With all precincts now reporting in the Vermont Democratic primary for governor, Peter Shumlin clung to a 190-vote lead and was ready to claim victory Wednesday afternoon, but his nearest rival, Doug Racine, wasn’t ready to concede just yet.
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Republican Matthew Mead has won his party's primary for Wyoming governor, with state Auditor Rita Meyer calling to concede to the former U.S. attorney despite the race's razor-thin margin.
With all precincts reporting, Mead was leading Meyer by just over 700 votes — six-tenths of a percentage point difference, 28.7 percent to 28.1 percent — and the AP had yet to call the race in favor of either candidate. Under Wyoming state law, a recount can be conducted if there is a less than 1 percent difference between the leading candidates. Democrats have been gloating over the unorthodox Republican candidates around the country this year but one of their own broke back into the headlines Friday — Alvin Greene of South Carolina, indicted on a felony pornography charge.
And there doesn’t seem to be anything Democrats can do about it. South Carolina Democrats believe they’re stuck with Greene as their Senate standard-bearer against Republican Jim DeMint, despite Greene’s indictment Friday on a charge that he showed a female college student a pornographic website in a computer lab and suggested they go back to her dorm room. South Carolina Democratic Senate nominee Alvin Greene was indicted Friday on felony charges of showing pornography to a college student.
Greene, an unemployed 32-year-old military veteran, had refused to discuss the charges, which surfaced after he was the surprise winner of the state’s June Democratic primary over better-known Charleston City Councilman Vic Rawl. Former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel conceded defeat Wednesday to former Rep. Nathan Deal in the Republican runoff for governor.
The move avoids a costly recount and allows Deal to focus on the fall campagn against former Gov. Roy Barnes. With 99.9 percent of precincts reporting, Deal was ahead by a narrow margin of 50.2 percent to 49.8 percent — just under 2,500 votes. Republican Karen Handel has conceded to former Rep. Nathan Deal in the Georgia runoff for governor, saying Wednesday morning it was best for the party to rally around Deal as the nominee.
With only provisional ballots and military and overseas ballots uncounted, Deal held a slim lead of fewer than 2,500 votes over Handel late Tuesday evening, or a 50.2 percent to 49.8 percent advantage. While Handel could have requested a recount had the margin remained less than 1 percent, she said her campaign wouldn’t pursue that option and threw her support behind Deal. Nathan Deal may have survived a broadside of attacks from Karen Handel over his ethics problems —but he can’t expect that issue to disappear in the general election.
After trailing Handel, Deal rebounded in the July 20 primary by 11 points to squeak past the former Georgia secretary of state by a slim 50.2 percent to 49.8 percent margin that wasn’t certain until Handel conceded Wednesday morning. Deal performed strongly in rural counties, while Handel was strong —but not strong enough — in her metro-Atlanta home base. The Georgia governor runoff careens toward an end Tuesday, and in the closing weeks the bitter fight between Republicans Karen Handel and Nathan Deal has become a proxy war among several leading 2012 presidential candidates.
Handel, the former Georgia secretary of state, finished atop the seven-candidate field on July 20, leading Deal, a former congressman, by 11 percentage points, but polls since then have shown that margin shrinking as supporters of two former candidates, state Senate President Eric Johnson and state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, have shifted their allegiances. It’s been dueling potential 2012 presidential candidates who went down to Georgia over the past two days.
With just hours before voters head to the polls in the contentious runoff for governor between Karen Handel and Nathan Deal, both Republicans were pulling out the star power to energize their supporters and sway key undecided voters. Former Rep. Nathan Deal is getting his own potential 2012 presidential hopeful visit — Mike Huckabee will travel to Georgia this weekend to stump with the Republican gubernatorial candidate just ahead of Tuesday’s runoff.
Deal, locked in a tight contest with former Secretary of State Karen Handel, received the former Arkansas governor’s endorsement Thursday, and his campaign announced on Friday that Huckabee will hold a Sunday afternoon rally with Deal in Gainesville, part of the congressional district Deal used to represent before resigning in March. |
Jessica TaylorNon-partisan political analyst Archives
January 2013
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