Tea Party-backed Republican Thomas Massie won a hotly contested House primary in Kentucky on Tuesday, edging out an establishment candidate and putting him on an almost certain path to election in November.
With 74 percent of precincts reporting, Massie took 45 percent of the vote, with state Rep. Alecia Webb-Edgington (R) taking second with 30 percent. Republican Gary Moore, an elected county official, came in third with 17 percent.
Massie, also a county official, had been endorsed by Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and the Club for Growth. Much of the establishment support had lined up behind Webb-Edgington, while social conservatives were rallying behind Moore.
All three were considered relative newcomers to the Kentucky political scene.
President Obama leads Mitt Romney by 8 percentage points in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, according to a survey released Tuesday from left-leaning Public Policy Polling.
The Democrat and Republican vying to replace former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) took their battle over taxes to the Arizona airwaves, with each side unveiling a new attack ad accusing the other of wanting to raise taxes.
The National Republican Congressional Committee launched its latest ad supporting Jesse Kelly, who almost unseated Giffords in 2010 and won the GOP nomination in April to finish her term. The ad attacks his Democratic opponent, Ron Barber, and cites an unnamed “recent study” that says almost 250,000 jobs could be lost under President Obama’s healthcare reform law.
“Higher taxes and more lost jobs. That’s what we’ll get if we let Ron Barber rubber-stamp the Obama-Pelosi agenda,” says the narrator in NRCC ad.
Barber, who on Sunday secured the endorsement of the Arizona Republic, the state’s largest newspaper, released a new ad calling Kelly’s ideas radical and using footage of Kelly advocating for a 23 percent consumption tax.
“Jesse Kelly: Zero taxes for corporations, a 23 percent sales tax on us. Ron Barber says balance the budget the right way. Cut taxes for the middle class and protect Medicare,” says the narrator.
Republican Jesse Kelly unveiled a new television ad claiming that Democrat Ron Barber's support for cap-and-trade could lead to job losses and higher energy costs.
A source tracking the ad market in Arizona said Kelly's campaign has reserved about $70,000 in
airtime this week, while Democrat Ron Barber's campaign is up with about $110,000 in ads.
Rep. Brad Sherman's (D-Calif.) campaign sent out different mail pieces to Jewish and non-Jewish voters in his district, one with his mother and one with her Photoshopped out of the family portrait.
While targeting different groups with different mail pieces is a common campaign tactic, the campaign took some heat for the move. Now Sherman's campaign responds explaining its decision.
"Brad looks good in the photo, and getting five others, including three kids, to cooperate in unison in a photo is no small feat, especially on a busy playground," Sherman spokesman John Schwada told The Hill. "The campaign decided to use the original, with Mrs. Sherman, in the mailer sent to Jewish voters. Mrs. Sherman is active in the Jewish community, and it was thought her image in the photo would help make a connection with Jewish voters. As it prepared another mailing, to a wider demographic, the campaign realized the photo was, unfortunately, awkwardly composed in such a way that it almost appeared Mrs. Sherman was extraneous to the family portrait, as if she were an unexplained bystander. Instead of re-shooting the photo, Mrs. Sherman was simply Photoshopped out of the wider mailer."
Sherman is running against Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) in a Los Angeles district that combines their old territory.
The political arm of FreedomWorks, a Tea Party group, has taken sides in an intra-party GOP primary in Arizona, backing Rep. David Schweikert over Rep. Ben Quayle.
“Congressman Schweikert has emerged as a leader and legislative entrepreneur,” said Max Pappas, the executive director of FreedomWorks PAC. “His fellow members of Congress look to him for direction and he has been willing to stand on the front lines of every major debate, from the debt crisis to fixing the economy.”
Schweikert and Quayle are squaring off in a redistricting-related primary to determine who will have a chance to remain in the House. Fiscal conservative groups, including Citizens United and the Club for Growth, as well as Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), have expressed their support for Schweikert, while Quayle is presumed to have the backing of much of the GOP leadership in the House.
FreedomWorks also weighed in Tuesday on another House primary in Arizona, backing state Sen. Ron Gould (R) over Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.). A third candidate in that race, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu (R), dropped out last week.
FreedomWorks’s record has been hit-and-miss this cycle. The group backed Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R), who successfully ousted incumbent Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) in early May. But the group also supported Nebraska state Treasurer Don Stenberg (R), who came in third place on Tuesday in the primary for the state’s open Senate seat.
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