As we enter the primary season’s final stretch, 19 states still have yet to choose their 2014 nominees. The first nine days of August will bring voters to the polls in a half-dozen states with much to be decided.
August 5
The most active day is the first Tuesday in August. Four states are holding primaries, featuring one key Senate nomination battle.
In Kansas, Sen. Pat Roberts (R) faces a GOP challenge from physician Milton Wolf. Roberts has made several mis-steps during the campaign, including admitting that he doesn’t own property in his state, possessing a Virginia personalized license plate that identifies him as the Kansas senator, and saying that he returns home, “every time he has an opponent.” Despite the gaffes, Dr. Wolf appears to be a flawed candidate and is not likely to deny Roberts renomination. Continue reading >
Tomorrow, Peach State voters head to the polls to finally decide Georgia’s four important federal run-off elections. Concluding what has been a very long and active nomination campaign here, complete with some surprising results from the May 20 primary, the Republican voters will now choose a US Senate nominee and likely pick congressmen in Districts 1, 10, and 11.
Senate
This contest has proven to be one of the most interesting of the entire election cycle, and the Georgia race is of foremost consequence in the national Senate picture. In order to gain the majority, Republicans must first secure the two potentially vulnerable seats already within their control: Kentucky (Minority Leader Mitch McConnell), and this race in Georgia. A Democratic conversion in either of these states would likely retain their party’s majority status.
You will remember that this particular Senate campaign originally featured three members of the congressional delegation, a former statewide elected official, and a major business leader who is a cousin to, and who shares the last name with, Continue reading >
Retiring Rep. Spencer Bachus’ (R) replacement, for all intents and purposes, will become known tonight. Having voted 74.3 percent for Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election, suburban Birmingham’s 6th District ranks as the eighth most Republican CD in the country. Therefore, the general election campaign will not prove much of a test for whomever becomes the GOP nominee – either state Rep. Paul DeMarco (R) or Alabama Policy Institute founder and president Gary Palmer (R) – opposing trucking industry analyst Avery Vise (D).
Originally, seven GOP candidates fought for the two run-off spots on June 3, ending with DeMarco placing first with 33 percent and Palmer, in his first attempt in running for public office, garnering 20 percent to secure second position. Four of the five candidates – all but the last place finisher – eliminated in the June 3 primary have each endorsed Palmer. Large segments of the national and local conservative movement are also backing the policy center founder including the Club for Growth and the Family Research Council leadership. DeMarco scores support from the NRA and a large Continue reading >
Now with 100% of the precincts finally reporting, US senatorial challenger Chris McDaniel and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) are advancing to a Republican run-off election on June 24. The primary ended in a razor-thin result, as we now all know, with McDaniel finishing first and coming within 1,702 votes of clinching the nomination. Because McDaniel and Cochran virtually split the votes evenly – McDaniel 49.4 percent; Cochran 49.0 percent – realtor Tom Carey’s 1.6 percent finish forced the two major candidates into a secondary election.
Though the spread between the two leaders is only 1,386 votes, McDaniel is already establishing early momentum for the run-off. With analysts conceding that McDaniel has the more committed following, and therefore a base of support more likely to vote in a summer run-off election, the signs are pointing to an upset. While the Club for Growth is committed to spending on McDaniel’s behalf in the run-off, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads Continue reading >
The Tea Party and conservative organizations such as the Club for Growth struck gold in the Nebraska Senate primary last night as Midland University president Ben Sasse easily won the GOP nomination to succeed retiring Sen. Mike Johanns (R). The late polling that predicted Sasse pulling away and early front-runner Shane Osborn, the military veteran and former state treasurer, falling all the way to third place proved precisely accurate. Making a charge at the end that was blunted by outside group attack ads in the closing days was wealthy banker and first-time candidate Sid Dinsdale.
Sasse impressively earned 50 percent of the votes, followed by Dinsdale’s distant second-place finish with 22 percent, and Osborn’s 21 percent. Sasse now becomes the overwhelming favorite to win the general election against attorney David Domina, who won the Democratic nomination with two-thirds of the vote.
The governor’s race came down to a one-point margin, as businessman Pete Ricketts slipped past Attorney General Jon Bruning to claim the Republican nomination and an eventual ticket to the Continue reading >
Often times in a multi-candidate primary field when two candidates isolate each other and begin firing and returning charges, a third contender comes unscathed from the outside to claim the nomination.
In the Nebraska Senate race, non-connected conservative organizations have been targeting the early front-runner, former Continue reading >
Mississippi polling data is now being released at a fast and furious pace. Earlier in the week, we reported about a NSON Opinion Strategies (April 2; 400 Mississippi Republican primary voters) survey that projected veteran Sen. Thad Cochran to be leading his Republican primary challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, by a rather soft 45-37 percent margin. Yesterday, Harper Polling (April 3-5; 570 Mississippi Republican primary voters) released results that place the senator in much stronger political position.
A new survey testing the Republican primary race between veteran Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran and state Sen. Chris McDaniel again suggests that this intra-party incumbent challenge is becoming the most serious in the nation.
According to a NSON Opinion Strategies survey (released April 2; 400 likely Mississippi Republican primary voters) conducted for the Tea Party Express and provided to Breitbart News, the senator only maintains a 45-37 percent lead over the Tea Party-backed state legislator. This is consistent with earlier public data.
Sen. Cochran, 76 years of age and in his 42nd year of congressional service, is running for a seventh term. He was the first Republican senator elected in a Deep South state during the modern political era, thus beginning the region’s political realignment trend. He has been under attack from conservative organizations for a period of months. It is already known that those outside groups with people and money, such as the Tea Party Leadership Fund, the Tea Party Express, and the Club for Growth, are planning to expend serious resources to independently support the challenger’s effort. Continue reading >
This week, events in Alaska’s nationally important Senate race have apparently begun to crystallize. Just as Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) begins an offensive campaign surge, the Republican coalition’s disparate segments are moving to coalesce behind one Continue reading >
Jim Ellis Insights 