Primary results send both parties scurrying
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
While professional politicians won’t admit it, the primary results from several states have sent the leaders of both major parties scurrying into their respective strategy war rooms just six months before the November off-year elections—off-year elections already considered problematical.
Most political observers had predicted that this fall’s elections would produce change affecting the Democrats the most, but incumbents of both parties to some degree. How much change, and whether it will affect the control and direction of Congress remains to be seen. Clearly incumbency was a liability on May 18 as the shadow of the Tea Party movement fell across several races.
However, nowhere was Tea Party impact as great as in Kentucky, where Rand Paul handily beat the Republican Party’s anointed candidate, Secretary of State Trey Grayson, 58.8% to 35.4%. Grayson had been championed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the GOP kingmaker in the state.
Paul will face Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway, who narrowly defeated Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo 44.1% to 43%.
Tea Party or not, the voters of Pennsylvania also demonstrated opposition to a Democratic Party favorite, five-term Sen. Arlen Specter. In that race, two-term Rep. Joe Sestak beat Specter 53.9% to 46.1 in spite of the incumbent’s heavy backing by President Obama, Gov. Ed Rendell and just about every other Democrat leader in and out of the Keystone State.
Specter had the nation’s top Democrats in his corner after switching to their party last year, and his final ad push featured President Barack Obama saying, “I love Arlen Specter.” But Specter’s Republican history and an anti-incumbent mood propelled Sestak, a maverick Democrat, to an improbable upset.
Sestak will face Republican Pat Toomey in November. Toomey, a former congressman and former head of the anti-tax Club for Growth, nearly ousted Specter in the 2004 GOP primary; the prospect of a rematch helped precipitate Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party.
It was a bipartisan night of rejection for the Washington establishment. Kentucky Republicans struck the first blow by choosing political newcomer Paul as their Senate nominee. Paul is an ophthalmologist and Tea Party favorite, and the son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.
In a Pennsylvania contest that both parties promoted as a precursor to the midterm elections this fall, Republicans suffered a blow to their plans for taking over Congress. Democrat Mark Critz, a top aide to the late Rep. John Murtha, defeated Republican businessman Tim Burns in a special election to finish Murtha’s term representing the working-class Johnstown-area district.
A week later in another open seat special election in Hawaii, Republican Charles Djou was the winner, giving the GOP a gain of one seat.
In Arkansas, moderate Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln was trying to hold off a netroots-fueled primary challenge from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Neither cleared 50% of the vote, sending them into a June 8 runoff election to determine who will face GOP Rep. John Boozman, a rancher and ophthalmologist whose late brother, Fay Boozman, lost to Lincoln in 1998.
Now it is reported that former President Bill Clinton will campaign for Lincoln, setting up a possible test of Democrat strength as well as the popularity of presidential influence.
Specter was the third incumbent to lose his job this season, following Utah Sen. Bob Bennett’s failure to get the GOP nomination in his state and 14-term Democratic Rep. Robert Mollohan’s primary loss in West Virginia’s First District.
Return to Archive Index