Kentucky's McConnell wins big

Top GOP senator turns back Tea Party primary challenge

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell votes Tuesday in Louisville, Ky. After coasting through the GOP primary, he likely will face strong opposition in the fall.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell votes Tuesday in Louisville, Ky. After coasting through the GOP primary, he likely will face strong opposition in the fall.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell easily survived a Tea Party challenge Tuesday as voters in Kentucky and five other states went to the polls on the biggest primary day of 2014 so far.

McConnell, 72, coasted to victory over Louisville businessman Matt Bevin in Kentucky's Republican U.S. Senate primary.

With 97 percent of precincts reporting, McConnell had 60 percent of the vote in the five-candidate field. Bevin was running second, with almost 36 percent.

The senator now faces a more daunting test as the general-election campaign begins. Alison Lundergan Grimes, who won the nomination in the state's Democratic primary with nearly 80 percent of the vote, is running even with the five-term Senate veteran in the polls as she seeks to unseat a major leader of Congress, something that's been done only three times in the past 20 years.

In Georgia, five well-known candidates vied for the Republican nomination to replace Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., who is retiring.

The Tea Party Express rallied behind former Secretary of State Karen Handel. Also in the mix were Tea Party favorite U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, staunch conservative U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, Dollar General chief executive officer David Perdue and U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, a favorite of establishment Republicans.

Officials said Tuesday evening that Perdue had advanced to a July 22 runoff, but his challenger had yet to be determined.

In unofficial returns, Perdue had nearly 30 percent of the vote with 62 percent of precincts reporting. Handel and Kingston appeared to be battling for the second spot.

The winner will face Democrat Michelle Nunn, daughter of popular former Sen. Sam Nunn who had a sizable lead Tuesday over former state lawmaker Steen Miles, psychiatrist Branko Radulovacki and ROTC instructor Todd Anthony Robinson.

In other Georgia races, state Rep. Buddy Carter of Pooler advanced to a Republican runoff election for a shot at filling the southeast Georgia congressional seat being vacated by Kingston, who stepped aside to seek Georgia's open Senate seat.

The second-place finisher was too close to call Tuesday. Unofficial returns showed former Newt Gingrich aide John McCallum of St. Simons Island running neck-and-neck with Savannah physician Bob Johnson.

The race for the seat being vacated by Broun also moved to a runoff, in which radio host Jody Hice of Monroe will face trucking company owner Mike Collins of Jackson.

U.S. Rep. Tom Graves successfully defended his northwest Georgia seat from Ken Herron, a former textile manager from Calhoun, in the GOP primary in the 14th Congressional District.

Graves is seeking a third term in Congress. After his primary victory Tuesday, he gets a free ride in the fall. No Democrats signed up to run for the seat, which heavily favors Republicans.

Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal handily won Georgia's GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday, earning more than 70 percent of the vote in early returns to defeat former Dalton Mayor David Pennington and State Schools Superintendent John Barge.

Now Deal's campaign will focus on November's general election, when he will face Democratic state Sen. Jason Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter.

"You can achieve prosperity by keeping government small, by keeping taxes low, by giving people more freedom of choice in terms of where their child gets an education," Deal said Tuesday night, turning his attention to Carter within minutes of winning the primary. "This is what our campaign will continue to be about. And we will contrast it with that of the party that wants to raise your taxes, that wants to take away your freedom and wants to tell you what to do because they believe government knows best."

Carter spokesman Bryan Thomas said Carter had never voted for a tax increase and criticized Deal for underfunding the state's education budget.

"If Gov. Deal's idea of reckless spending is making sure kids can go to school for 180 days a year in classrooms that aren't packed, then his priorities are not right for Georgia," Thomas said.

In Pennsylvania, Chelsea Clinton's mother-in-law, former Rep. Marjorie Margolies, lost her bid to return to the House -- despite fundraising and other campaign help from Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Meanwhile, Democrats eyeing a return to power in the Pennsylvania state Capitol nominated businessman Tom Wolf to oppose Republican Gov. Tom Corbett's bid for a second term.

In Idaho, Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson turned back Idaho Falls attorney Bryan Smith in the GOP primary for that state's 2nd Congressional District seat.

Smith said the incumbent wasn't conservative enough, and he drew early support from the Club for Growth in a bid to oust Simpson, but establishment groups rallied behind Simpson.

The winner of Idaho's Republican primary is expected to win the seat in November. Simpson won in 2012 with 65 percent of the vote.

In Oregon, Monica Wehby, a physician, won the Republican nomination to oppose Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley in a race that GOP strategists hope can become more competitive as the year unfolds.

Thunder from the right

Some Republican primary voters said they decided to go with the more moderate choice.

"I'm conservative, but I think most of the Tea Party people are a little too extreme," said David Reynolds, 63, of Union, Ky., after voting in his state's Senate race. He said he cast his vote for McConnell over Bevin.

Plagued by low approval ratings, McConnell spent more than $9 million through the end of April on his primary campaign, according to Federal Election Commission figures. Bevin spent $3 million, and outside groups poured in $5 million more -- a three-way deluge of television advertisements likely to continue through the fall.

In Kentucky, McConnell's task now is to woo independent voters he had largely shunned as he fought the thunder from the right.

Bevin had hoped to duplicate Sen. Rand Paul's 2010 triumph, when Tea Party support helped that Kentucky Republican defeat McConnell protege Trey Grayson in the party's Senate primary.

McConnell, though, has deep Republican roots. He has a strong network of backers, built from his years as the architect of the modern Kentucky Republican Party, the winner of five statewide elections and a veteran of all kinds of state political wars.

He hired a top Paul adviser to manage his campaign and highlighted his loyalty to staunch conservative causes. In March, he appeared before the much-watched Conservative Political Action Conference holding a rifle over his head. It was a gift to Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a conservative hero for his relentless commitment to the party's agenda.

Tea Party loyalists remained wary. The Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, the Senate Conservatives Fund and other like-minded groups pumped money and resources into defeating McConnell. They viewed him as too willing to compromise and cited votes such as his backing of the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program, which helped ailing financial institutions, as evidence.

McConnell now has to keep the conservatives with him -- and hope they turn out in November -- while reminding Kentucky voters that he's the same can-do lawmaker they've elected repeatedly since 1984. He's also pushing hard the idea that he could become the Senate's most powerful figure, while a Grimes vote is a vote for keeping Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in power.

McConnell also will work to tie Grimes to President Barack Obama, who won just 38 percent of the state's vote in the 2012 presidential election.

"Make me the majority leader and Kentucky will lead America," McConnell said after the primary, adding that he would use his power to check President Barack Obama's agenda.

Grimes, 35, said Obama wasn't on the ballot, and responded forcefully to some of the campaign barbs that have already come her way.

"I am not an empty dress. I am not a rubber stamp. And I am not a cheerleader. I am a strong Kentucky woman," she told cheering supporters in Lexington.

Grimes has already benefited from a fundraising visit to Kentucky by former President Bill Clinton as Democrats across the nation have rallied to her side.

In the race against Bevin, McConnell was aided by the early endorsement of Paul, who is openly considering a White House bid in 2016.

Bevin suggested at the end of the primary race that the political alliance between Paul and McConnell was fueled by their mutual ambitions.

"Does the Mitch-Rand love narrative ring true to you?" he asked in an interview a few weeks before the primary. "I don't know that it does. Nor does it ring true to most Kentuckians. It's sort of an arranged political marriage."

Bevin seemed to be prepared for defeat, even as he criticized the way McConnell cruised to victory.

"There's little that I did not anticipate to some degree," he said. "I did my homework, I know who I'm running against, I know what his methodology is: Define the opponent before they define themselves. You malign. You slash and smear. You mock, you ridicule and you question, and then you come out and declare victory."

With Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican, having won renomination in March, McConnell's victory Tuesday is the second time this year that an incumbent Republican senator survived a primary threat with ease.

Republicans need a net gain of six seats to take control of the Senate. Seven Democratic-held seats are in states where Republican Mitt Romney beat President Barack Obama in 2012, while Obama states Colorado, Michigan and New Hampshire also are in play.

Democrats' best hopes for upending Republicans are in Kentucky and Georgia. The win by the more moderate McConnell will make that task more difficult in Kentucky, analysts said.

Information for this article was contributed by David Lightman of McClatchy Newspapers; by Christina A. Cassidy, Ray Henry, David Espo, Bill Barrow, Adam Beam and staff members of The Associated Press; by John McCormick of Bloomberg News; and by Jonathan Martin and Jason Horowitz of The New York Times.

A Section on 05/21/2014

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