Battle To Succeed McCollum Shapes Up
A novice politician, who secured the Republican nomination by defeating an established state lawmaker, will face a popular former commission chairwoman in one of the most closely watched congressional races in the nation.
Attorney Ric Keller won a surprise victory Tuesday in the Republican runoff election, getting 52 percent of the votes compared with state Rep. Bill Sublette's 48 percent.
In another runoff, a sheriff known for using his office to promote views on abortion and religion lost to one of his former officers.
Keller, 36, will now take on Democrat Linda Chapin, former chairwoman of the Orange County Commission, in the race for the House seat being vacated by Republican Bill McCollum.
“Seventeen months ago, when I filed my papers to run for Congress, I was an unknown, a private citizen ... I had no rich friends or deep pockets,” Keller said. “I said if I worked hard for the right reasons, it would work out.”
In the race between Keller and Sublette, National Republican political groups paid for television attack ads that at various times accused the candidates of being too liberal, raising taxes and taking money from corporate polluters.
Democrats said the GOP candidate will have a tough time uniting local Republicans with only a month until the general election.
“The Republican primary was nastier than any primary in the country,” said John Del Cecato, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington. “They have a very short time to heal very deep wounds.”
In conceding Tuesday, Sublette said, “I know as Republicans, we'll all get behind him and make sure we keep this seat in Republican hands.”
Democrats view the 8th District as one of their best chances to win back one of the six seats needed to take control of the House.
“I think it's going to be a classic kind of race between two candidates with strongly held positions and clear differences,” Chapin said.
In the law enforcement face-off, Lee County Sheriff John McDougall lost to Rod Shoap, a major who resigned to run for sheriff after 22 years with the department. Shoap received 68 percent of the votes to McDougall's 32 percent
McDougall, who has been in office 12 years, once called an abortion doctor seeking police protection from demonstrators a “baby killer” and said he would protect the protesters' right to free speech.