Primary voting favors GOP incumbents

Ohio’s Boehner locks up a return to Congress in first contests of election year

Thom Tillis and his wife, Susan, greet supporters at an election-night rally in Charlotte, N.C., after winning the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.
Thom Tillis and his wife, Susan, greet supporters at an election-night rally in Charlotte, N.C., after winning the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON -- North Carolina Republican voters selected Thom Tillis to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, and U.S. House Speaker John Boehner won re-nomination to Congress from Ohio, first in a springtime spate of primaries pitting the GOP establishment against Tea Party challengers.

On a night that was kind to Republican incumbents, GOP U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks of Indiana easily fended off a challenge from the right, rolling up 75 percent of the votes in a three-way race. First-term Rep. David Joyce of Ohio had a slightly tougher time but was running well ahead of his Tea Party rival.

In North Carolina, House Speaker Tillis had about 45 percent of the vote with ballots counted in 61 percent of the state's precincts, easily surpassing the 40 percent to avoid a July runoff. Greg Brannon was trailing despite support from Tea Party favorite Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Mark Harris, a Baptist pastor, was third.

Both parties in North Carolina held primaries to select candidates for a special election to replace former Rep. Melvin Watt in a heavily Democratic seat, and former American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken was one of three contenders for the Democratic nomination to oppose Republican Rep. Renee Ellmers in the fall.

Tuesday marked the beginning of the political primary season in earnest, and over the next several months Republicans will hold numerous contests featuring incumbents or other establishment figures against Tea Party challengers.

Tillis ran as a conservative with the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Right to Life Committee and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, while Brannon had the backing of Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Tea Party favorite. Harris countered with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose popularity with evangelical voters briefly made him a force in the race for the 2008 presidential nomination.

One voter, Debbye Krueger of Salisbury, N.C., said, "I think the Tea Party has pulled the right so far to right that they're falling off the cliff. And anybody who's moderate or uses any ounce of decorum to make a logical decision not based on political affiliation is demonized."

Dan Coutcher, a chaplain at North Carolina State University, said he voted for Brannon, who he said had delivered his grandchildren. "I like him more than I like Tillis. I tend to not like long-term career politicians," he said.

Boehner won a 13th term in the House, easily beating high school teacher J.D. Winteregg and businessman Eric Gurr in the Ohio GOP primary. His seat is safely Republican for the general election, as well, and it will be up to fellow Republicans -- assuming they hold their House majority -- to decide whether the 64-year-old Ohioan serves a third term as speaker.

"I am humbled to have such strong support from the people of the 8th Congressional District, and I look forward to continuing to lead the U.S. House in addressing our shared priorities of jobs and the economy," Boehner said in a statement Tuesday night after his primary victory. "With better solutions I know we can break America free from the Obama economy's sluggish growth."

Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich was unopposed for nomination to a second term as governor, a race viewed as a possible prelude to a 2016 run for the White House.

Cuyahoga County Executive Ed Fitzgerald won the Democratic nomination to challenge Kasich.

North Carolina hosted the most closely watched race of the night, at the intersection of the Tea Party's long-running challenge to the Republican establishment and the GOP campaign to gain the six seats needed to win a Senate majority in the fall.

Hagan is among the Democrats' most vulnerable incumbents in a campaign season full of them, a first-term lawmaker in a state that is ground zero in a national debate over the health-care law that she and the Democrats voted into existence four years ago.

Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, has run about $7 million worth of television commercials criticizing Hagan for her position on the law.

Hagan's campaign recently sent out a mass mailing that said Tillis had once called the Affordable Care Act a "great idea" -- an obvious attempt to influence the outcome of the primary by holding down his support among conservative primary voters. Tillis favors the law's repeal, and in fact called the law "a great idea that can't be paid for."

An outside group dedicated to electing Democrats ran a television ad assailing Tillis over severance packages that went to two members of his legislative staff said to have had inappropriate relationships with lobbyists.

Information for this article was contributed by Gary Robertson, Alex Sanz and Hope Yen of The Associated Press.

A Section on 05/07/2014

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