Democrats See Hope for Fall in Victory in House Race
WASHINGTON — As the two parties pored over the results from the primary voting on Tuesday, searching for lessons for the rest of the midterm election cycle, House Democrats turned their attention on Wednesday to celebrating a victory in a Pennsylvania special election, calling it a turning point in the battle for control of Congress. Chastened Republicans, meanwhile, regrouped and vowed to topple Democrats in the fall.
Ed Reinke/Associated Press
Rand Paul, bottom left, with his family as he arrived for his victory party in Bowling Green, Ky., on Tuesday. More Photos »
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What do Tuesday’s primaries in Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Kentucky indicate for the November contests?
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Senator Arlen Specter, with his wife, Joan, in Philadelphia on Tuesday night. He was seeking nomination for a sixth term in his first Senate race as a Democrat. More Photos »
The triumph by Mark Critz, the Democratic candidate in the blue-collar 12th District, which was represented for decades by the lateJohn P. Murtha, was interpreted by Democrats as clear evidence that they can prevail even in a tough political environment, if they emphasize local issues and reach out intensively to voters.
“Republican policies were once again rejected when it came time to face the voters,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
For Republicans, the failure to take an open seat that they made great efforts to capture was interpreted as a warning to curtail talk of how many seats they will win in November.
“I do think we will reclaim the majority, but last night is evidence of the fact that we have a lot of work to do and we can’t get ahead of ourselves,” Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, told reporters.
The Pennsylvania House victory came on a night when voters discarded establishment-backed candidates in Senate primaries in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, raising the prospect that incumbents in both parties could be turned out by angry voters in November.
In a series of morning television interviews, Rand Paul, the new Republican Senate nominee in Kentucky, said the public was incensed over what they see as an arrogance coming out of Washington.
“Our government is out of control, spending is out of control, and really, the deficits are getting to the point where they endanger our country,” Mr. Paul said on CNN Wednesday.
Mr. Paul, the most visible symbol of the Tea Party movement in the races on Tuesday, easily defeated Trey Grayson, who was supported by the most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill, Kentucky’s other senator, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, rejected Senator Arlen Specter, who switched parties a year ago in hopes of salvaging a 30-year career, and instead selected Representative Joe Sestak.
Both outcomes, along with a Democratic primary in Arkansas that pushed Senator Blanche Lincoln into a runoff election in June, illustrated anew the serious threats both parties face from candidates who are able to portray themselves as outsiders and eager to shake up the system.
President Obama, who backed Mr. Specter in Pennsylvania and Ms. Lincoln in Arkansas, said nothing about the election results at two White House events on Wednesday, a ceremony to sign a bill promoting press freedom around the world and a news conference with the visiting president of Mexico, Felipe CalderĂ³n. Mr. Obama did not respond to questions about the voting from reporters at either event.
Tuesday was the biggest primary day so far in the midterm election year, as voters in Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Oregon selected Congressional candidates for the fall, providing fresh opportunities for Republicans and Democrats to vent their anger over the size of government, the federal budget deficit and many policies of the Obama administration. The primary elections on Tuesday helped set the stage for what promises to be a turbulent five-month campaign, as Republicans try to wrest control of the House and Senate from Democrats and win several governors’ races across the country, and Democrats fight to retain the ability to pass legislation in Washington.
On the Democratic side, organized labor, which invested millions into the races in Pennsylvania and Arkansas, did not achieve a victory in either state. On the right, another show of Tea Party strength left the Republican party leadership scrambling to reconnect with the grassroots.
“It’s just a tremendous mandate for the Tea Party,” Mr. Paul said. “It cannot be overstated that people want something new, they don’t want the same old, same old politicians. They think the system is broken and needs new blood.”
In November, Mr. Paul will face Jack Conway, the Kentucky attorney general, who won the Democratic nomination.
Mr. Specter, 80, lost his bid for a sixth term despite the backing of a wide swath of theDemocratic Party leadership, from Mr. Obama and the White House to Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania.
“It’s been a great privilege to serve the people of Pennsylvania,” said Mr. Specter, looking drawn and downcast as he delivered a brief concession speech. With nearly all the vote counted, Mr. Sestak had 54 percent, compared with Mr. Specter’s 46 percent.
Mr. Specter won the backing of the White House after his decision last year to switch parties and help provide Democrats with a 60-vote majority in the Senate, but Mr. Sestak embarked on an aggressive campaign that sought to remind voters of what he portrayed as his opponent’s politically expedient change.
Mr. Specter was trying to make the case that his seniority and experience were needed in Congress to help his economically struggling state while Mr. Sestak, in a cuttingly effective television advertisement, tried to raise trust and credibility questions about Mr. Specter because of his long history as a Republican.
Though Mr. Obama made an automated telephone call on Mr. Specter’s behalf and was featured in advertisements, he did not make a final visit to the state on the senator’s account and made an appearance on Tuesday in Ohio instead.
Mr. Sestak, smiling broadly on Tuesday evening, declared victory by pointedly noting that he had stood up to his own party “when that party doesn’t get it right for us.”
“It’s no surprise that people wanted change,” he said. “When I went to Congress just a few years ago, after 31 years in the wonderful United States Navy, I found too many career politicians are a bit too concerned about keeping their jobs, rather than serving the public and rather than helping the people.”
Mr. Rendell, in an interview before the polls closed, cautioned against drawing broad conclusions from the results, and said Mr. Specter and most incumbents were running in a difficult environment. He said Mr. Specter and Mr. Sestak had cast similar voters over the past year, particularly on the health care and economic stimulus bills.
“In fairness to Arlen,” Mr. Rendell said, “if the economy was O.K. and there was no anti-incumbent wave, this wouldn’t have been a close election.”
In the special election in southwestern Pennsylvania, Mr. Critz, a former aide to Mr. Murtha, defeated Tim Burns, a Republican businessman. Though Democrats dominate in the district, its voters are blue-collar conservatives, and it is exactly the type of swing district — carried by Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election but by SenatorJohn McCain in 2008 — that Republicans must win if they are to reach their goal of taking control of the House in November. The loss dealt a blow to Republicans, who have been raising expectations for the fall.
“If you can’t win a seat that is trending Republican in a year like this, then where is the wave?” asked Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman from Virginia, who said Republicans will need to examine what went wrong.
Yet other Republican leaders hailed the primary outcomes in the Senate on Tuesday evening as a sign that the anti-government mood echoing across the country will benefit the party in November.
Senator Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who is chairman of the Senate Conservative Fund, an organization that has been supporting conservative candidates in Republican primaries, hailed Mr. Paul’s victory in Kentucky as a defeat of the Washington political establishment.
“The Washington establishment threw everything they had at him and yet he prevailed,” Mr. DeMint said. “Rand’s victory is part of an American awakening that is taking place across the country as people embrace the principles of freedom that are the backbone of our country.”
Mr. Paul, the son of Representative Ron Paul of Texas, whose quixotic bid for president in 2008 helped inspire the Tea Party movement, built his campaign on a message of term limits and smaller government.
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