A quick round-up of last night’s congressional and gubernatorial primaries:
- GA-Sen: Former state Rep. Jim Martin destroyed DeKalb CEO and Bush supporting Democrat Vernon Jones by a 60-40 margin in the Senatorial primary to take on GOP slimeball Saxby Chambliss.
- KS-02: In the biggest shocker of the night, state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins beat ex-Rep. Jim Ryun by a mere 1007 votes (51-49) after trailing heavily in every publicly-released poll during the campaign the campaign. She will now move on to face freshman Democratic Rep. Nancy Boyda in the general election.
- MI-13: Incumbent Democrat Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick narrowly survived a three-way primary with 39% of the vote. Former state Rep. Mary Waters came in second with 36%, and state Sen. Martha Scott was third with 25%.
- MO-Gov: GOP Rep. Kenny Hulshof beat state Treasurer Sarah Steelman by a 49-45 margin for the Republican nomination to succeed Matt Blunt.
- MO-09: State Rep. Judy Baker beat former Speaker of the Missouri House Steve Gaw handily (44-31) for the Democratic nomination in this open seat race. On the GOP side, former state Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer beat the Club For Growth-backed state Rep. Bob Onder by a 40-29 margin. Sadly, netroots fave Brock Olivo only pulled in 10% of the vote.
So, now what?
Was Jenkins good for us or bad for us? I’m leaning towards bad and think Boyda is now in the toss up column and should she win, I don’t see it being above the 52% margin.
Anyone with any more knowledge on this one want to comment?
There seemed to be a mini-theme on the election night threads last night, pushed pretty much by one now-banned person, who after predicting every race wrong (seriously, if that dude says it’s a sunny day out, bring your umbrella with you!) said that because we chose liberals and the Republicans chose moderates, we’re doomed, the sky is falling, no one will ever vote for a Democrat again, etc., etc. What bullshit.
Are KS-02 and MO-09 going to be tough races in the fall? You bet. Do I think we can win both of them? Absolutely. Are either of them sure things? Of course not. Especially in the 2010 cycle and beyond, we’re going to face some very hard races. That’s a good thing — it means we’re winning in toss-up and usually-Republican territory. We got spoiled in 2006 by not losing a single incumbent or open seat in the House or Senate (something the Republicans didn’t even manage in 1994). That’s not going to happen very often — and was in part the product of us losing almost everything we had to lose (espeically in House races) in the previous two elections.
So, even though I mourn the loss of Brock Olivo, just cuz that would have been so much fun to watch, we’ve got a good candidate in Judy Baker, a solid incumbent in Nancy Boyda — and these represent two of dozens of races around the country that could go either way and we need to continue to work on.
We hardly knew yee. The scariest part is that someone got less votes than Brock did… Now that is frightening. And wow, Kyle got banned? I came in late last night and didn’t read through the entire threads.
She won 16 of the district’s 25 counties from all corners of the district cutting across rural, suburban, and urban areas and she won Gaw’s home county 48% to 32%.
Any doubts people had about her ability to win over rural voters should be relieved by the fact that she carried more rural counties than any other candidate.
After viewing the websites for the statewide races in Missouri this year the lay of the land looks good for us.
GOV (R) – Looks like Nixon will be picking this one up (+1)
Lt. GOV (R) – Not seeing enough on our side to flip it, should be closish though (+0)
Sec. of State (D) – Carnahan is gonna cruise (+0)
Treasurer (R) – Zweifel (D) looks to have a better organization than Lager. He’s also former Union Leader (so says Politics1). I like his chances, Tossup, but with our edge.
Attorney General (D) – Looks like it could go either way. Possible slight R lean right now.
Auditor is not up this year, but it is D. If we got Sec. of State, Gov, Treasurer, and Attorney General, we’ll be doing pretty well (and hopefully well enough for Bond to retire in 2010). 11 for the state house, 4 for the state senate, Maybe we can get those in 2010.
who watch State Legislatures, Michigan State House is now just about Safe Democrat. Republicans have dozens of vulnerable open seats to our maybe two open seats, and there lagging behind us in fundraising. Last nights results put us in an even better position, with Republicans nominating several Lunatic Right Wingers for competitive seats, while we have several well funded moderate to mainstream democrats running. We should pick up a substantial number of seats, with my estimate right now at 5-10, and maybe lose 1-3.
It was a partisan poll, and should be taken with, well, alot more than just a grain of salt.
I feel Jenkins will be stronger than Ryun. Shes not ultra conservative, doesnt have his DC experience to hamper her, has shown an ability to beat someone well known with GOP voters with far less money, and has already won statewide office, including Im assuming district.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltod…
Charged with sexual assult of a teen. Nasty stuff.
That dude was nauseating, not to mention totally out of touch with reality.
Am posting a link to a very interesting note in the blog Blue Tide Rising. Interesting that voter difficulties might arise in a GOP primary, if true.
http://bluetiderising.blogspot…
I don’t think anyone saw Koster winning the Attorney General’s race coming.
I think Zweifel is a strong candidate for state treasurer. The Republicans ran a bunch of negative robocalls against him so he is apparently the candidate they didn’t want to face.
He was talking down on dems and bloggers immediately, not to mention spamming the diary section so he can read what he has written. (With no paragraphs, which was dually nauseating).