What looked to be a reasonably predictable final Tuesday of the 2010 primary season was taken over by the shock of the chattering classes at the victory of Christine O’Donnell over Mike Castle in the Delaware GOP senatorial contest. Indeed, the interpretation of Christine O’Donnell’s win has become as interesting as the win itself.
It’s not as though there were not abundant warnings: PPP released a poll the Sunday before the primary showing O’Donnell ahead. But I suspect that what’s shocked Republican observers in particular was the failure of a last-minute effort by the Delaware GOP and the state’s leading newspaper to destroy O’Donnell by exposing her history of financial malfeasance.
As voters went to the polls on Tuesday, the buzz around Washington was that Castle would be just fine. The probable assumption was that Tea Party supporters would subordinate their ideological concerns about Castle to horror at O’Donnell’s “irresponsibility,” so like the “deadbeats” that many conservatives think brought on the housing and financial crises. It didn’t happen.
In any event, as even more stories of O’Donnell’s personal and ideological wackiness spread, and as national GOP figures began publicly to write her off (Democrat Chris Coons has assumed a big lead in post-primary polls), the Senate landscape has shifted, with more pressure than ever on Republicans to win close races in Wisconsin, Washington, Colorado and California, and perhaps put Connecticut or West Virginia into play.
The dog that didn’t quite bark on Tuesday was in New Hampshire, where Ovide Lamontagne, who was receiving some of the same (minus Sarah Palin) last-minute national right-wing support enjoyed by O’Donnell, missed upsetting Kelly Ayotte in that state’s Senate primary by less than one percent. My guess is that the collapse in support for a third candidate, rich businessman (and “proudly pro-choice”) Bill Binnie, saved Ayotte, which is ironic since Binnie made this race competitive in the first place by running heavy attack ads on Ayotte throughout the summer. Lamontagne would not have been in as hopeless position as O’Donnell in a general election, in part because NH is a lot more amenable to Republicans than DE, but Ayotte’s a better bet for Republicans, though Democrat Paul Hodes was relatively close in the first post-primary poll.
In Wisconsin, longtime front-runner Scott Walker put away Mark Neumann by a surprisingly large 20% margin in the Republican gubernatorial primary. He will now be in a competitive general election contest against Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett.
Meanwhile, in New York, where no one really expects the Republican gubernatorial or senate nominees to have much of a prayer against Andrew Cuomo, Kirsten Gillibrand, or Chuck Shumer, the GOP suffered an embarrassment when party stalwart Rick Lazio got trounced for the gubernatorial nomination by the rather eccentric self-funder and Tea Party favorite Carl Paladino. As the New York Times put it:
It put at the top of the party’s ticket a volatile newcomer who has forwarded e-mails to friends containing racist jokes and pornographic images, espoused turning prisons into dormitories where welfare recipients could be given classes on hygiene, and defended an ally’s comparison of the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who is Jewish, to “an Antichrist or a Hitler.”
In House races, Delaware was again the state that supplied the major upset, as another Tea Partier, Glenn Urquhart, defeated the NRCC-recruited candidate, Michelle Roberts, for the state’s at-large House seat. Former Lt. Gov. John Carney, the Democratic nominee, has now become one of a very select group favored to win Republican-controlled House seats.
In NH-2, in one of a smattering of competitive Democratic House primaries, Ann Kuster crushed former Lieberman for President chairman Katrina Swett by more than a two-to-one margin, and will face former Rep. Charlie Bass for the seat Bass lost to Paul Hodes in 2006. In NH-1, ethically challenged former Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta turned back a challenge from self-funder Sean Mahoney for the chance to take on Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter. National GOP forces got the candidate they wanted in another vulnerable Democratic district, MA-10, where Jeff Perry won a shot at Democrat Bill Keating in the district vacated by Bill Delahunt.
And of course, in DC, mayor Adrian Fenty lost pretty badly to DC Council Chairman Vincent Gray in a contest where support was highly correlated to race. Much of the local political discussion in Washington since Tuesday has focused on the question of whether Gray will continue or reverse the education reforms initiated by Fenty and his school chief, Michelle Rhee.
We’re now down to just two primaries: an October 2 runoff in Louisiana, and tomorrow’s primary in Hawaii. The marquee contest in the Aloha State is the Democratic gubernatorial primary matching former congressman Neil Abercrombie, who upset a lot of Democrats in Washington by resigning his House seat just before the vote on health reform, with a Republican winning the special election to replace him, and former Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann, who is a bit conservative by Hawaii Democratic standards. Hannemann has a financial advantage, but Abercrombie has maintained a small but steady lead in the available polls. The winner of the primary will be favored in November to defeat Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona, and flip the state from R to D governance.
