2 Trump-backed hopefuls lose
Voters select their GOP rivals in North Carolina, Kentucky
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Voters rebuffed President Donald Trump’s preferences and nominated two Republicans he opposed to House seats from North Carolina and Kentucky on Tuesday. Calls in higher-profile races in Kentucky and probably New York faced days of delay as swamped officials count mountains of mail-in ballots.
In western North Carolina, GOP voters picked 24-year-old investor Madison Cawthorn, who uses a wheelchair following an accident, over Trump-backed real estate agent Lynda Bennett. The runoff was for the seat vacated by GOP Rep. Mark Meadows, who resigned to become Trump’s chief of staff and joined his new boss in backing Bennett.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, a libertarian-minded maverick who often clashes with GOP leaders, was renominated for a sixth House term in Kentucky. Trump savaged Massie in March as a “disaster for America” who should be ejected from the party after he forced lawmakers to return to Washington during a pandemic to vote on a huge economic relief package.
Cawthorn, who will meet the constitutionally mandated minimum age of 25 when the next Congress convenes, has said he’s a Trump supporter, and Massie is strongly conservative.
As states ease voting by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic, a deluge of mail-in ballots and glacially slow counting procedures made delays inevitable.
Kentucky usually has 2 percent of its returns come from mail ballots. This year officials expect that figure to exceed 50 percent, and over 400,000 mail ballots were returned by Sunday.
New York officials expect the vast majority of votes to be mail ballots this year, compared with their typical 5 percent share. Counties have until eight days after Election Day to count and release the results of mail ballots, with 1.7 million requested by voters.
In the day’s marquee contests, two young African American candidates with campaigns energized by nationwide protests for racial justice were challenging white Democratic establishment favorites for the party’s nominations.
First-term state legislator Charles Booker was hoping a late surge would carry him past former Marine fighter pilot Amy Mcgrath for the Democratic Senate nomination from Kentucky. And in New York, political newcomer Jamaal Bowman was seeking to derail House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel’s bid for a 17th term in Congress.
It was too early to call the Mcgrath-booker race on Tuesday night. Kentucky expects to release additional results June 30.
A call in the Engel-bowman race on Tuesday also seemed doubtful.
In other contests, Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell of Kentucky easily won the Republican nomination for a seventh Senate term on Tuesday and will be favored in November against Mcgrath or Booker.