UPDATE #1: WASH-5: Anderson out. The Times Argus is reporting that Rep. Jon Anderson has lost his primary re-election bid to Rep. Warren Kitzmiller and Montpelier Mayor Mary Hooper. Hooper was the top vote getter (900), Kitzmiller came in at 829 and Anderson at 583 despite reports of city Republicans openly admitting to bullet voting for him on the Dem ballot (these are unofficial results). Also, Anderson only received 19 write-ins on R ballots, meaning he won’t be the Republican candidate either (the threshold was 25).
UPDATE #2: Welch beats Hill. Duh.
UPDATE #3: WCAX reports at 8:20 that 30 of 260 precincts (12 percent) have reported in, giving Costello 60% and Freeman 40% – of course that’s only 1450 and 978 votes respectively, but I just heard that there are similar results coming in from Franklin County towns. Also, I am told that Costello won in Montpelier (although not by much), and frankly, if Freeman couldn’t take Montpelier, with its higher turnout than most of the state (due to the House primary), liberal-leaning electorate, and being practically Freeman’s backyard, then he’s likely not going to win this thing.
I’d have to say its probably going to be Costello by roughly the 60-40 spread we’re seeing now, possibly more.
UPDATE #4 – WCAX calls it for Costello. With 45% of the polling places reporting, its at 61% for Costello, 39% for Freeman.
UPDATE #5 – The Free Press has some early Chittenden Senate results: With 9 of the 23 precincts reporting, it stands at Doug Racine 908, Ginny Lyons 863, Ed Flanagan 776, Hinda Miller 672, Denise Barnard 611, Tim Palmer 497, Tim Ashe 426, Dennis McMahon 241, and Sean Starfighter 156.
UPDATE #6 – More from the Freeps: Richmond and Hinesburg have come in with similar numbers (although Barnard is a lot higher up in Richmond). Unless Burlington really turns it around for Ashe (given that some of the big burb towns that have yet to come in will be his weakest), it’s looking likely that the Chittenden Senate slate will be (no surprises) Racine, Lyons, Flanagan, Miller, Barnard and Palmer.
UPDATE #7 – Washington-Chittenden 1 (Waterbury, Duxbury, Huntington, Buel’s Gore) 2 seats. Jack reporting–I just got off the phone with Sue Minter from a lively celebration at The Alchemist.
Sue Minter–592
Tom Stevens–439
Gordon Miller–154
UPDATE #8 – Allard goes down in Franklin 2. It’s not a done deal yet, but it looks like the biggest Jim-Dog of them all – Ron Allard – will likely come in fourth out of four in the primary. It’s likely to be
McWilliams Greg “Moose” Christie and Howrigan.
McWilliams is another conservative Moose is a moderate D, but – hey – sometimes its all about baby steps.
At least he’ll likely Christie will come through for the caucus when the chips are down (of course he’ll have to get past a general election with Allard on the ballot as an I, most likely). (Caoimhin UPDATE) If Moose wins in November, he’ll be easy to recognize as a freshman representative. Here is a recent picture of him:
UPDATE #9 – Ballot trouble in Burlington. Yup. Again. This time its not enough ballots in some areas and its slowing up the results.
UPDATE #10 – Windham 5: Deen and Mrowicki are the unofficial Democratic Party nominees. Christian reporting in. I just got off the phone with
the Brattleboro Reformer. Here’s the vote tallies they have so far.
David Deen: 910
Mike Mrowicki: 818
Steve Darrow: 521
Even though the results are still unofficial, I don’t expect them to change. I’m certain that Deen and Mrowicki will represent the Dems for Windham 5 and they will not have any Republican challengers in November. Darrow forgot to submit his candidacy on time, so voters had to write him in as a candidate. Not sure if that hurt him in the end, but I still think we’re sitting pretty with the other two.
UPDATE #11: More Demward movement in Franklin County. Dem write-in candidates Margo Sherwood in Franklin-6 & George Bilodeau in Franklin-1 have likely qualified for the general election ballots.
UPDATE #12 – Out-of-state news: Al Franken wins the DFL primary to qualify for the general election in Minnesota against Republican nonentity Norm Coleman. (Jack)
UPDATE #13 – More big blue-to-bluer news from Chittenden 3-5: Keogh is out. Challenger Suzi Wizowaty has unseated Blue Dog Bill Keogh. Wizowaty will join Joey Donovan on the Dem ballot line in November. Unexpected (and welcome) news. Definitely a big night for the
“better” part of the
“more and better Dems” blogosphere mantra.
UPDATE #14 – As per Rep. Nease in the comments, the results in Chittenden 3-1 are “Bill Aswad and Johanna Cole (beating Susan Wheeler by single digits).” Good news, IMO. Cole is a great candidate. Also in “
Rutland 1-2 it will be David Potter and Barbara Carris.” Thanks Floyd.
UPDATE #15 – It’s Tim vs. Tim, and down to the wire in the Chittenden Dem Senate race. Surprisingly, Ashe has moved a scant 12 votes ahead of Palmer with only Burlington left to come in. The Prog city councilor running as a D may actually pull it off, and pull that #6 slot out from under Palmer…
And with that, I’m going to bed. Perhaps commenters or other GMD front pagers can keep the updates coming (or not)…
UPDATE #16 Chittenden Senate-Does anyone else think it’s ridiculous that the polls closed more than twelve hours ago and we still don’t know what happened in Burlington? Jack
Post ’em as you get ’em, and I’ll do the same.
First of all, a few belated GMD shout outs: Not only did our own JDRyan get hitched this last weekend, but so did Welch staffer and former Dem Party ED Jon Copans to lobbyist Rebecca McCarty. They even have a wedding web page. See?
Also getting birthday shout outs are our own “Vermonter” – Neil Jensen – as well as Candleblogger Bill Simmon. I think those are late shout outs as well.
And of course, a big shout out to Essex Junction uberblogger Steve Benen for hitting the even-bigger time by appearing on Rachel Maddow’s new MSNBC show on its first night yesterday. Unfortunately I missed it, but I think we all look forward to seeing Steve become an MSNBC regular and coming to blows with Pat Buchanan.
Okay, I’m hoarse from all the shout outs…. back to the Primary…
I’ve been trying to figure which of the Lite Gov candidates gains more from the contested primaries. Overall, turnout will be dreadful – and it doesn’t sound like local primary contests will drive up voting in those areas more than 10% or so. Still, every vote counts, and Freeman definitely benefits from the increased turnout in Montpelier, while Costello may benefit from the Franklin County bounce. It doesn’t sound like the two-and-half-way race (with former Rep Darrow going for a write in) in Windham-5 will drive up votes that Costello could bank on.
The big question is Chittenden, which may benefit Freeman a bit. The turnout spike will be centered in two Burlington districts that are not as far left as we think of Burlington as being, but this is primary voters we’re talking about. Many of the reliable voters in those districts are fairly loyal to the Party as an institution, which helps “institutional” candidate Costello, but I suspect any spike above and beyond that base may equal a net gain for outsider Freeman – although probably not by much. We’ll see.