Republican race razor-close in Congressional District 1

http://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/republican-race-razor-close-in-congressional-district/article_794c5dae-8ea5-5672-a662-51cdc7fb7ae1.html

The tight three-way Republican primary race in Congressional District 1 was too close to call Tuesday night.
And with potentially tens of thousands of votes remaining to be counted in the sprawling district that covers portions of 11 counties, it could be days before a winner is known.
Businessman Gary Kiehne was ahead by 400 votes as the clock ticked toward midnight Tuesday, with state Reps. Andy Tobin and Adam Kwasman hot on his heels.
The district includes Oro Valley, Marana and parts of 10 other counties in Eastern and Northern Arizona.
The Republican nominee will take on incumbent Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick in the general election. Political pundits have labeled the race a tossup. The Republican winner will essentially be starting over with fundraising, while Kirkpatrick has more than $1 million at the ready.
Kiehne spokesman Chris Baker said the campaign was feeling about as good as possible in such a tight race.
Kwasman said he believes the race will come down to Pima and Pinal County voters. While he was running a solid third, he was the runaway leader in Pima County, which lagged behind some other counties in posting results.
Tobin spokesman Bill Cortese said his campaign knew all along it was going to be a close race, but Tobin was feeling good and feeling confident. “A lot of Tobin votes have yet to be counted,” Cortese said.
Tobin received late support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to the tune of $150,000. Mitt Romney made a robocall in support of Tobin, too.
Tobin toured the state Monday and Tuesday to greet voters, including campaign stops in Williams, Flagstaff, Holbrook, Snowflake, Show Low, Pima, Globe, SaddleBrooke and Maricopa. He was watching the election results with family in Sedona after stopping by an election-night party in Phoenix.
Kwasman threw a party Tuesday night at Bubb’s Grub, a barbecue joint in Catalina. He, too, received late support, including a robocall from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and $85,000 worth of television ads from the Hometown Freedom Action Network.
Kiehne has mostly self-funded his campaign.
In all, donors spent about $1.6 million in the District 1 primary.
Among the hot issues in this race are the state’s Medicaid expansion and Obamacare, border security and immigration reform and environmental regulations.
The candidates were plagued by gaffes. Kiehne said in a debate that most mass shooters are Democrats, a comment for which he apologized. Kwasman identified a bus load of YMCA campers as immigrant children he thought were being brought to a holding facility during a protest in Oracle.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Survivor: How Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick Held On

Image
https://www.rollcall.com/news/election-results-2014-ann-kirkpatrick-survivor Republican operatives called her race "cooked." One national news organization  put her chances at victory  of 12 percent. After all, voters in Arizona's 1st District had already fired Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick once before — in a toxic climate in 2010.   But as House Democrats fell across the country on Nov. 4, Kirkpatrick didn't just win re-election. She expanded her margin from 2012, proving naysayers wrong thanks to one, simple political maxim: To win, a candidate has to be better than his or her opponent.   And she was. Her rival, state Speaker Andy Tobin, was a top recruit for national Republicans. The party went all in for him, spending millions against Kirkpatrick on television.   But, "people know me," she said in a phone interview last week. "They're common-sense people, and I think they saw through the partisan games."   The Big Fir...
Read more

Life on Mars, or Running in Arizona’s 1st District

Image
By Jason Dick https://www.rollcall.com/news/elections-2014-ann-kirkpatrick-any-tobin-arizonas-1st-district TUBA CITY, Ariz. — The Grand Canyon State's 1st District is so vast and diverse that running for political office involves time travel.   It’s also helpful to pick up a little of a language so difficult to master it formed an unbreakable code that helped the United States win World War II.   But first, the time travel. When visiting the Navajo Nation in Northern Arizona, the largest tribe of a dozen in the district, Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick and her Republican opponent, state Speaker Andy Tobin, have to build in an extra hour.   Why? A befuddled cellphone won’t pick up on it, but the Navajo Nation observes Daylight Saving Time. The rest of the Grand Canyon State, brandishing its contrarian streak, never changes its clocks.   So to ensure Kirkpatrick was in line for the Western Navajo Nation here at 9 a.m. DST on Oct. 18, the usual ...
Read more

Social media an emerging career field for young professionals

http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Social-media-an-emerging-career-field-for-young-463177.php DANBURY --  Western Connecticut State University  student  Eddie Maher , 21, used Facebook and Twitter accounts to promote an independent film his uncle produced in 2008. His work impressed recruiters at TechniPower Systems, an engineering company in Danbury, and they offered him an internship as a "social media marketing specialist." He created and now manages their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube accounts. "I pretty much set up the skeleton for their whole online marketing campaign," Maher said. Social media could be an emerging career field, he said. At a recent university job fair, a lot of recruiters were advertising jobs that solely had to do with social media, he said. As the political director for the  Tom Foley  for Governor campaign, social networking has become part of the job description for Danbury resident  Bill Cortese . "T...
Read more