Primary sets up high stakes for fall races in Ohio

JULIE CARR SMYTH

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — Tuesday’s pri­mary results set up high stakes for fall races for U.S. Sen­ate and a newly drawn U.S. House dis­trict along the Lake Erie shoreline.

In a long-expected result, Ohio Trea­surer Josh Man­del claimed the GOP nom­i­na­tion for U.S. Sen­ate, fore­shad­ow­ing an intense and expen­sive Novem­ber con­test with Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sher­rod Brown.

Man­del eas­ily pre­vailed in a six-way Repub­li­can pri­mary, gain­ing nearly 49 per­cent of the vote statewide. He has raised some $4 mil­lion toward the gen­eral election.

Vet­eran Demo­c­ra­tic U.S. Rep. Marcy Kap­tur will face Repub­li­can Samuel Wurzel­bacher in the fall to rep­re­sent a dis­trict that stretches from Toledo to Cleve­land. Wurzel­bacher, a Toledo-area plumber, got the nick­name “Joe the Plumber” dur­ing the 2008 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign when he expressed con­cern about taxes.

Kap­tur beat fel­low U.S. Rep. Den­nis Kucinich in Tuesday’s Demo­c­ra­tic pri­mary, bump­ing the quirky and col­or­ful “boy mayor” of Cleve­land from a polit­i­cal post he had held for eight terms. Their face­off was made nec­es­sary by a redrawn map that placed them both in the same district.

Also los­ing a con­gres­sional race Tues­day was U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt, in a Repub­li­can pri­mary upset by Iraq war vet­eran Brad Wen­strup. Schmidt, who is in her fourth term, rep­re­sents a south­ern Ohio dis­trict that stretches east from Cincin­nati into Appalachia. Her entrée into the Con­gress came in a defeat of another war vet­eran, Demo­c­rat Paul Hack­ett, in 2005.

A Demo­c­ra­tic pri­mary in Schmidt’s dis­trict between William Smith and David Kriko­rian was too close to call.

In a new Colum­bus dis­trict, for­mer state Rep. Joyce Beatty defeated for­mer U.S. Rep. Mary Jo Kil­roy in a four-way Demo­c­ra­tic pri­mary. Kil­roy was mak­ing her fourth run since 2006 to rep­re­sent cen­tral Ohio. She won once, in 2008, and served one term.

Beatty had the back­ing of pop­u­lar Colum­bus Mayor Michael Cole­man for the dis­trict spe­cially designed to help send a black rep­re­sen­ta­tive to Wash­ing­ton. Beatty is black; Kil­roy is white.

The Demo­c­ra­tic face­offs resulted from a revamped con­gres­sional map that shrunk the state by two con­gres­sional dis­tricts, from 18 to 16. Under leg­isla­tive Repub­li­cans who con­trolled the process, only four of the dis­tricts were drawn to favor Democrats.

Repub­li­cans avoided their own pri­mary in south­west Ohio, with U.S. Rep. Steve Aus­tria decid­ing not to run again in a dis­trict shared with U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, the for­mer Day­ton mayor. Turner joined House Speaker John Boehner among incum­bents who won their pri­maries Tues­day. Oth­ers included Pat Tiberi, Steve Stivers, Bob Gibbs, Bill John­son, Bob Latta, and Mar­cia Fudge.

Also vic­to­ri­ous in his pri­mary was for­mer U.S. Rep. Char­lie Wil­son, who lost his bid for a third term in 2010.

Posted by AP News on Mar 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.