The victory in Arkansas by Sen. Blanche Lincoln came in the marquee race of the busiest day of the US primary season. Two senators, one from each party, previously had been defeated by rivals from their own parties and Lincoln was in danger of becoming the third.
Still, elsewhere, the anti-incumbent sentiment prevailed.
In South Carolina, veteran Republican congressman Bob Inglis badly trailed his rival and barely forced a runoff.
Nevada’s Republican governor, Jim Gibbons, lost his bid for renomination after a term marked by a messy public divorce.
The primaries also offered fresh successes for the conservative, anti-Washington tea party movement, which already has helped sway several Republican races.
Nikki Haley, a candidate backed by the movement, easily outdistanced rivals in the South Carolina governor’s race, despite a nasty campaign with ethnic slurs about her Sikh family background and unsubstantiated allegations of extramarital affairs.
Tuesday’s votes, in 12 of the 50 US states, will set the stage for many of the key races in November, when Obama’s Democrats vie to preserve congressional majorities and try to hold onto governorships. Two of the more interesting races will be in the most populous US state, California. Both will pit veteran politicians against wealthy businesswomen — at a time when both politicians and big business tend to be unpopular.
Former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman won the Republican nomination for governor after investing more than $70 million of her own money in the campaign. She will face Democratic state Attorney General Jerry Brown, who was governor in the 1970s and 1980s, and won the party’s nomination again Tuesday.
The state’s Senate race features a similar match-up: Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina won the Republican nomination. She will face three-term Democratic Sen.
Barbara Boxer, a liberal stalwart who won renomination.
Democrats are bracing for losses in the November vote, which falls at the midpoint of Obama’s term. Incumbent parties traditionally lose seats in midterm elections, and Democrats, with strong majorities in both chambers of Congress, have the most seats to defend.
The task for Democrats has been made even more difficult by the weak economy, high unemployment and, most recently, growing doubts about Obama’s handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
But in recent months, incumbents from both parties have been defeated by a restless and dissatisfied American electorate.
In Arkansas, Lincoln, a moderate two-term senator, fought off a tough runoff challenge from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who was backed by unions and liberal groups. Lincoln narrowly topped Halter in the first round of voting May 18, but fell short of a majority.
Lincoln had 52 percent of the vote to 48 percent for Halter in nearly complete returns. The result marked a stunning defeat for organized labor, which had poured more than $5 million into an effort to dump Lincoln in retaliation for her departure from party orthodoxy on numerous issues.
Gibbons lost the Nevada race after a tumultuous term that was marred by a bitter divorce and allegations of infidelities. He was defeated by Brian Sandoval, a former federal judge. Sandoval will face Rory Reid, who won the Democratic primary. Reid is the son of Harry Reid, the US Senate majority leader.
The elder Reid won his party’s nomination Tuesday, but he remains one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the November vote. His popularity has fallen in Nevada, a western swing state where unemployment is close to 14 percent.
Reid will face Sharron Angle, the candidate favored by tea party activists. That is the match-up many Democrats had hoped for, figuring Reid would have a better chance of defeating her than a more moderate opponent. Angle has advocated phasing out Social Security for younger workers and once suggested that alcohol should be illegal.
Tea party activists also saw their favored candidates win in a special election in Georgia to fill a congressional vacancy and in the Maine gubernatorial primary.
The most prominent candidate backed by tea party activists was Haley in South Carolina. Four candidates were vying to replace Gov. Mark Sanford, who last year confessed to an affair with an Argentine woman. Sanford was barred by term limits from seeking re-election.
Haley, running to become the state’s first female governor, had just under the 50 percent needed to avoid a June 22 runoff against congressman Gresham Barrett, who had 22 percent of the vote.
She had to battle unsubstantiated claims from two men that she has had trysts with them. She also has been the target of racial slurs because her parents are Sikhs who emigrated from India.
The Republican nominee will face Vincent Sheheen, a state senator who won the Democratic nomination Tuesday.
In the South Carolina congressional race, Inglis finished a distant second to Trey Gowdy in a race that was a referendum of sorts on the incumbent’s support for the 2008 financial bailout.
