State Senate's GOP Inland Empire/desert primary could center on Corona

The State Senate 37th District covers Riverside County outside the city of Riverside and it is an elongated stretch of outer suburbs, desert, the Palm Springs resort cities and higher altitude geography such as Lake Elsinore. It is solidly Republican and has spawned an interesting upcoming GOP primary fight between onetime neighboring assemblymen.

Construction company executive Russ Bogh was Riverside’s District 65 assemblyman from 2001-2006 and now is competing with ex-California Highway Patrol commander and incumbent District 65 Assemblyman John Benoit for the seat being vacated by termed-out State Sen. Jim Battin.

It’s an ex-assemblyman/suburban businessman against an incumbent assemblyman/small town ex-state trooper in a county where suburbs and deserts can blur together. Bogh must reach into the district’s more socially liberal Coachella Valley while Benoit must reach north to its more socially conservative neighborhoods, with one of them needing to win Corona, a district focal point.

“Neither is known in Corona,” said Benoit campaign manager Barry Nestande.

Bogh campaign manager Evan Oneto said Benoit is more familiar to voters in the district’s more remote, stretching-to-Arizona zip codes which are traditionally Republican but vote through a socially liberal/fiscally conservative prism.

“He does represent the desert,” Oneto said of Benoit, who won his assembly seat in 2002. “He’s obviously got more inroads there.”

Nestande, a Palm Desert resident, said candidates with police backgrounds play well in Palm Springs because, “everyone’s retired out here, public safety is huge.”

Bogh is endorsed by Battin, a longtime friend, plus Cathedral City’s termed-out Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, a Battin protégé. But the more interesting endorsements include Bogh’s nod from Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco and the county’s rank-and-file police and firefighters plus some fiscally conservative legislators.

“Fiscal conservatives and public safety - those are obviously the two biggest,” said Bogh’s Oneto.

The law enforcement endorsements seem more of a split vote.

For 13 years before joining the Assembly, Benoit was the CHP area commander in Indio. Through long professional ties, he has secured endorsements from two dozen current or former local police chiefs and other fire, sheriff and CHP leadership.

Bogh’s public safety endorsements include a dozen organizations that are mostly police and firefighter associations which negotiate police and fire contracts.

“Those ‘associations’ are another word for unions,” said Benoit’s Nestande.