After the cornucopia of primaries on June 8, the electoral schedule is slowing down for a bit. The next votes are on June 22, with three statewide runoffs (South Carolina, North Carolina and South Dakota) and the Utah primary.
But perhaps the most interesting set of developments over the last few days involves Alabama’s Republican gubernatorial contest, where the extremely narrow margin between second-place finisher Robert Bentley and third-place finisher Tim James has created a legal and political mess.
Alabama is one of those states with a relatively decentralized election system, particularly for primaries. There’s no automatic recount system, and technically, no such thing as a statewide recount. So a candidate like James, who is looking for 167 votes to overtake Bentley, must pursue a recount county-by-county, through county party committees utilizing volunteers, all at his own expense.
As James was gearing up for that effort last week, along came Attorney General Troy King — a Republican who got trounced in his effort to get renominated on June 1 — with an opinion holding that no challenge to the primary results could be launched until a nomination had actually been made — i.e., after the runoff. This Catch-22 situation didn’t persuade James to abandon his recount effort, but it appears that if the recount does put him into the lead, the best party leaders could do for him is to schedule a runoff after the runoff — essentially a round-robin — where he’d face the winner of the contest between Bentley and first-place finisher Bradley Byrne. As Chuck Dean of the Birmingham News says:
That scenario is keeping Republican Party state Chairman Mike Hubbard from getting a good night’s sleep.
“It’s a potential mess,” said Hubbard. “All we can do at this point is follow what the attorney general says is the law and the recommendations of the secretary of state and then see what we see. If the recount shows Bentley still in the lead, then I guess this is all over. If the recount shows James pulling ahead, then all I can say is, hold on.”
The only person enjoying this mess is probably Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ronnie Sparks.
In other runoff news, third-place finisher Henry McMaster has endorsed all-but-certain South Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley in her runoff against Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-SC).
In polling news, Magellan Strategies has a new Louisiana survey out that illustrates the dominance of the oil and gas industries in that state’s economy, with respondents favoring an expansion of offshore drilling by a 72-15 margin.
PPP has released the first major survey of the Illinois Senate race since Rep. Mark Kirk’s (R-IL) issues with his military record emerged. It shows Democrat Alexi Giannoulias edging back ahead of Kirk by a 31-30 margin with a big undecided vote.
And a new Battleground poll for NPR, jointly conducted by the Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies, focuses on 70 competitive House districts, sixty of which are currently held by Democrats. It shows Republicans with an overall 49-41 lead in these districts, including a 47-42 lead in Democratic districts. As Stan Greenberg put it: “In a year where voters want change and in which Democrats are seen to be in power, this is a tough poll — about as tough as you [can] get.”
