Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The West: A New Center of Power.”
ARIZONA
After taking office in 2003, Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed more than 110 bills passed by the Republican Legislature. Voters seem to like her stands. She won re-election by roughly 2-to-1 over archconservative Republican Len Munsil. Both ran campaigns with public financing — about $1 million each from Arizona’s unusual Clean Elections Program.
Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, an ex-Republican, won a House seat in southeast Arizona that includes parts of metro Tucson; her opponent, Randy Graf, who belongs to the Minuteman group, ran as an immigration hard-liner.
Democrat Harry Mitchell, an ex-high-schoolteacher and longtime local politician, took the suburban-Phoenix House seat held by J.D. Hayworth, another archconservative Republican.
Voters rejected competing state-lands ballot measures, one backed by environmentalists, the other by ranchers, but passed a measure requiring better treatment of pregnant pigs at factory farms.
CALIFORNIA
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger terminated Democrat Phil Angelides, even though the GOP is a minority party in California.
Republican and champion anti-environmentalist Richard Pombo lost his House seat, inland from San Francisco, to Democrat Jerry McNerney, a wind-energy consultant and Ph.D. mathematician.
Seemingly unsinkable Democrat Jerry Brown, mayor of Oakland and ex-Governor Moonbeam, was elected attorney general.
Voters rejected a proposed new tax on California oil companies to raise $4 billion for alternative-energy programs.
COLORADO
Democrat Bill Ritter, a Denver prosecutor, took the governorship in a state where his party is a minority, beating anti-tax, pro-oil Congressman Bob Beauprez.
Democrat Ed Perlmutter, promising to develop renewable energy and end the Bush tax cuts, took what had been Beauprez’s House seat, besting Republican Rick O’Donnell, who wanted to deport all undocumented immigrants.
Democrats solidified their hold on the Legislature; for the first time in decades, they control both chambers and the governorship.
IDAHO
Democrats came closer than in some recent election cycles, but Idaho continues to prove itself the nation’s most Republican state, with the GOP sweeping all statewide races. Conservative Congressman Butch Otter is now governor, and anti-abortion zealot Bill Sali has Otter’s old House seat.
Democrats picked up six state legislative seats, chiefly in metro Boise districts; still, they hold just 26 of the 105 total seats.
Boise narrowly rejected a proposal to place a Ten Commandments monument in a city park.
MONTANA
Democrat Jon Tester, a beer-bellied, crewcut-topped organic farmer, barely took the Senate seat of Republican Conrad Burns, a gaffe-prone master of appropriating federal money for Montana projects.
Democrats lost a few state legislative seats, so the parties are nearly even in the House and Senate, making things tougher on Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
Voters in two fast-growing counties (liberal Missoula and conservative Ravalli) agreed to tax themselves for $10-million bond issues to buy open space.
NEVADA
Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons, who sponsored a recent proposal to sell off federal land, gave up his seat to run for governor and beat Democrat Dina Titus, a University of Nevada-Las Vegas political science professor, 48 to 44 percent. Four percent went for “None of These” — a Nevada innovation allowing voters to express general angst.
Democrats won races for attorney general and three other statewide offices, increased their dominance in the state House and nearly achieved a tie in the state Senate, all of which will pressure Gibbons to govern from the center.
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NEW MEXICO
Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson rode his party’s numerical advantage and a $13-million campaign machine, fueled by lobbyist and casino contributions, to easy re-election over obscure Republican John Dendahl, whose campaign had only $313,000. But will the win provide more buzz for Richardson’s 2008 presidential ambitions?
Controversial veteran Democrat Jim Baca failed to oust Republican Pat Lyons from the key state lands commissioner post, which oversees 9 million acres of public land. Baca had a record of watchdogging developers, the oil and gas industry and ranchers in previous stints as lands commissioner, mayor of Albuquerque and head of the Bureau of Land Management. But Lyons, friendlier to ranchers and drillers, won with 52 percent of the vote.
OREGON
Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski weathered a tough challenge from Ron Saxton, a Portland lawyer whose campaign spent twice as much as the incumbent. The race appeared close a month before the election, but Kulongoski won 53 percent of the vote to Saxton’s 42 percent.
Democrats gained control in the state House and kept their majority in the state Senate; they’ll run both chambers for the first time in more than a decade.
The Dem wins run counter to one trend: In voter registration, Oregon Republicans have been quietly gaining for 30 years, and, with the margin now only 3 percent, may soon outnumber Dems.
UTAH
All occupants of Utah congressional seats (two Republicans and a lone Democrat) won re-election, as did Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch; the party balance in the Legislature also didn’t change (77 Repubs, 27 Dems).
First elected senator 30 years ago, Hatch had a $6 million war chest, while sacrificial Democratic opponent/Internet- access-company owner Pete Ashdown had only $200,000. Ashdown campaigned for more than a year, driving the state in an old RV, but won just 31 percent of the vote.
Voters in the county that includes Salt Lake City — a Democratic stronghold — agreed to tax themselves for a $48 million bond to be spent on open space, wildlife habitat and trails.
WASHINGTON
Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell won office by less than .1 percent of the vote in 2000. But this year — helped by a $17 million to $10 million campaign-budget advantage — she rode to a 19-point victory over Republican Mike McGavick, a moderate ex-insurance-company CEO who angered party leaders by criticizing the administration’s Iraq strategy.
Voters decided to keep a state inheritance tax passed last year on estates worth more than $2 million (excluding family farms and timberlands). The proceeds — more than $100 million per year — go for public education. An anti-estate-tax ballot measure got only 38 percent of the vote.
Voters approved a ballot measure requiring large utilities to get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
WYOMING
Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal sneaked into office in 2002, taking less than half the vote in a three-way race. This year he won 70 percent of the vote and re-election over lawyer-rancher Ray Hunkins. The victory may have been buoyed by a sense of financial wellbeing; Wyoming has a huge budget surplus, due to more than $1 billion in annual taxes on soaring natural gas production.
Wyoming voters haven’t put a Democrat in their lone House seat in 30 years. But six-term incumbent Republican Rep. Barbara Cubin had to dodge an unexpected bullet, beating Democrat Gary Trauner by only about 1,000 votes. Trauner, an ex-Internet-access-company owner whose only political experience was on a Jackson-area school board, traveled the state and knocked on an estimated 10,000 doors. But the National Republican Congressional Committee funded TV ads portraying him as an outsider — because he moved to Wyoming from suburban New York 16 years ago.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Election Roundup.
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