Contest for Senate seat takes shape

Councilwoman in Dana Point may join race for 35th District seat; GOP bigwig Baugh bows out.A second person has announced she may enter the contest for the 35th District state Senate seat, but the big news involves who isn’t running: Orange County Republican Party Chairman Scott Baugh.

Once mentioned as a favorite for the seat, Baugh said Tuesday, “I’ve concluded that running is not in the cards for me.”

Huntington Beach Assemblyman Tom Harman, 64, filed papers in late June to seek the seat, and on Tuesday Dana Point City Councilwoman Diane Harkey announced she’ll also explore a run.

The Senate seat, which represents 13 Orange County cities including Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, is not yet vacant. It’s still occupied by Sen. John Campbell, but he is currently the leading candidate for the 48th District Congressional seat. If Campbell wins a Dec. 6 general election for the U.S. House seat, a special election will be called to replace him in Sacramento.

Harkey, 54, is a former corporate lender and a real estate advisor and investor. She lived in Huntington Beach and Corona del Mar before moving in 1980 to Dana Point, where she won a City Council seat in 2004.

She said she’s running to continue the work Campbell has done in the state legislature.

“Nobody is really coming forth that’s a strong conservative, and this is a really important seat,” she said.

“My issues are like everyone else’s -- they’re transportation, illegal immigration, clean beaches.”

Harkey and Harman, both Republicans, will likely face competition within their party, but it’s unclear how much.

The council seat is Harkey’s first elected office, but she won it in a bitterly fought, five-way race that she said was probably the most expensive City Council race in the county.

She spent $170,000 then, and for the Senate seat she’s prepared to match the $500,000 Harman has budgeted.

Harman thinks he’d likely prevail in a race with Harkey simply because of numbers: Huntington Beach, where Harman is well known, is much larger than Dana Point.

“She’s going to have trouble, would be my thought, coming from one of the smaller communities in the district and being relatively unknown in the northern part of the district,” Harman said.

Data from the Orange County Registrar of Voters showed that as of Friday, there were 23,361 registered voters in Dana Point, compared with the 124,346 registered voters in Huntington Beach.

Harman is so far the only person who has filed papers to run for the seat, Orange County Registrar of Voters spokesman Brett Rowley said.

Baugh said he’s heard from about half a dozen people who are interested in the seat, and he expects the names of likely candidates to emerge over the next month or so.

“If you haven’t made up your mind by Thanksgiving, you’re probably not going to run for this seat,” he said.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at alicia.robinson@latimes.com.