First Primary Results

Primaries were held in Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina last night. The results were pretty boring for the most part. Dan Coats (R) won out in Indiana to take on Brad Ellsworth (D) for Evan Byah's (D) Senate seat. Lee Fisher (D) will face Rob Portman (R) for George Voinovich's (R) Senate seat. Neither of these results are surprising.

Turnout was actually pretty abysmal in Ohio as most of the races were unopposed affairs. One might have thought that the Fisher/Brunner race might have peak the Dems a little bit, but that was not the case.

In OH-2 where I live, Ms. Schmidt (R) prevailed with 61.6% of the vote. Her closest competitor, Mike Kilburn, got slammed with only 22.3% of the vote. She will face off against Surya Yalamanchili (D) who snagged 40.8% against two other candidates. Mr. Yalamanchili was the dark horse in this one but benefited when his closest rival, David Krikorian, made a statement that someone with so obvious an Indian name could not get elected. This may be true or not, but it was seen as a racist attack and both men reaped the effects.

About the only interesting thing that happened was in the North Carolina primary. There, the incumbent, Richard Burr (R) was to find out whom he would face. However, North Carolina law stipulates that the primary race winner must have at least 40% of the vote or a run-off is held between the top two candidates. Elaine Marshall (NC Secretary of State) only secured 36.4% and thus must face a run-off against Cal Cunningham (27.3%) on June 22. Thus, Mr. Burr gets that much longer to plot strategy and raise money.

Next Tuesday (May 11) is the Georgia primary. A more interesting set of primaries will be held on May 18 when Arkansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania go to the polls.