From Roll Call:
In a potentially worrying sign for freshman Rep. Bill Sali (R-Idaho), he escaped Tuesday’s 1st district GOP primary against Iraq War veteran Matt Salisbury with just 57 percent of the vote, according to the unofficial election results posted by the Idaho secretary of state.
Salisbury closed the pre-primary fundraising period with just $3,500 on hand, spending a total of $43,000 on his campaign on contributions of $46,600. Considering that Salisbury ran a campaign bereft of a serious advertising effort, the outcome of this contest could signal trouble ahead for Sali in the general election.
57% is awfully weak, especially considering that Salisbury ran a low-profile, poorly funded campaign. Unless voters were confused by the letters “Sali” being in both names (which I doubt), that’s an awfully high protest vote.
It’s also worth noting that Ran Paul scored 25% against John McCain in Idaho’s presidential primary, which was also last night. As Roll Call notes, that’s a decently-sized libertarian vote that Democrat Walt Minnick can play to.
SSP currently rates this race as Likely Republican.
Update: The final result was actually 60% for Sali. That’s still very weak.
Based on the ID returns, in each case Repubs seem to have at minimum twice the number of Dem votes. Am I misreading the numbers or would Minnick have to take all of Salisbury’s votes to defet Sali? Yes, the Libertarian vote seems strong, but I fail to see how Minnick could win when total Repub vote seems to be 68,000 and Minnick’s only 19,000. What am I missing?
“Unless voters were confused by the letters “Sali” being in both names”
Never underestimate the average voter’s capacity for confusion.
The vast majority of those GOP voters will return to roost this fall and the proportions will stay the same.
Sali’s hated by pretty much everybody in Idaho politics. I’m surprised nobody tried to take him out, especially because up until recently the NRCC was refusing to intervene in primaries.
UNITED STATES SENATOR
DEM David J. Archuleta 11,076 28%
DEM Larry LaRocco 29,000 72%
DEM Kevin Volkmann (write in) 65 0%
Looks like some guy who happens to have the same name as the American Idol finalist actually got 28% of the Dem Senate primary vote. Wonder if most of those people voted for him thinking he’s the singer.