WASHINGTON — Linda McMahon easily won the Connecticut Republican U.S. Senate primary to join the slate of outsider candidates who will carry the GOP banner this fall.
McMahon, former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, will face Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in the fall.
On a four-state primary night, former Rep. Nathan Deal led ex-Secretary of State Karen Handel narrowly in late returns in a Republican gubernatorial runoff in Georgia. The race is so close that the results hinged on provisional and military ballots.
The two vied for the right to take on former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes.
And in Minnesota, conservative State Rep. Tom Emmer easily won the Republican nomination for governor. Minnesotans have not elected a Democratic governor in nearly a quarter-century, and former Sen. Mark Dayton won a close primary for the right to try to end the slide.
Connecticut’s McMahon will begin the fall campaign as the underdog, although she has vowed to spend as much as $50 million of her own money in hopes of capturing a seat long held by retiring Democrat Christopher Dodd.
“The support of the voters of Connecticut isn’t bestowed by the establishment or the pundits or the media. It isn’t a birthright,” she told cheering supporters after her victory was sealed. “It can’t be bought, it needs to be earned. And tonight I am humbled to have earned your support.”
McMahon and Blumenthal could not be less alike — he the longtime statewide officeholder and she the political neophyte whose rise is part of a nationwide political trend that favors outsiders. Among her primary victims was former Rep. Rob Simmons, who began the primary campaign as the favorite and fell so far behind that he suspended his candidacy earlier in the year.
Simmons rejoined the race in recent weeks as attacks focused on the sometimes raunchy scenes that are part of WWE’s appeal, but McMahon was gaining nearly 49 percent of the vote in a three-way race with returns counted from nearly 60 percent of the state’s precincts.
With Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell retiring, Connecticut voters also settled a pair of contested gubernatorial primaries.
Among the Democrats, former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy defeated businessman Ned Lamont for the nomination. Tom Foley, a businessman and former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, won a three-way race for the Republican nomination.
