Voters in Alaska, Arizona and Vermont go to the polls to select candidates in primaries today, and Oklahoma voters do the same in their state's runoffs. We've written up all the key races below, and we've also provided an interactive, zoomable Google Maps version of Arizona's new congressional map:
Interactive map of Arizona's new congressional districts
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AZ-Sen (R): For a while there, it looked like free-spending businessman Wil Cardon might have a chance to upset Rep. Jeff Flake, who wound up as the establishment choice despite some serious idiosyncracies. But with a month to go in the race, presumably the polls weren't showing him closing fast enough, because Cardon went dark on TV. An aggressive, expensive ad war was the only way Cardon was going to have a shot, so by withdrawing from the battlefield early, you have to figure he has no hope.
• AZ-02 (D): Right after Ron Barber won the June special election to replace his former boss, ex-Rep. Gabby Giffords, state Rep. Matt Heinz said he planned to continue with his primary challenge, declaring: "I don't think people are going to consider Ron a real incumbent." He seems to have been wrong. In the pre-primary period, Barber raised $288K to just $42K for Heinz. More importantly, an unanswered Barber poll gave him a monster 77-13 lead. The winner will face former Air Force combat pilot Martha McSally in November.
• AZ-04 (R): Freshman Rep. Paul Gosar chose to seek reelection in the redrawn 4th District, which wound up without an incumbent, rather than the swingier 1st, but it just may be the death of him. Though it's safely red, Gosar's largely unknown to the district, and he managed to draw the ire of the Club for Growth, which is backing his main rival, state Sen. Ron Gould. (A third prominent candidate, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeau, withdrew after a former lover alleged Babeau threatened him with deportation.) The CfG spent almost $600K (mostly on TV) attacking Gosar, while only the American Dental Association has come to his aid, shelling out around $130K on mail and some radio ads. (Why the ADA? Gosar is a dentist.) Gould's fundraising has sucked, though, raised little more than a quarter of the million Gosar's taken in. There hasn't been any recent polling, so it looks like anybody's game.
Head below the fold for the rest of our writeups.
• AZ-05 (R): Ex-Rep. Matt Salmon, who left Congress a decade ago to honor a term-limits pledge, appears to have the inside track to succeed Rep. Jeff Flake. He faces State House Speaker Kirk Adams, who he's outraised, although not by much ($900K to $700K). Salmon has the support of much of the GOP establishment, and he's also released a couple of unanswered polls showing him with 30-point leads over Adams, though there's been no fresh data in the last month. Third-party groups haven't made much of an impact here.
• AZ-06 (R): The redistricting-induced incumbent-versus-incumbent battle between two freshman congressman, Ben Quayle and David Schweikert, has been exactly as ugly as you'd expect it to be (which for me is "very ugly"). Quayle, as befits his entitled fratboy pedigree, has received all sorts of succor from the establishment, including some fluffing from John Boehner himself. And a single-purpose Super PAC has spent around $600K on TV ads to support his cause. Yet despite representing more of the district, Quayle's trailed Schweikert in his opponent's internal polling and hasn't produced any numbers of his own. However, the race may have closed: Schweikert just made a last-minute $130K loan to his campaign, which of course could just be an insurance policy—or it could mean he's afraid.
• AZ-09 (D & R): The Democratic fight to represent Arizona's brand-new 9th Congressional District has been a three-way contest between state Sen. David Schapira, ex-state Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (who had to resign her prior post to run), and former state party chair Andrei Cherny. Cherny has the overall fundraising lead over Sinema, with Schapira a distant third, but Sinema's had the support of EMILY's List, which has spent $100K on her behalf, mostly on mail. Cherny's also been the target of about $50K worth of negative mail from a Super PAC. Very late in the game, Sinema accused Cherny of engaging in a whisper campaign over her sexuality (she's bisexual), while Cherny donated $130K to his own campaign. That suggests things have gotten tight, but there's been no recent public polling of the race.
The GOP contest features seven candidates and never really took much shape, though a largely anecdotal Roll Call story suggested that local power brokers expect Paradise Valley mayor Vernon Parker to be the nominee. Given how unsettled the field is, that's a prediction that could easily prove wrong. But the only other hopefuls to raise six figures are businessman Martin Sepulveda and Air Force vet Wendy Rogers, so Parker's as good a guess as any.
• OK-02 (D & R): The local Democratic establishment is rooting for former prosecutor Rob Wallace, who took 46 percent in the first round, as the preferred successor to retiring Rep. Dan Boren. But close on Wallace's heels was seed company owner Wayne Herriman, who finished with 42 percent despite being outspent by a decent margin.
Meanwhile, on the GOP side, plumbing company owner Markwayne Mullin led a six-way field with 43 percent, thanks in good part to his heavy television advertising. State Rep. George Faught finished a distant second with 23 percent, but he has a lot of ground to make up, especially seeing as Mullin's more than doubled his fundraising.