Harman is hanging on

Huntington Beach Assemblyman Tom Harman was clinging to a 289-vote lead Wednesday in his bid to be the Republican nominee for the 35th District state Senate seat.

Less than 1% separated Harman from GOP opponent Diane Harkey, a Dana Point city councilwoman. A little more than 9,000 absentee ballots were counted Wednesday, and roughly 600 provisional ballots remained to be tallied as the election went into its second day without a decisive victory.

Though the Republican winner could change, it’s statistically impossible for either candidate to take more than 50% of the votes, so Harkey or Harman will face Democrat Larry Caballero on the June 6 ballot.

On Wednesday, Harkey said she expected the losing Republican to challenge the results. She added that there were “irregularities” in the election but declined to elaborate.

“I’m sure if it’s not challenged by one side, it may be challenged by the other,” Harkey said. “I really don’t think it’ll be decided by the end of the week.”

The razor-thin margin between the Republicans was not a surprise in the Harkey camp.

“We always expected this thing to be extremely close,” campaign consultant Scott Hart said Tuesday night.

Harkey had the backing of nearly every GOP bigwig in Orange County, and it was evident at her election-night party in Newport Beach. As Republican activist Jim Righeimer put it, “Everybody who’s anybody is here.”

But that support didn’t clinch the election. Harkey thought she campaigned well, considering she had only four months to make herself known to half a million voters. It was the last-minute independent expenditures by the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians and state employee unions that put Harman in the lead, Harkey said.

Harman’s base was in his hometown. On election night his house was a who’s who of Huntington Beach’s moderate Republicans and environmentalists, including Mayor Dave Sullivan, Planning Commission Chairman Bob Dingwall, and former Bolsa Chica Land Trust President Flossie Horgan.

Although nearly every GOP official in Orange County backed his opponent, Harman wasn’t sweating it on election night.

“Today endorsements don’t mean much,” he said. “I’ve run for office nine times and never been endorsed by Dana Rohrabacher.”

He doesn’t think he needs to make amends with anyone, he said, because he already has strong relationships with state senators and he relishes his role as a political rogue in Orange County.

“I’m satisfied with what I’ve done and how the campaign has been run,” he said Wednesday. “If I do win, then they [the Orange County GOP establishment] will have to decide whether they do want to come on board and work with me or if they don’t.”

Participation in Tuesday’s election was abysmal, with just under 5% of the district’s 513,830 registered voters casting ballots at the polls and an estimated 14% voting by absentee ballot.

Some supporters of Harkey and of Harman thought the negative campaign was damaging, and that may have turned voters off.

The Republican campaigns focused on illegal immigration and taxes, and each candidate said the other wasn’t the true conservative choice.

“It was less on ideology and more on personal attacks,” Harkey supporter Steve Sheldon said, referring to Harman’s digs at old tax liens against Harkey’s husband’s real estate business.

Harkey’s attacks on Harman were viewed similarly by his supporters.

“She didn’t have a lot to bring to the table, so she threw mud,” Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy executive director Gary Gorman said.

For his part, Tom Harman pasted all of Harkey’s negative mailers on a wall in his living room, dubbing it the “wall of lies.” He laughed as he pointed at mailers that pictured him next to former Gov. Gray Davis and another showing Harman with a robber’s mask airbrushed over his face, but it appeared that the mail campaign had taken a negative toll on him and his wife.

“Can you believe she [Harkey] spent a million dollars on this?” Harman said.

The race was costly, at least for the Republicans. Reports filed with the Secretary of State show Harkey spent about $830,000 from January through late March and Harman spent about $330,000 in the same period. More than $530,000 was spent on the election by independent groups for one candidate or the other.

Caballero, the Democrat, said having a contested Republican race helped him by making the election high-profile. Because the GOP candidates spent so much, he didn’t have to, he said.

“Thank you, Diane Harkey,” he said.dpt.13-election-CPhotoInfo5H1PTO4B20060413ixmybhncKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)Kathleen Kocean checks precinct numbers for Tuesday’s Senate election with other volunteers at the Registrar of Voters in Santa Ana.