As my Examiner colleague David Freddoso has blogged, the June 22 elections—runoffs in South Carolina and North Carolina, primaries in Utah—resulted in good showings for conservatives. They were even better, I think, for partisan Republicans.
South Carolina Republicans nominated Indian-American Nikki Haley for governor and African-American Tim Scott for the pretty solidly Republican 1st congressional district. Both won by about 2-1 margins over white males, Congressman Gresham Barrett in the governor race and Paul Thurmond, son of the late Senator Strom Thurmond, in the 1st district. Thurmond’s father was born in 1902 and was acquainted with his father’s friend Senator “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman, who was born in 1847.
Tillman was one of those Democrats who institutionalized racial segregation and disenfranchisement of blacks in South Carolina; Strom Thurmond was of course the State’s Rights Democratic candidate for president in the 1948 general election. But once South Carolina blacks were fully enfranchised by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Strom Thurmond hired black staffers and secured the appointment of a black federal district judge in South Carolina.
Both Tim Scott and Paul Thurmond seemed aware of this historic background to their runoff campaign. Scott, a solid conservative who promised to seek zero earmarks, said “The voters voted for a guy that they felt represented their values and their issues and their philosophy.” Paul Thurmond is quoted as saying, “If some bridges are torn down because of this, that’s a great thing.”
I think Thurmond meant to say barriers rather than bridges, but the gist of his remark was clear.
In North Carolina, Republicans got the Senate nominee they wanted, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, who beat state Senator Cal Cunningham; it looks like incumbent Senator Richard Burr, despite less than dazzling poll numbers, is a favorite for reelection. And in the 8th congressional district runoff, Republican primary voters rejected odd duck Tim D’Annunzio and selected former sportscaster Harold Johnson. State Republican Chairman Tom Fetzer called D’Annunzio “unfit for office at any level” and Minority Leader John Boehner held a fundraiser for Johnson.
In Utah Mike Lee, son of Reagan administration Solicitor General Rex Lee, narrowly edged businessman Tim Bridgewater for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat held for three terms by Bob Bennett, who failed to get enough votes at the state Republican convention to get on the primary ballot. Lee is obviously a huge favorite for November.
There was some good news for Democrats, or at least for Blue Dog Democrats, in the 2nd congressional district Democratic primary , in which the state’s only Democratic congressman, Jim Matheson, won by a convincing margin over the more liberal Claudia Wright. We heard talk earlier this year that liberals were going to run candidates in primaries against Democrats who, like Matheson, have voted against Obamacare.
But filing deadlines had already passed then in many states, and few other liberal challengers emerged. Wright got on the ballot by getting more than 40% of the votes in the Utah Democratic nominating convention. But she wasn’t as strong among primary voters as she was among the party activists who showed up at the convention in Salt Lake City. Democratic strategists who feared that a liberal like Wright could not hold a district where Matheson has won five general elections can breathe easier.
