Primary Night: Second Update

As if someone were actually reading this blog, I'm going to run an update post. Why, you ask? Because it's my blog and I want to, darned it. So here goes:

The polls have now closed in California, site of the most interesting races of the night in the special election for CD 50 and the Democratic Gubernatorial Primary. It will be some time before there will be meaningful results from these races, and since I have an early wake-up call in the morning I will unfortunately probably have to wait until tomorrow to update on the results, and give my analysis. I'm sure the zero of you who are reading will be sorely upset by this development, but I trust you will get over it with time.

Now, onto the races where there are some results. I will not be posting any additional updates on these races unless they change. The results are the important thing, and those we seem to have in these races.

Alabama Governor
On the Republican side, Governor Bob Riley beat back a challenge from crazy judge Roy Moore. Moore did get a surprisingly strong 35% of the vote, but I think that indicates less irritation with Riley than it does support from uber-conservative religious types who were drawn to Moore. It should not have an effect on the general election.

On the Democratic side, Lucy Baxley beat back former Governor Bob Siegelman and a slew of other also-rans. Siegelman had some ethics issues dogging him, and it seems there just wasn't that much interest in sending him up for another election.

Alabama CD's 2 & 5
There were two Democratic primaries in Alabama tonight. The Republicans did not have any. In CD 2, Chuck James won handily and will face Terry Everett (R) in the general election. In CD 5, there seems to be no one running on the Republican side, so tonight's Democratic primary was, in effect, the general election for that district. Not surprisingly, incumbent Artur Davis won handily, with over 90% of the vote.

Mississippi Senate
The battle for Trent Lott's (R) opponent has been settled, with Erik Fleming (D) emerging from the rubble against 3 primary opponents. Fleming is sitting at 56% of the vote right now, which is important because candidates must reach 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff primary, which would be held on 6/27.

Mississippi CD 1&2
In CD 1, a runoff appears to be forthcoming between Ken Hurt (D), who has 39%, and Ron Shapiro (D), with 22%. They beat out 2 others, one of whom had 19% at this posting. If the names shift, I will post that information.

In CD 2, Bennie Thompson (D) has beaten out 2 opponents with 56% of the vote, and will go on to face Von Brown in November.

New Jersey Senate
As I mentioned before, Robert Menendez (D), the sitting Senator, and Thomas Kean (R), have both easily won their primaries and advance to face each other in November in what should be a very close race.

New Jersey CD's 2, 5 & 13
In CD 2, Viola Thomas-Hughes (D) easily beat Henry David Marcus (D) and will face Frank LoBiondo in November.

In CD 5, both parties had primaries. On the Republican side, Scott Garrett (R) easily beat Michael Cino (R) with about 86% of the vote. For the Democrats, Paul Aronsohn (D) took out Camille Abate (D) 67%-33%.

In CD 13, which supposedly also had a special primary to determine who would represent the district from November to January (which I can find no election numbers for), Albio Sires (D) took out Joe Vas (D) by 74%-26%, and Sires will go on to face John Guarini (R) in November.

South Dakota Governor
Finally, in South Dakota, Jack Billion (D) defeated Dennis Wiese (D) by a tally of 61%-39%, and will go on to face Governor Mike Rounds (R) in November.


Races remain to be called in New Mexico, Iowa, Montana, and California. I will probably make one more post in about an hour and a half to update the races in those states. I'll wrap things up with a results post tomorrow, and either tomorrow or Thursday will also post an analysis of the significant things from these primaries. Also, look for a post on next Tuesday's primaries sometime in the next couple of days.