Bennet Defeats Romanoff in Colorado Primary

Appointed Sen. Michael Bennet won the Democratic nomination to a full term in Colorado Tuesday night, overcoming a fierce primary challenge at home and an outbreak of anti-establishment fever nationwide. In Connecticut, Linda McMahon easily won the Republican Senate primary to join the growing slate of outsider-candidates who will carry the GOP banner this fall.

On a four-state primary night, former Rep. Nathan Deal led former Secretary of State Karen Handel narrowly in late returns in a Republican gubernatorial runoff in Georgia. The two vied for the right to take on former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes in November.

And in Minnesota, conservative State Rep. Tom Emmer easily won the Republican nomination for governor. Four Democrats sought the opposing spot on the ballot.

McMahon, who has vowed to spend as much as $50 million in personal funds in her campaign, will be the underdog in the fall in a race with Democratic Attorney General Blumenthal to replace retiring Sen. Chris Dodd, also a Democrat. The two rivals could not be less alike — he the longtime statewide office holder and she the political neophyte whose rise is part of a nationwide political trend that favors outsiders. Among McMahon's primary victims was former Rep. Rob Simmons, who began the primary campaign as the favorite and fell so far behind that he suspended his candidacy earlier in the year.

Simmons rejoined the race in recent weeks as attacks focused on the sometimes raunchy scenes that are part of WWE's appeal, but McMahon was gaining nearly 49 percent of the vote in a three-way race, with returns counted from nearly 60 percent of the state's precincts.

In Colorado, Bennet was gaining 54 percent of the vote, compared with 45 percent for Andrew Romanoff, the former speaker of the state House, as he bid to defy a trend that has dealt defeat to a half-dozen U.S. Senate and House incumbents in other states.

Bennet was appointed to his seat nearly two years ago when Ken Salazar resigned to become Interior secretary in the Obama administration. Romanoff had hoped for the appointment, and he spurned entreaties from senior party officials to skip the race with Bennet.

In an intense campaign, both men sought the mantle of political outsider. Yet each relied on very well-known establishment politicians to help them — President Barack Obama in Bennet's case and former President Bill Clinton in Romanoff's.

The Republican primary was equally intense, pitting former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton against Ken Buck, a county district attorney and former federal prosecutor.

They, too, sparred over ownership of the outsider's credentials. Both also have ties to tea party activists, although Buck expressed frustration at one point, asking aloud for someone to tell those "dumba---s" to stop asking him about Obama's birth certificate while he was being recorded. He later expressed regret for the remarks.

With returns counted from more than half the precincts, Buck had 51 percent of the vote and Norton had 48.