All Blog Posts from Horserace

Republican Rep. Chris Cannon lost his bid for a seventh term on Tuesday when he was defeated by 20 points in the GOP primary in Utah's 3rd district on Tuesday by newcomer Jason Chaffetz, a former BYU football player who served as chief of staff for Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman.

Cannon has been a staunch conservative in Congress with a 96 percent rating from the American Conservative Union, but Chaffetz was able to outflank him on the right in the central Utah district, where President Bush won with 77 percent of the vote in 2004.

Chaffetz claimed Cannon was soft on illegal immigration, pointing to his support of guest-worker programs and allowing states to charge in-state tuition for children of illegal immigrations. Chaffetz instead called for deporting all illegal immigrants and not giving citizenship to the children of non-legal residents. He also said he wanted to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education.

"I think we have a mandate to help return the Republican Party to its core conservative principles," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "People were fed up and we empowered them to become involved and make the changes we need."

Chaffetz is expected to cruise to victory over in November over Democratic opponent Spencer Bennion.

Cannon is the third incumbent congressman to lose in a primary this year -- joining Republican Wayne T. Gilchrest and Democrat Albert R. Wynn, both in Maryland.

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Democrats in Kentucky and Oregon were voting for more than just their presidential pick last night. Voters also selected senate candidates to go up against Republican incumbents whom party leaders hope they can knock off in the fall.

In Oregon, House Speaker Jeff Merkley narrowly won the senate primary over activist Steve Novick, who gained attention by making light of a metal hook he has in place of his left hand due to a birth defect (you can see one of his ads here). Merkley was recruited by national party leaders to take on Republican incumbent Sen. Gordon Smith. Oregon is a state that has trended Democratic in recent cycles and is near the top of the party's targets for a takeover in November.

In Kentucky, millionaire businessman Bruce Lunsford defeated seven other Democrats for the chance to take on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The powerful four-term incumbent would seem to be safe in a state President Bush carried by 20 points in 2004, but Democrats picked up the governor's mansion last year and are hoping they can ride a Democratic wave in the fall to oust the Senate's top Republican. The race also figures to be a high spending affair as McConnell has already raised at least $12 million and Lunsford spent $14 million in two failed gubernatorial bids in 2003 and 2007 (where he failed to advance beyond the primary).

House Primaries: The most interesting House primary last night was in Oregon's 5th district, where Democratic Rep. Darlene Hooley's surprise retirement announcement in February made the district perhaps one of the most competitive in the country. In the Republican primary, Mike Erickson defeated former state Rep. Kevin Mannix, despite the fact that a week ago Mannix sent out a letter accusing Erickson of paying for a girlfriend's abortion eight years ago. Erickson denied the allegations, and the attacks appeared to have backfired. Mannix conceded the race this morning, but said he will not support Erickson, who will face Democratic state Sen. Kurt Schrader in November.

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Two candidates, two states and two different Democratic parties were on display in Kentucky and Oregon, the latest installment of the never-ending primary. As expected, the two brought in a split decision, with Hillary Clinton winning with a West Virginia-like margin in Kentucky and Barack Obama handily carrying Oregon.

To the extent the final outcome is in doubt, the race has now come down to a dispute about mathematical computations. But the numbers aren’t adding up for Hillary Clinton, and barring a totally unexpected and dramatic reversal of fortune, she’s not going to persuade those superdelegates that two plus two somehow equals five.

With just three more contests to go on the calendar, Obama has now wrapped up the majority of the pledged delegates at stake, according to the CBS News delegate count and is less than 80 total delegates away from securing the 2,026 total delegates needed to claim the nomination.

Clinton, who seems to turn into a better candidate the longer her odds become, showed no inclination to even acknowledge the situation. She continues to argue that Obama’s math will change with the eventual inclusion of the disputed delegates in Florida and Michigan and points to her calculations to claim the popular vote lead.

Wherever the mathematical calculations fall in the end, Obama made it more crystal clear than ever that his focus is now on running a general election campaign. Appearing in Iowa rather than the site of his Oregon win, Obama wanted to symbolically wrap up this primary campaign where it began on January 3rd. As he and his campaign have done in recent weeks, Obama was careful to praise Clinton and avoid any hint that he wants her to exit.

But Obama spent his time laying out the driving theme of his launch into the fall campaign - change. “Change is coming to America,” Obama proclaimed, on issues from health care to taxes, education and the war in Iraq. “It is more of the same versus change,” is how he defined the choice between himself and John McCain. “It is the past versus the future. It has been asked and answered by generations before us, and now it is our turn to choose.”

Change may be what Obama wants to talk about but as the results in Kentucky made clear is there is no change in what is a clear problem for the front-runner. Just as in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio before, voters in the Bluegrass state delivered a message that must worry even the most enthusiastic Obama supporters.

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The polls in Kentucky close at 7:00pm ET and in Oregon at 11:00pm ET but here is a look at some of the early exit poll numbers. (Note: Because Oregon conducts all elections by mail, the poll in that state was conducted by phone and was completed on Sunday).

The split within the Democratic Party that has been evident in recent contests like West Virginia was revealed once again in Kentucky, where 80 percent of those voting for Hillary Clinton saying they would be dissatisfied with Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee while just 19 percent said they would be satisfied. Forty-nine percent of Obama voters in Kentucky said they would be dissatisfied with Clinton as the nominee while 47 percent would be satisfied.

Also, just 33 percent of Clinton voters in the Bluegrass State said they would back Obama in a general election. Forty one percent said they would support Republican John McCain and 23 percent said they would not vote in the fall. Seventy one percent of Obama voters said they would back Clinton in the fall should she win the nomination.

In Oregon, however, a majority of voters supporting both candidates said they would be satisfied with the other as the nominee. Fifty eight percent of Clinton voters there would be satisfied with Obama and 55 percent of his voters said they would be satisfied with Clinton. Sixty eight percent of Clinton’s supporters in Oregon said they would support Obama in the fall while 80 percent of his voters said they would back Clinton as the nominee.

It’s Tuesday in May and you know what that means – more Democratic primary contests in a race that began in Iowa way back on January 3rd. Over four months later, Barack Obama will return to that first-on-the-nation caucus state to claim at least some measure of victory as he’s expected to have won a majority of the pledged delegates available in the race by the time all the votes in Oregon and Kentucky are counted. Hillary Clinton may stick to her guns and finish the race, stretching it out to the bitter end and hoping for a settlement in Florida and Michigan that could extend the race even beyond the end of the primary season on June 3rd. Some remaining questions and thoughts:

A forty-one point blowout win in West Virginia did nothing to improve Clinton's position in the race. By the next evening, John Edwards was endorsing Obama and by the end of the week the onetime Democratic front-runner was reduced to sitting on the sidelines. Will her expected big win in Kentucky yield better results? Unlikely, given Obama’s expected win in Oregon later in the night but if she can manage to run up the score it helps her popular vote argument a bit.

Another big loss isn’t what a candidate on the verge of capturing the majority of pledged delegates really wants but it’s not going to change the math. Time zones aren’t going to help boost his aura of inevitability either – at least not before Wednesday. Because Kentucky’s polls close at 7:00pm ET, pundits and media outlets could be dissecting another loss for Obama (and perhaps his failure to win over those “blue-collar” voters) for hours before the polls “close” in Oregon at 11:00pm ET. And, because Oregon conducts all elections by mail, the counting can be slow. It’s possible a winner won’t be declared before most of the East Coast is fast asleep.

Clinton’s West Virginia win at least kept her campaign chugging along for another week. But there are nearly two weeks after tonight until the next contest in Puerto Rico. That’s a long time for a campaign to run along on fumes, something that won’t be helped as more and more attention if focused on an Obama-John McCain match-up. Sure, there will be some Florida/Michigan drama but a campaign needs oxygen to continue – will hers get enough?

John McCain has a new ad running in Iowa, "Leads," which opens with a shot of the two Democratic presidential rivals side by side.

"While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama argue and fight with each other, John McCain leads," an announcer says as the spot opens.

The ad then continues as a positive McCain spot, spotlighting, among other things, his plan for a gas tax holiday. "John McCain: Leadership, not politics," the announcer says as the spot closes. The McCain campaign didn't officially release the spot, which we've embedded via Politico:



Hillary Clinton's campaign also released three new spots today. You can see the two Kentucky spots, "Partner" and "Right Track," here and here. The ad in Oregon, "What's Right," is below. It opens with a shot of pundits discussing the – ahem – horserace nature of political coverage.

"In Washington, they talk about who's up and who's down," an announcer says as the spot opens with shots of TV pundits. "In Oregon, we care about what's right and what's wrong."