Erica Ritz
The Blaze
8/8/2012
On Tuesday, voters in Missouri, Michigan, Washington and Kansas chose their candidates for the House and Senate.
Before the races, Politico identified a number of issues to watch out for, including: the continued power of Palin’s endorsements, whether Detroit could soon be without “black representation,” what will happen to Rep. Thad McCotter’s seat, and the “rematch” between state Rep. Jack Hoogendy and Michigan GOP Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan. The New York Times, meanwhile, was more focused on who the contentious democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri will be facing in the general election.
Here’s how it all broke down…
…Conservative Republicans who’ve been working to push GOP moderates out of state legislatures in a large section of the country scored big victories in Kansas, according to the Associated Press, where a state Senate that has been an obstacle to fiscal and social policy changes is likely to have a solid majority on the right next year.
Unlike other states, where results for conservatives have been mixed, Tuesday’s primary in Kansas saw voters in GOP races oust seven incumbent moderate senators. An eighth, Senate President Steve Morris, a moderate Hugoton Republican, trailed his conservative opponent, likely marking the end of Morris’ 20-year career as a legislator.
The targeted moderate incumbents outspent their conservative challengers, often by margins of 3-to-1 or more and received financial support from the state’s largest teachers’ union and labor groups normally aligned with Democrats. But conservatives had the backing of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and the anti-tax, small-government group Americans for Prosperity, and the result was hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending by both candidates and political action committees…
Read the entire article at The Blaze.
