In The New York Times today, Paul Bass writes that few broad lessons can be drawn from Tuesday's Connecticut primary. On the Democratic side, former Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy closed a big gap in the Democratic gubernatorial primary between him and front-runner Ned Lamont, who ran a self-financed campaign. Malloy ultimately won. While Lamont's big-name advantage and fortune explained an early lead, Malloy had the backing of the party faithful who, in turns out, were the only ones to show up and vote. And on the Republican side, the opposite was true: Rob Simmons, a former congressman who might have made a more sensible choice from the party's perspective, lost the Senate Republican primary to self-financed billionaire Linda McMahon.
In the Republican gubernatorial primary another wealthy outsider candidate, Tom Foley, beat the state's current lieutenant governor, Michael Fedele.
But as we've been saying over here at TAPPED all along, drawing broad conclusions from these races is dangerous, at best. While Republicans are going to try to nationalize every race because of the broader, economic forces that make voters, however irrationally, fill ill at ease with the party in power, it's not clear voters aren't motivated by the same sorts of local issues and personality differences that define every race. In Arkansas today, for example, Sen. Blanche Lincoln and her challenger, Rep. John Boozman, met for their first debate -- though it wasn't called a debate -- before an audience of county executives. Earmarks and the health-care bill came up, but that's because those county executives get money from earmarked projects and run rural hospitals. One of the biggest issues, though, was the new FEMA maps that expand areas in the Mississippi Delta region where flood insurance is recommended. The state has to adopt the new maps soon, but many locals worry it will stall local construction, and therefore, the economy. The way those issues play out locally has little to do with what the parties say nationally, and it's important to remember that.
-- Monica Potts
