GLENDALE, Calif. -- In California terms - the biggest terms of all in a presidential election year - the steep hill George W. Bush has to climb can be seen in some numbers that shocked Republicans around here long after the rest of the country had gone to bed on Super Tuesday.
In this chunk of the 27th Congressional District - largely suburban territory northeast of Los Angeles - the incumbent GOP congressman, Jim Rogan, finished an embarrassing second in the open primary.
The supporters of Rogan, who was one the House managers of President Clinton's impeachment trial, were stunned by more than the fact that Rogan ended up nearly 3,000 votes behind his toughest challenger yet, Democratic state Senator Adam Schiff.
What made the primary results sting was the fact that Schiff outpolled Rogan on a day that brought out an unusually conservative electorate. Many more conservatives than usual came out, as they had elsewhere in the country, to vote against John McCain. They were also mobilized by several referendum questions, especially a vicious campaign to keep gay couples' marriages from legal recognition.
But for Rogan as well as for Bush, the prospects are for a considerably less conservative electorate when the numbers swell eight months hence. And each has already finished behind his Democratic opponent.
The locals were also stunned because federal records show that through the primary, Rogan had already raised and spent an obscene $2.8 million on his campaign, while Schiff's spending total was a mere $50,000. That is far more egregious than the Bush-Gore spread, but the analogy is apt.
With those results on a day with as conservative a hue as a Republican could hope for, Rogan's campaign could only wonder what lies in store this November, when a more typical electorate, including much more of the district's growing nonwhite population, shows up.
''We're on our own in the fall, as every congressional race is, ultimately,'' said one GOP official, ''but inevitably we're tied into the presidential situation because that will be the biggest motivator in November. And I can't see how the mix then can do anything but make Rogan's, and Bush's, job tougher.''
For national Republicans trying to elect Bush and avoid losing the six House seats that would return control to the Democrats, Rogan's performance would have been disturbing enough had it been unique. But it wasn't.
In Silicon Valley to the north, San Jose's GOP congressman Tom Campbell is leaving his seat for a long-shot run at Senator Dianne Feinstein. In his place, Republicans recruited an attractive candidate from the state Assembly, James Cunneen, but Democrats went to the state Senate to get Mike Honda to run, and he ended up with fully 9,000 votes more than Cunneen in the traditionally moderate district.
To the south of Los Angeles along the ocean, Democrat Jane Harmon came within 2,000 votes of freshman Republican Steve Kuykendall, who was fighting off an intraparty challenge from a self-financed right-winger.
And in another tough district, in San Diego, perennially challenged Republican Brian Bilbray finished just 6,000 votes ahead of his latest Democratic nemesis, state Assemblyman Susan Davis. That is four Republican House seats that will be in serious play this fall.
Some absentee ballot are still being tabulated, but the total turnout in California appears certain to go a few points above 50 percent of eligible adults. But heavily Democratic areas like Los Angeles County and San Francisco (43 and 40 percent respectively) lagged well behind more conservative areas, reflecting the foregone conclusion of the Al Gore-Bill Bradley contest. By contrast, the turnout in heavily Republican Orange County was the highest in 20 years.
Nonetheless, Gore surprised state pols not only by finishing ahead of Bush in the beauty contest part of the primary (open to all, regardless of registration) but by beating him 35 to 28 percent. Just with Bradley's 9 percent overall and a fair chunk of John McCain's 23 percent (exit polls here showed Gore getting more than a third of his support against Bush), the day belonged to the vice president.
And this electorate skewed conservative. Los Angeles Times exit polling showed self-identified evangelical Christians up 7 points, at 25 percent of the total from 1996, and whites also up 7 points, to 81 percent. By contrast, Latino turnout dipped 5 points to 12 percent. The GOP turnout was up 10 point, while the Democratic showing was flat.
Bush is vowing to go all out here, planning a full week's stay this spring. But local Republicans were fooled in '92 by his father and in '96 by Bob Dole, who esentially gave up by October to save money for more competitive states, depressing the local Republican turnout.
Bush's top tactician here, state Senator Jim Brulte, is warning the campaign against breaking its pledge to spend the money here that it raises here. At stake is more than just Bush's campaign. The future of the party establishment that rushed to embrace Bush is also on the line, starting with Jim Rogan.
Thomas Oliphant is a Globe columnist.
