Turnout key in special election with lasting racial implications

The key to winning today’s special election to replace the late Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-Calif.) may lie in the front-runners’ ability to get members of their respective minority groups to the polls, according to analysts following the race.

State Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D), who is Latina, is locked in a dogfight with Assemblywoman Laura Richardson (D), who is black, over the heavily black and Latino district.

{mosads}“Districts that have been looked upon as not only safe Democratic districts, but also safe African-American seats, are changing,” a political science professor at the University of Southern California, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, said.

The district, which encompasses Long Beach, has 25 percent black registered voters to 22 percent Latinos, Jeffe said. She also noted that Latinos are 43 percent of the district’s population to 25 percent for blacks. Turnout is expected to be as low as 10 percent today.

“It’s probably going to come down to whose voters vote,” Jeffe said.

There are 17 candidates on the ballot, 11 of whom are Democrats. If one of the candidates doesn’t get above 50 percent in today’s race, there will be a runoff between the parties in late August.

The district has been reliably Democratic, and the conventional wisdom is that the Democrat who wins today will win in August if it goes that far. The consensus seems to be that Oropeza and Richardson are the two favorites.

There is some concern among black leaders that Millender-McDonald’s daughter, Valerie, could split the black vote, giving Oropeza the win, Jeffe said.

But Jeffe added that Valerie McDonald has “almost disappeared from the campaign.”

Both Oropeza’s and Richardson’s campaigns have released polls showing their candidates leading, but observers and the campaigns said they are expecting a close race.

Both camps said yesterday that their get-out-the-vote operations were strong.

Richardson’s campaign scored a major get when she secured the endorsement of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which could offer 200 foot soldiers to help get her supporters to the polls.

Oropeza has significantly more money thanks to a cash infusion from Indian tribes that are apparently grateful for Oropeza’s efforts on their behalf to support their gambling interests in the state Senate. The Richardson campaign is alleging that Oropeza also has benefited from an independent expenditure group representing the billboard industry.

Those financial contributions have led Richardson to cry foul, saying the senator’s campaign “has violated the law by accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funding in exchange for her promise of legislative support to benefit special interests.”

The Richardson campaign over the weekend sent out a release in which the assemblywoman asked for a U.S. attorney and FBI investigation into a possible “pay for play” scandal and allegations Oropeza’s campaign is coordinating with an independent expenditure group.

“Jenny Oropeza would fit right into Washington’s culture of corruption,” Richardson campaign manager Derek Humphrey said in the release. “This last minute attempt to buy this congressional election with money exchanged for political support is an affront to the citizens of the 37th Congressional District who deserve a member of Congress who will represent their interests and not the special interests.”

Oropeza’s campaign manager, Parke Skelton, said the charges are “typical last-minute smear.”

Humphrey declined to comment further yesterday.

Jeffe said she does not think the last-minute dust-up will have much effect on the results, but she maintains that the racial implications could echo across the country and possibly foretell changes that will be realized in the 2008 presidential race.