative Black Caucus.

Oropeza, who served in the Assembly from 2000 to 2006 before her election to the state Senate in November, picked up endorsements from the California Democratic Party, the Latino Legislative Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

“I have a great deal of respect for her,” said Assemblyman Joe Coto (D-San Jose), chairman of the state Latino Legislative Caucus. “She is well-respected, a hard worker, and I think she’ll be good in Congress.”

The other candidates are Democrats Lee Davis, Mervin Evans, Felicia Ford, Bill Francisco Grisolia, Peter Mathews, George A. Parmer Jr., Jeffrey S. Price and Ed Wilson; Republicans Leroy Joseph “L.J.” Guillory, John M. Kanaley, Jeffrey “Lincoln” Leavitt, and Teri Ramirez; Daniel Abraham Brezenoff of the Green Party; and Herb Peters, a Libertarian. Albert Robles, a Democrat, is the write-in candidate.

If no candidate receives more than 50% of Tuesday’s vote, a runoff between the parties’ top candidates will be held Aug. 21.

The winner will serve the remainder of Millender-McDonald’s two-year term. The congresswoman, 68, died April 22 of cancer. She had won reelection in November.

john.mitchell@latimes.com