If Tuesday’s election results are any measure, the anti-incumbent fervor that pollsters, pundits and noisy tea partiers say is dominating the political scene is more bipartisan, more independent and considerably less predictable than its prophets would have us believe.
In Arkansas, gutsy two-term Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln weathered a stiff challenge from her party’s left wing to win a runoff primary election. Her hard-fought victory over a multi-million-dollar campaign by Lt. Gov. Bill Halter showed him and his allies in labor unions and liberal advocacy and environmental groups that centrist Democrats were not ready to toss out a politician who could assertively defend her voting record and moderate positions.
Sen. Lincoln’s next test will come against a Republican challenger in November, but her showing Tuesday may well energize supporters and help her close the divide that arose in Arkansas’ Democratic party.
Republican Rep. Bob Inglis’ high-wire act in thoroughly conservative South Carolina showed, as well, that GOP incumbents are not immune to the sort of anti-incumbent anger that the Republican party hopes will aid its effort to reclaim majority status in the House in the fall.
Rep. Inglis, a six-term incumbent, was forced into a June 22 runoff against Spartanburg County Solicitor Trey Gowdy, who led over Inglis by a 39-to-27 percent margin in a four-man race. Though he failed to gain the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff, Mr. Gowdy clearly has the upper hand going into the runoff election. It’s unlikely, for example, that voters who supported one of the other two challengers over the long-time incumbent would turn around and vote for him in the run-off.
That further demonstrates that incumbent Republicans are no more protected by their tenure from conservatives’ angst than Democrats are from their hard left. If Rep. Inglis loses, moreover, he would be the third incumbent congressman — the second Republican congressman — to lose this year.
South Carolina’s results also showed that voter displeasure with entrenched white-male conservative politicans extended to the gubernatorial race. State Rep. Nikki Haley, a 38-year-old Indian-American and potential trend-setter, pummeled three prominent, stereotypical Republicans in the GOP gubernatorial primary, taking 49 percent of the vote. She will face her nearest runner-up, U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, in the runoff election June 22, and at the moment is widely expected to win.
She overcame South Carolina’s traditional dirty politics — accusations by two men that she had extramarital affairs with them — and a racial slur to capture a heavy lead Tuesday. If she wins the runoff, she would be almost certain to win the gubernatorial election against Democrat Vincent Sheheen, a state senator, and become the first minority woman to win the governor’s office in South Carolina.
Conversely, Democrats managed to hold on to a Pennsylvania House seat that became vacant due to Rep. John Murtha’s death. Republicans had hoped to win the seat in this uniquely conservative congressional district. Mr. Murtha, a long-time incumbent Democrat, had held it partly by virtue of his personal character as a gruff former Marine, even as the district shifted politically. It was, in fact, the only congressional district in the country that switched from voting for John Kerry in 2004 to voting for John McCain in 2008.
But Democrat Mark Critz easily defeated Republican Tim Burns in the congressional race by a substantial margin of 9 percentage points. He did so by focusing on a populist message on the economic issues of jobs and outsourcing
A favorite of tea party supporters and the conservative Club for Growth, Shaaron Angle, did rise up to defeat two Republican competitors in Nevada for the right to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November. And Nevada’s incumbent Republican governor fell in a contested primary to GOP rival. But tea party favorites fell short in other closely watched races in California, Washington and Virginia.
In other races in Iowa, California and Maine, for example, long-serving incumbents won handily. On the face of it, Tuesday’s results showed no significant evidence that the purported tea party uprising was anything more than intramural GOP jousting among conservatives of differing intensity; or that Democrats face atypical voter disenchantment any greater than a majority party faces in any midterm election. If there’s more afoot than that, it’s hard to find the foundation for it.