Republican voters say "No" to a second term for Congressman David Davis, as challenger Phil Roe takes the party's nomination for the 1st District.
The unofficial totals being reported at 11:54 pm show 25,916 for Roe and 25,416 for the incumbent Davis. Roe won in Sullivan and Washington counties, as expected, and carried the nomination in close battles in Carter and Cocke counties. Roe's win happened as I predicted it would: a win in the two large counties and in just two of the less-populated counties.
Did Democrats vote in the GOP primary to unseat Davis? Perhaps.
In the Democrat primary, Rob Russell won the nomination, also as expected. However he has a large, but not impossible task against Roe. With less than 6,000 votes cast in that primary, versus the 50,000 or so votes in the Republican primary.
Over in West Tennessee, I was happy to see that incumbent Congressman Steve Cohen was getting huge margins of victory over Nikki Tinker. Good to see the majority of folks rejecting Tinker's grim approach to politics. Sen. Obama blasted Tinker this afternoon, but with voting already underway, the real victory belongs to the voters in the 9th District.
Oh, and as best I can tell, the last time an incumbent in the 1st District lost a renomination bid was 1932, when Republican Oscar Lovette was defeated by Carroll Reece, who decided he wanted the congressional office again. Reece held the office from 1921 to 1961 for the most part, seemingly able to take the nomination whenever he wanted.
I recently participated in a "town hall meeting" with David Davis via a group telephone conversation. Didn't really know much about him going in but after 20 minutes on the phone it became evident that this guy was an idiot. Statements like Colorado has more oil than Saudi Arabia and that he wanted all those people in the Mideast to go back to riding camels, exposed him for what he is. This blog should take some credit in raising the apparent IQ of East TN.
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