Challenging the establishment: Primaries in four states test voters’ anti-establishment mood

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Georgia Republicans splitting primary vote

WASHINGTON — Former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel and ex-Rep. Nathan Deal swapped leads in a close gubernatorial primary runoff Tuesday night, and voters in Connecticut, Minnesota and Colorado chose candidates for the fall in a season of peril for establishment politicians of both parties.

The two Georgia Republicans vied for the right to take on former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes, who unleashed the first television ad of their fall campaign before knowing the name of his rival.

Deal was winning slightly more than 50 percent of the vote and Handel slightly less in returns from 40 percent of the state’s precincts — a reversal of position from earlier in the evening. In deference to the national mood, both GOP contenders resigned from public office to run, Handel stepping down from her state position and Deal resigning his seat in Congress.

In Connecticut’s Republican Senate primary, Linda McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, moved to a comfortable early lead over two rivals, money manager Peter Schiff and former Rep. Rob Simmons. Simmons, the one-time favorite in the race, suspended his campaign months ago but recently got back into it.

McMahon was gaining about 48 percent of the vote, with returns counted from 6 percent of the precincts.

State Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal was unopposed for the Democrats’ Senate nomination to succeed retiring Chris Dodd, also a Democrat.

With Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell retiring, Connecticut voters also settled a pair of contested gubernatorial primaries.

Tom Foley, a businessman and former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, led a three-way race for the Republican nomination.

Among the Democrats, former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy held a double-digit advantage over Ned Lamont, a businessman making his second try for statewide office. Lamont won a Senate primary four years ago, upsetting Sen. Joe Lieberman, who then won a new term in the fall as an independent.

In the marquee race of the night, Sen. Michael Bennet battled primary challenger Andrew Romanoff in Colorado, the latest in a string of incumbents to face serious challenges from within their own parties. So far this year, two senators and four House members have fallen.

Subplots included presidential hopefuls bestowing endorsements in hopes of helping themselves in the 2012 race for the White House.

Nowhere was that more evident than in Georgia, where former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin endorsed Handel in her bid to become the state’s first female governor.

Deal countered with support from Georgian Newt Gingrich, once the speaker of the House and now a possible presidential contender.

Deal is a former Democrat whose party switch 15 years ago reinforced the Gingrich-led GOP majority after the 1994 congressional elections. Deal also had the support of Mike Huckabee, who won the Georgia presidential primary in 2008.

Barnes won the Democratic nomination outright in a primary on July 20, while Handel led Deal in a Republican primary in which neither got 50 percent, necessitating the runoff.

In Minnesota, where Democrats have not elected a governor in nearly a quarter-century, former Sen. Mark Dayton, former state Rep. Matt Entenza and House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher vied for the party’s nomination. Republican state lawmaker Tom Emmer had only minor opposition, and recently announced a campaign shake-up to prepare for the fall.

Five rivals vied for the independent line on the fall ballot — in a state where Jesse Ventura was elected governor a dozen years ago as a third party contender.

Bennet was appointed to his seat nearly two years ago when Ken Salazar resigned to become Interior secretary in the Obama administration.

Romanoff, a former speaker of the state House, had hoped for the appointment, and he spurned entreaties from senior party officials to skip the race with Bennet.

In an intense campaign, both men sought the mantle of political outsider. Yet each relied on very well-known establishment politicians to help them — President Barack Obama in Bennet’s case and former President Bill Clinton in Romanoff’s.

The Republican primary was equally intense, pitting former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton against Ken Buck, a county district attorney and former federal prosecutor.

They, too, sparred over ownership of the outsider’s credentials. Both also have ties to tea party activists, although Buck expressed frustration at one point, asking aloud for someone to tell those “dumba—s” to stop asking him about Obama’s birth certificate while he was being recorded. He later expressed regret for the remarks.

In the state’s gubernatorial campaign, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper was unchallenged for the Democratic nomination.

The Republican rivals were former Rep. Scott McInnis and businessman Dan Maes, each marring their chances through self-inflicted wounds.

McInnis has acknowledged receiving $300,000 as part of a foundation fellowship for a water study report that was partly plagiarized. His chief rival, businessman Dan Maes, has paid $17,500 for violating campaign finance laws.

The spectacle prompted former Rep. Tom Tancredo to jump into the race as an independent, which in turn led state party chairman Dick Wadhams to say it would be difficult if not impossible to defeat the Democrat this fall.