Wilson Won Both Election Day and Absentee Votes

Republican Sen. Pete Wilson officially won the governorship of California on Nov. 6, defeating Democrat Dianne Feinstein by 266,707 votes out of more than 7.5 million cast, a victory margin of 3.5%, Secretary of State March Fong Eu announced Friday.

Republican Dan Lungren edged Democrat Arlo Smith for state attorney general by just 28,906 votes in one of the closest statewide elections in recent California history. Smith actually topped Lungren in the vote cast at the polls Election Day. Lungren’s margin came in the absentee vote. Smith has refused to concede and is challenging the outcome in court.

Eu certified the results of all statewide offices, ballot propositions and congressional, legislative and other races at the conclusion of the official vote canvass.

As close as it was, Wilson’s edge over former San Francisco Mayor Feinstein still was not as narrow as Republican Gov. George Deukmejian’s 1982 victory over Democrat Tom Bradley. Los Angeles’ mayor won the vote at the polls, but Deukmejian won overall by 1.2% by beating Bradley by more than 2 to 1 among the nearly 500,000 absentee votes cast.

On the basis of 1990 Election Day exit polls, some experts thought Feinstein might have done better than Wilson at the polls, with Wilson’s victory coming on the basis of a superior absentee-vote effort. In fact, Wilson won the precinct vote by about 103,000 votes and defeated Feinstein, 752,857 to 505,219, in absentee ballots. More than 20% of Wilson’s total vote was cast by absentees. Feinstein’s mail ballots represented more than 15% of her total vote.

Wilson was still elected by a minority of voters, having collecting 49.25% of the vote to Feinstein’s 45.79%. The rest of the vote went to minor party candidates.

Republicans won both the governorship and the office of attorney general. The other winners were Democrats Leo T. McCarthy, lieutenant governor; Eu, secretary of state; Kathleen Brown, treasurer; Gray Davis, controller, and John Garamendi, insurance commissioner. Bill Honig was reelected state superintendent of public instruction, a nonpartisan office, in the June primary.

Staff writer Paul Feldman contributed to this story.