Walker top GOP choice in Wisconsin vote
MADISON, WIS. » A fiery Donald Trump loyalist and a onetime Trump skeptic seized Republican nominations for governor in two states Tuesday, while Vermont Democrats picked the nation’s first transgender nominee for governor to represent them in November.
The results came as voters across four states cast ballots and the 2018 midterm season lurched toward its finale.
Trump renewed his grip on the modern-day GOP as his pick for Kansas governor, Secretary of State Kris Kobach, scored a delayed victory against Gov. Jeff Colyer, who became the first incumbent governor to be defeated this season. Elsewhere in the Midwest, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker won the right to seek a third term, while former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was fighting to resurrect his political career and prove he fits in Trump’s GOP.
Both Walker and Pawlenty criticized Trump before he became president, but they have since rallied behind him. Elsewhere:
• Democratic Rep. Tim Walz has won a three-way primary for Minnesota governor.
Walz leveraged his rural Minnesota connections and a geographically balanced ticket to defeat state Rep. Erin Murphy and Attorney General Lori Swanson. Walz is leaving Congress after six terms representing southwestern Minnesota. Walz’s outstate appeal and pedigree as a former teacher and a National Guard veteran had long made him a favorite among Democrats trying to hang on to the office as two-term Gov. Mark Dayton retires.
But he lost the party’s endorsement in June to Murphy and shook up his campaign soon afterward.
• Randy Bryce, a union ironworker known by the nickname “Iron Stache,” won Tuesday’s Democratic primary in the race to replace Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan in Wisconsin for a seat he’s held 20 years.
Republicans, for their part, pinned their hopes on a former Ryan aide, picking Bryan Steil, an attorney who is from a prominent family in the same hometown of Ryan, in a five-way primary. Steil will face Bryce in the Nov. 6 general election.
Vermont, Connecticut, Minnesota and Wisconsin all held primaries Tuesday. Kansas’ gubernatorial primary, which was held last week, was finalized when Colyer conceded defeat.
All but 10 states will have picked their candidates for November’s general election by the time the day’s votes are counted. While the full political battlefield isn’t quite set, the stakes are clear: Democrats are working to topple Republican control of Congress and governors’ offices across the nation.
In Vermont, Democrat Christine Hallquist won the Democratic nomination in her quest to become the nation’s first transgender governor. The former chief executive of Vermont Electric Cooperative bested a field of four Democrats.