Surf City votes for recall

Jenny Marder

Huntington Beach residents voted overwhelmingly to boot Gov. Gray

Davis out of office and replace him with actor and former bodybuilder

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Of the more than 65,000 Surf City voters who went to the polls for

last week’s election, 75% were in favor of the recall.

Schwarzenegger grabbed 41,429 votes in Huntington Beach as of

Wednesday, 49% more than democratic front runner Cruz Bustamante, who

trailed with 9,072 votes. Republican candidate Tom McClintock came in

just ahead of Bustamante in Surf City, with 9,276 votes.

Huntington Beach voters were slightly ahead of Orange County in

supporting the recall and Schwarzenegger. The recall won

overwhelmingly countywide at 73.27%, and Schwarzenegger pulled in

63.54% of votes. While McClintock came out slightly ahead in

Huntington Beach, Bustamante topped McClintock in the countywide vote

by 1.64%.

Huntington Beach voters also said no to Proposition 53 and

Proposition 54. Neither initiative was passed. Proposition 53 would

have would have transferred up to 3% of state funds to California’s

aging infrastructure and Proposition 54 would have barred state

agencies from collecting racial data.

The margins were much slimmer statewide than they were in Orange

County.

The California electorate supported the recall by 55.4%, with

48.7% of California voters backing the governor-elect. Bustamante and

McClintock each pulled in 13.4%.

More than 60% of California voters were against the two ballot

initiatives, while 52% of the Surf City electorate voted no on

Proposition 53 and 50% voted no on Proposition 54.

“Orange County generally votes as a Republican block,” said Angela

Burrell, spokeswoman at the Orange County Registrar of Voters.

Nearly 60% of Orange County voters backed Republican Bill Simon in

the November 2002 gubernatorial election, while only 34.7% voted to

re-elect Davis. Davis won the election with 43.7% of the votes.