Republican Sen. Pat Roberts
Tuesday night brought us primaries in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington. Here's a recap of all the action, with Daily Kos Elections' race ratings appended to the end of each summary.
• KS-Sen (R): Sen. Pat Roberts hung on to defeat his primary challenger, physician Milton Wolf, but by a weak 48-41 margin. If conservatives had found a stronger challenger (one who hadn't posted patients' X-rays on Facebook then made offensive comments about them), and if the tea party establishment had spent real money here, Roberts could very well have lost. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.
Daily Kos released a late poll of the primary, using Google Consumer Surveys, and found Roberts ahead 53-39. For a primary, this result was quite reasonable: just 5 points off for Roberts and only 2 for Wolf. A SurveyUSA poll a couple of weeks earlier, by contrast, had Roberts ahead 50-30.
What's also interesting is that the Google poll was conducted entirely in a single morning the day before the election, a method that traditional polling could not have replicated (and which would have cost far more had anyone even tried). If voter preferences are moving quickly toward the end of a volatile campaign, which may well have been the case here, this approach allows researchers to capture that shift as closely as possible. For a strictly online poll, these results are a promising sign for the future.
In November, Roberts will face Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor, who narrowly beat attorney Patrick Wiesner, 53-47, for the Democratic nomination. Kansas hasn't elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, but wealthy independent Greg Orman is also in the mix, and he's already been spending freely on TV ads. (Safe R)
Head below the fold to read our recap of Tuesday's other races.
• KS-01 (R): Rep. Tim Huelskamp turned in a pathetic showing against his Some Dude opponent, Alan LaPolice, winning by just 55-45. Big agribusiness was unhappy with Huelskamp's tea-fueled enthusiasm for cutting their precious federal subsidies, but they failed to put real oomph behind the underfunded LaPolice. Next time, Huelskamp could well go down.
Incidentally, Huelskamp's own polling utterly failed to show the danger he faced: A month ago, The Polling Company had him up 50 points. Even a more recent Remington Research poll for a super PAC that had backed LaPolice had Huelskamp winning 50-29. Yeah, the race probably closed late, and polling primaries is hard, but it shouldn't be this hard. (Safe R)
• KS-04 (R): Under other circumstances, Rep. Mike Pompeo's 63-37 win wouldn't seem hugely impressive. But his opponent was the man he succeeded in Congress, ex-Rep. Todd Tiahrt, so his victory was actually quite decisive—and humiliating for Tiahrt. SurveyUSA had Pompeo up just 46-39 with a couple of weeks to go, so they missed this one. (Safe R)
• MI-03 (R): Rep. Justin Amash has long infuriated establishment Republicans with his glibertarian propensities, but he nevertheless held on to fight another day. Businessman Brian Ellis fell short, losing 57-43. A furious Amash refused to accept Ellis' concession call, citing ads Ellis ran calling Amash "Al Qaeda's best friend in Congress." (Safe R)
• MI-04 (R): State Sen. John Moolenaar, the establishment choice, wound up handily turning back self-funding businessman Paul Mitchell, 52-36, in this solidly red open seat. Two pollsters blew the race, though: Strategic National (a Republican firm) and Mitchell Research (non-partisan) both had the contest as a straight-up tie between Moolenaar and Mitchell with just a week to go. (Safe R)
• MI-08 (R & D): Former state Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop beat state Rep. Tom McMillin by a convincing 60-40 margin to secure the GOP nomination for this open seat. Bishop will be the clear favorite against Ingham County Treasurer Eric Schertzing, who held off Susan Grettenberger 43-38 for the Democratic nod. (Lean R)
• MI-11 (R & D): Accidental Congressman Kerry Bentivolio proved himself worth of the epithet. Bentivolio, who lucked into a House seat last cycle after Rep. Thad McCotter got thrown off the ballot for filing fraudulent signatures, can now go back to raising reindeer. Foreclosure attorney Dave Trott tossed him off his sleigh by a 66-34 margin, handing Bentivolio the third-worst primary defeat for an incumbent in the last two decades. (In an amusing aside, John Boehner had headlined a fundraiser for Bentivolio last year, and none other than Eric Cantor gave him $10,000!)
Democrats, meanwhile, nominated former State Department official Bobby McKenzie, who narrowly edged physician Anil Kumar 34-32. While the DCCC at one point offered McKenzie a bit of an attaboy, Trott starts the general election with a decisive advantage in this red-leaning district. (Likely R)
• MI-14 (D): Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence and state Rep. Rudy Hobbs were neck-and-neck for much of the night, but right at the end, a final batch of votes gave Lawrence a decisive 36-32 lead. (Ex-Rep. Hansen Clarke finished with 31.) Lawrence declared victory and says that Hobbs conceded, but at least at one point overnight, there were discrepancies between the AP's tally and those of local election officials. Detroit's no stranger to wonky election results (remember last year's mayoral race?), so we may not have our answers yet. (Safe D)
• WA-04 (2): Republicans won both spots in Washington's top-two primary for this dark red open seat. Former NFL player Clint Didier took first with 30 percent while former state Agriculture Director Dan Newhouse was finished second with 27. (The rest of the field was far behind.) Didier and Newhouse will now square off again in November. (Safe R)
• In Missouri, a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a "right to farm" appears to have passed by an incredibly narrow three-tenths of a percent. Though it sounds charmingly pastoral, the amendment actually purports to exempt farming from regulation (even to the point of permitting puppy mills) and was heavily backed by big agribusiness.