ODESTO, Calif., March 6 — It was the day after election day, but no one at the downtown Starbucks was talking about it. The Modesto Bee, with a front page headline "Condit Loses," was splayed on a cafe table, but patrons ignored it, preferring to talk about the dark and stormy day.
"It's no surprise," said Debbie Valle with a shrug, when prodded to give her opinion about the end of Gary A. Condit's six terms in Congress. She had voted for him, but was clearly in the minority.
Mr. Condit lost his bid in the Democratic primary for a seventh term by 18 points. Dogged by questions about his relationship with a Washington intern who has been missing since last spring, he lost to State Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza, his former close ally and protégé, by 37 percent to 55 percent.
"We knew he'd lose," said Ms. Valle's companion, George Sotomayor, another stalwart supporter. "Chandra Levy and the press made sure of that."
Mr. Condit had hoped to defy pollsters and others who said he could not win re-election from California's Central Valley farm country after being tainted by scandal after Ms. Levy, 24, vanished.
Though the Washington police said Mr. Condit was never a suspect in the disappearance, they accused him of not being forthcoming in their investigation.
Today, voters seemed less than happy at the way Mr. Condit's sterling standing in the district had ended. Even his critics said that with his defeat, they felt a little sorry for him.
"I'm relieved the whole sordid chapter is over," said Jonathan Simon, a newcomer to Modesto who voted for Mr. Cardoza. "But I'm not sure Mr. Condit should've been burned at the stake over an affair."
Mr. Condit has not said what he will do now.
Until his relationship with Ms. Levy turned him into the object of intense scrutiny, a punch line for late-night comedians and the pariah of his party, Mr. Condit, 53, a conservative Democrat married for more than three decades, was a "can't lose" politician.
In 30 years in politics, starting with the City Council in the sleepy farm town of Ceres, next door to Modesto, he had never lost an election. In 11 years in Congress, he had never faced a viable contender. His district was "Condit Country."
Indeed, until last May, Mr. Condit was considered such a sure bet in his district that Democrats in the State Legislature who controlled the redrawing of Congressional lines planned to reconfigure the 18th District as more Republican, saving more liberal areas for less confident party members.
But once polls showed that Mr. Condit's refusal to discuss his relationship with Ms. Levy had damaged his credibility (her relatives repeatedly told reporters that the two had had an affair), the Democrats redrew the district as more liberal.
The redrawn district ensured that if Mr. Condit defied party wishes and ran in the primary, 40 percent of the district would be new to him and likely to favor a Democrat who had not been touched by scandal.
That is what occurred on Tuesday.
Mr. Cardoza was Mr. Condit's chief of staff when Mr. Condit was a state assemblyman, and the two have almost identical positions. Thus Mr. Cardoza appealed to the same conservative Democrats as Mr. Condit, while attracting support among Democrats in the new areas of the district.
Today Mr. Cardoza, labeled a "Judas" in the campaign by Mr. Condit's supporters, said that his former boss refused to face the reality that he could no longer function as a member of Congress.
"He doesn't have the relationships with his colleagues or with the voters of this district," he said. "He has a lot of personal challenges still to deal with."
Ms. Levy's parents agreed. They told reporters this morning that Mr. Condit had promised them that he would help in the investigation of their daughter's disappearance.
"We just ask that he keep his word and keep his pledge that he will cooperate completely and talk to our investigators and help them find our daughter," Robert Levy, Ms. Levy's father, said.
A flier about Ms. Levy remained taped to the window of Mr. Condit's district office, as it has been since the first days of her disappearance. Television crews positioned reporters in front of the flier so it would be visible as they reported on Mr. Condit's loss.
Like others interviewed today, Modesto's mayor, Carmen Sabatino, said he would be glad when the cameras went away. The scandal has been a tiring and disturbing episode for the entire community, he said.
"I'm relieved it's finally over," Mr. Sabatino added. "How much more tragedy can we heap on the Levy family and the Condit family?"