GOP picking a nominee for Missouri's Senate race

HENRY C. JACKSON,Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — All along, the Repub­li­cans have con­sid­ered Demo­c­ra­tic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Mis­souri one of their top tar­gets in the Sen­ate this year. They just haven’t known who her GOP oppo­nent would be.

Party vot­ers decided on Tues­day among three con­tenders — Sarah Palin-backed Sarah Steel­man, busi­ness­man John Brun­ner and Rep. Todd Akin, who was endorsed by for­mer Arkansas Gov. Mike Huck­abee — in the mar­quee con­test of four states’ pri­maries. No clear favorite emerged in advance of the Mis­souri bal­lot­ing that was set­ting up one of November’s most antic­i­pated Sen­ate contests.

All three Repub­li­cans cast them­selves as the best con­ser­v­a­tive alter­na­tive to McCaskill, who is seek­ing re-election for the first time since win­ning her seat in 2006.

Other races in the four states with elec­tions Tues­day included:

— A Repub­li­can pri­mary in Michi­gan to deter­mine who will take on Demo­c­ra­tic Sen. Deb­bie Stabenow, the chair­woman of the Sen­ate Agri­cul­ture Committee.

— Mem­ber– vs.-member pri­mary con­tests in Michi­gan and Mis­souri, includ­ing a show­down between two of Missouri’s most promi­nent Demo­c­ra­tic fam­i­lies. Reps. Russ Car­na­han and William Lacy Clay vied for a St. Louis-area seat in a race brought on by con­gres­sional redistricting.

— A Demo­c­ra­tic con­gres­sional pri­mary for an open seat in Wash­ing­ton state.

In addi­tion, long­time Demo­c­ra­tic Rep. John Cony­ers was on the bal­lot in Michi­gan, seek­ing to hold off a pri­mary chal­lenge in his district.

And in Kansas, Repub­li­can pri­maries could deter­mine whether a con­ser­v­a­tive bloc would take con­trol of the state Legislature.

The closely watched Mis­souri race between Steel­man, Akin and Brun­ner promised the most national con­se­quence. The GOP needs to net four seats from Democ­rats to gain con­trol of the Sen­ate in 2012.

The GOP hope­fuls have lam­basted McCaskill for what they say are her close ties to Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and, in par­tic­u­lar, her vote for Obama’s sig­na­ture health care law. The race took on a dif­fer­ent dynamic in recent days as Palin and Huck­abee — two of the GOP’s most promi­nent faces — lent their back­ing to candidates.

Palin, in par­tic­u­lar, has been dogged in her sup­port of Steel­man, a for­mer state trea­surer. Palin has appeared in tele­vi­sion and radio ads and cam­paigned with Steel­man at a series of events in the state. Steel­man, 54, has said she hopes to cap­i­tal­ize on the momen­tum of Ted Cruz, the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee for the Sen­ate in Texas. He rode strong tea party sup­port — and a timely boost from Palin — to an upset vic­tory in that state’s Sen­ate pri­mary last week.

Akin, 65, has also billed him­self as a tea party sup­porter and has a strong con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ing record in Con­gress. But both Steel­man and Brun­ner have sought to use that expe­ri­ence against him, por­tray­ing them­selves as outsiders.

The 60-year-old Brun­ner is a for­mer CEO and chair­man of Vi-Jon Inc., a health care prod­ucts man­u­fac­turer. He has spent more than $7.5 mil­lion of his own money to cam­paign for the seat. He stops short of call­ing him­self a tea party can­di­date, but he has the back­ing of Free­dom­Works, a national tea party group that also endorsed Cruz in Texas.

Polls indi­cate that any of the three would stand a good chance of defeat­ing McCaskill. She has taken the unusual step of air­ing tele­vi­sion ads tar­get­ing all three, a tac­tic that reflects the uncer­tain nature of the GOP primary.

Repub­li­can vot­ers in Michi­gan were pick­ing between two can­di­dates who cast them­selves as con­ser­v­a­tives. That con­test pit­ted for­mer Rep. Pete Hoek­stra against Clark Durant, with the win­ner tak­ing on Stabenow. She is run­ning for her third term and has enjoyed a steady lead in polls.

On the Demo­c­ra­tic side in Michi­gan, Cony­ers was seek­ing to hold off a pri­mary chal­lenge that was prompted, in part, by tweaks to his con­gres­sional dis­trict because of redis­trict­ing. In another race affected by redis­trict­ing, incum­bent Demo­c­ra­tic Reps. Hansen Clarke and Gary Peters were run­ning against each other in a con­test that will see one of them leave Con­gress next year.

In Wash­ing­ton, seven peo­ple were run­ning for a seat rep­re­sent­ing the newly drawn 1st Con­gres­sional Dis­trict. They included Democ­rats Suzan Del­Bene, Darcy Burner, state Sen. Steve Hobbs, Laura Rud­er­man and Dar­shan Rau­ni­yar, Repub­li­can John Koster; and inde­pen­dent Larry Ish­mael. Wash­ing­ton state votes by mail, so all of the state’s 3.7 mil­lion vot­ers received their bal­lots weeks ago. Vot­ers had to have their bal­lots post­marked and in the mail by Tues­day or drop them off at spe­cial boxes around the state by 8 p.m. local time.

The Kansas pri­mary was defined by a fight between the state GOP’s con­ser­v­a­tive wing and its more mod­er­ate ele­ments. Con­ser­v­a­tives were hop­ing to use the pri­mary to take deci­sive con­trol of the state Sen­ate, where mod­er­ate Repub­li­cans have slowed efforts to cut taxes, shrink gov­ern­ment and pass more con­ser­v­a­tive social poli­cies. A dozen mod­er­ate incum­bent Repub­li­cans faced chal­lenges from the right, includ­ing the Sen­ate president.

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