Already looking ahead

Democratic candidate readies to take on John Campbell again in 2006; Gilchrist is undecided.When Rep. John Campbell begins campaigning to keep the 48th Congressional District seat he won Tuesday, he may face familiar opposition.

Democrat Steve Young took 28% of Tuesday’s votes according to unofficial results, and he said Wednesday that he’s already begun planning his 2006 campaign.

“We’ve got a person back in Washington now who received less than half the votes in the district, and we think that’s very telling,” Young said, referring to the 44.6% of votes Campbell received Tuesday.

That percentage is of the ballots cast. But the percentage of voters who participated in the election was just a quarter of the 405,655 registered voters in the district.

After drawing national attention to the race with his fame as the Minuteman Project founder, American Independent Party candidate Jim Gilchrist wasn’t discouraged by his third-place finish Tuesday and said he may seek a rematch with Campbell next year or pursue another federal office.

“Mr. Campbell may very well be facing off with me again in the primary in June.... If not him, then maybe [Sen.] Dianne Feinstein or a few others that I won’t mention right now,” Gilchrist said.

Campbell couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.

Pulling in 25.3% of Tuesday’s votes cost Gilchrist about $600,000, he said. Young said he took in more votes while only spending between $150,000 and $200,000, but he had a much larger party base to work with.

According to the Federal Election Commission website, it cost Campbell $1.35 million as of Nov. 16 to win less than 45%, a fact Young points out with interest.

“If it’s such a safe Republican district how come it cost them so much to run a candidate who only got 44% of the vote?” he said.

One thing that may stick around well into the 2006 election cycle is the issue of illegal immigration, which was highlighted in the campaign as Gilchrist’s top issue.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if Gilchrist being in the race actually brought some people to the polls who may have ordinarily sat this out,” UC Irvine political scientist Mark Petracca said.

But if history is any guide, what will likely last longest is Campbell as Newport Beach’s congressman. Former Republican Rep. Chris Cox, now chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, held the seat from 1988 to 2005.

“Campbell just got elected to a lifetime seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, period,” Petracca said.

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