Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:<\/p>\n
* In New York’s mayoral primary yesterday, Former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer came this close<\/i> to avoiding a run-off race, ending up with 39.95% of the vote — and he needed 40%. As it turns out, however, it was close enough: Rep. Anthony Weiner, who came in second with 29%, conceded the race<\/a> this morning.<\/p>\n * Stephen Laffey (R) starts off his primary challenge against Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) at a serious disadvantage — a new Brown University poll<\/a> shows Chafee leading among GOP primary voters, 44% to 24%. On the other side of the aisle, former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse leads Rhode Island Secretary of State Matt Brown in the Dem primary, 32% to 16%. When one adds the numbers, it’s obvious that undecideds still dominate in both races.<\/p>\n * Many Montana Dems believe incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns (R) is vulnerable, and a new statewide poll shows the leading Dems within relative striking distance. A Rasmussen poll<\/a>, released yesterday, shows Burns leading state Senate President Jon Tester (D), 51% to 38%, and leading State Auditor John Morrison (D), 51% to 39%. Both Dems trail Burns significantly in name-recognition.<\/p>\n * Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) received more bad news yesterday, when another Dem announced interest in a primary challenge in next year’s gubernatorial race. Last week, State Sen. Vicki Walker (D) said she’d take Kulongoski on, and yesterday, State Sen. Rick Metsger, a former TV news anchor and reporter, said he’s “seriously thinking<\/a>” about taking on Kulongoski in the 2006 governor’s race<\/p>\n * In Iowa, the large field of Dems running for governor next year just got a little smaller, with State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald (D) announcing<\/a> that he will run for re-election instead.<\/p>\n * And in St. Paul, Minn., voters have responded to Mayor Randy Kelly’s decision<\/a> to endorse George W. Bush last year — by voting against him in droves<\/a> yesterday. Challenger Chris Coleman (D) outdistanced Kelly by 52% to 27%, with Kelly coming perilously close to dropping behind Green Party candidate Elizabeth Dickinson, who received 19%. Coleman and Kelly will face off again in the general election in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * In New York’s mayoral primary yesterday, Former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer came this close to avoiding a run-off race, ending up with 39.95% of the vote — and he needed 40%. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}