Democrats decimated Kinzinger’s district by dividing it into eight redrawn congressional districts and leaving the largest portion in Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s (D) 2nd District. Kinzinger, 34, chose to take on Manzullo, 67, instead but the freshman’s challenge to the longtime congressman rubbed several in the Illinois GOP the wrong way. Several GOP insiders believed that if Kinzinger hadn’t been so initially aggressive, Manzullo might have stood aside and retired. Instead, the ten-term congressman cobbled together a scrappy campaign and peppered his much younger opponent with sarcastic jabs and attacks.
Respect your elders? Freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s gamble against long-time Rep. Don Manzullo paid off, as he pulled out a surprising victory in Republicans’ first intraparty primary of 2012.
Democrats decimated Kinzinger’s district by dividing it into eight redrawn congressional districts and leaving the largest portion in Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s (D) 2nd District. Kinzinger, 34, chose to take on Manzullo, 67, instead but the freshman’s challenge to the longtime congressman rubbed several in the Illinois GOP the wrong way. Several GOP insiders believed that if Kinzinger hadn’t been so initially aggressive, Manzullo might have stood aside and retired. Instead, the ten-term congressman cobbled together a scrappy campaign and peppered his much younger opponent with sarcastic jabs and attacks.
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The supposed anti-incumbent wave that started last week in Ohio stopped on Tuesday in the heart of Dixie.
While five incumbents faced varying degrees of primary challenges in Alabama and Mississippi, each turned away their intraparty challenge with relative ease and avoided runoffs. All occupy safe seats ahead of this fall’s elections. Republican cartographers guaranteed that one incumbent would lose in Tuesday’s primaries in Ohio when they drew two Democratic Members into the same district. But few people expected Republicans to lose one of their own.
In the 9th District, Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur handily defeated her colleague, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 56 percent to 40 percent, in the cycle’s first incumbent vs. incumbent battle. |
Jessica TaylorNon-partisan political analyst Archives
January 2013
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