Polls are open, but absentee ballots are likely to be key

Polls open today at 7 a.m. for voters in the 35th Senate District, who will choose their new senator ? if they haven’t already by mail.

Three candidates ? Democrat Larry Caballero and Republicans Diane Harkey and Tom Harman ? are vying to represent the 35th District’s 513,768 voters in Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and parts of 13 other Orange County cities.

Caballero, a teacher from La Palma, has run a no-budget campaign that assumes Harkey and Harman will prevent each other from getting the 50%-plus-one vote total needed to avoid a general election in June.

Harkey, a Dana Point city councilwoman, has been sprinting since she entered the race in late 2005. And she’s had to, to overcome the name recognition Harman built up during nearly six years as a Huntington Beach assemblyman.

Absentee votes are expected to be decisive in this election, as they were in the December election that boosted then-35th District Sen. John Campbell to a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the Congressional election, 25.7% of district voters participated, and nearly two-thirds of the votes came in by absentee ballot.

By Monday, the Orange County Registrar of Voters was reporting that it had received more than 64,000 absentee ballots ? more than 12% of registered voters in the district.

Total turnout, including voters who visit polls today, is expect to be in the 20% range.

If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the top Republican and Caballero will go on to a June 6 general election. A vote count of more than 50% makes that candidate the outright winner. It’s also an open primary, which means voters can choose any candidate, regardless of party.

The campaign for the Senate seat has been a battle between Harman’s experience in the Assembly and on the Huntington Beach City Council and Harkey’s broad support from GOP heavyweights, including Campbell.

Although Harkey launched an aggressive campaign months ago, Harman waited until nearly February to get into full swing. Even since then, Harkey has by far out-spent, out-mailed and outflanked him, hitting him even on his home turf in Huntington Beach.

But Harman is well-known in some parts of the district and has won favor from some voters with his reputation as an environmentalist. That’s why he has the support of some Democrats.

In a mud-slinging mail campaign, Harkey has characterized Harman as a tax-happy liberal and a career politician whose main concern is for his job. Harman has retaliated by portraying Harkey as an ambitious neophyte who wants to buy her way into higher office.

Both candidates have made stopping illegal immigration and opposing tax and spending increases their central campaign issues.

The tax issue is a nod to loyal GOP voters who come out to vote for core party issues, said UC Irvine political science professor Louis DeSipio.

The immigration issue has turned up in politics at all levels, though state legislators likely will have little to do on the issue, he said. To DeSipio, its appearance here is a reminder of the Congressional special election that spawned today’s Senate race. American Independent Party candidate Jim Gilchrist didn’t win then, but he made national headlines and put immigration at the center of political debate.

Both Republican candidates have “tried to cover their anti-immigration flank,” even though the issue might not naturally be part of their agendas, DeSipio said.

“That suggests Gilchrist has changed the politics of central and southern Orange County, at least for awhile,” he said.

SPECIAL PRIMARY