Highlights from primaries in five states
Highlights from Tuesday’s primary elections in Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
Brown wins N.H. Senate bid
Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, a front-runner since he announced his bid in April, glided to an easy win Tuesday in the Republican primary for Senate in neighboring New Hampshire.
Brown was one of 10 candidates on the Republican ballot seeking to challenge first-term Democratic incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in November. That race is among those expected to decide control of the Senate for the final two years of President Barack Obama’s term.
Brown won a special election in 2010 in Massachusetts to finish the term of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, but he lost his bid for a full term two years later to Democrat Elizabeth Warren. Late last year, he moved to New Hampshire.
Worth noting: Brown beat Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in that 2010 Senate race. She was also on the ballot Tuesday – and won her primary for governor of Massachusetts.
Tierney loses to veteran
U.S. Rep. John Tierney of Massachusetts conceded defeat to Iraq war veteran Seth Moulton, bringing an end to his congressional career after 18 years in office.
Tierney, a Democrat who prides himself on his constituent service and his record on education, barely survived the 2012 election. He edged out Richard Tisei, a former state senator and openly gay Republican, by just 4,330 votes.
Moulton will face Tisei, again the Republican nominee, in November.
Cuomo defeats activist
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo didn’t end up having much to worry about when it came to winning his Democratic primary against Zephyr Teachout, a largely unknown liberal activist.
But Teachout’s presence on the ballot nonetheless served as a referendum on Cuomo among liberals, highlighting his uneasy relationship with the party base. Cuomo won the race with ease, but he fell far shy of posting the kind of overwhelming victory that might have been expected from a popular incumbent aiming to win a second term in November.
Teachout is a Fordham University law professor and former director of the good-government Sunlight Foundation who criticized Cuomo for his support for charter schools and business-friendly tax cuts, while saying he hasn’t done enough to address government corruption and income inequality.
Cuomo moves on to face Republican Rob Astorino, the Westchester County executive, and Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins in November.
Other governor races
Three states were picking nominees for governor:
• New Hampshire: Retired defense industry executive Walt Havenstein secured the support of the Republican establishment early and beat tea party activist Andrew Hemingway and two others.
• Massachusetts: Coakley won some measure of political redemption after her loss to Brown, a defeat that ended the Democrats’ supermajority in the U.S. Senate. She beat state Treasurer Steven Grossman and Donald Berwick, a former federal health care administrator, to win the Democratic nomination for governor.
In the Republican primary, Charlie Baker, chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, beat tea party-backed candidate Mark Fisher.
• Rhode Island: Gina Raimondo beat Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and newcomer Clay Pell, husband of Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan, to win the Democratic nomination for governor in Rhode Island.
Raimondo will face Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, who beat businessman Ken Block, founder of the Moderate Party, on the Republican side of the ballot.
Up next
Tuesday was the final primary election of the 2014 midterms until Election Day – for every state but Louisiana. The same day, Nov. 4, Louisiana holds a “jungle primary,” with all candidates on the ballot, even those of the same party. If no candidate receives 50 percent-plus-one vote during the primary election, a runoff election will be held on Dec. 6 between the top two vote-getters in the primary.