12 states to find out Tuesday just how angry voters are

June 6, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

How angry are Americans?

People primed for change vote in 12 states Tuesday in contests that will decide the fate of two endangered Washington incumbents — a two-term senator in Arkansas and a six-term congressman in South Carolina — while setting the stage for some of the races that could determine the balance of power on Capitol Hill in the fall.

In an Arkansas runoff, Sen. Blanche Lincoln could fall to a fellow Democrat, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who says “the only way to change Washington is to change who we send there.”

South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis is trying to fend off primary challengers who have made the race a referendum on his 2008 vote to bail out the nation’s banking industry.

The political strength of the tea-party movement faces tests in several states, particularly in Nevada, where three Republicans are in a bruising fight for the chance to take on Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, in November.

Republicans in California could send two political neophytes, wealthy former business executives Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, into races to succeed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and challenge Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Three longtime incumbents already have lost: Sens. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va.

A party switcher new on the scene, Democrat-turned-Republican Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, stumbled this past week as voters demanded ideological purity.

Tea party-backed Mike Lee, one of two Republicans who advanced to a June 22 primary for Bennett’s Utah seat, says there’s “a widespread feeling the federal government is growing, taxing, spending and borrowing way too much.”

In the Arkansas runoff, Lincoln is suffering blowback from the right and left for her health care votes. Unions backing her rival have spent more than $5 million to defeat her. In one ad, she acknowledges the frustration among voters: “I know you’re angry at Washington.”

The Republican race to succeed Schwarzenegger has been a display of extraordinary spending as well as a test of how far right the party wants to venture on issues such as illegal immigration in a traditionally Democratic-tilting state.

Republican billionaire Whitman, a former eBay chief executive, has invested more than $70 million of her own fortune in the race against state insurance commissioner Steve Poizner, a wealthy former businessman who has put $24 million into his campaign.

The all-but-certain Democratic nominee is Attorney General Jerry Brown, who was governor in the 1970s and 1980s.

Fiorina, a former Hewlett Packard Co. chief executive who has Sarah Palin’s endorsement, has a lead in polls over former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell and state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, a tea-party favorite. Boxer’s campaign has depicted the Republicans as out of step with mainstream Californians.

Nevada Republicans appear ready to punish Gov. Jim Gibbons for his messy divorce, potentially making him the first sitting governor to lose a nominating contest in the state in 100 years.

Reid knows he’s in trouble. But big-name Republicans skipped the race and he has seen his chances lifted after a caustic Republican primary that could leave him facing tea party favorite Sharron Angle. She wants to abolish the federal income tax code, phase out Social Security for younger workers and eliminate the Education Department.

In addition to the Inglis race, South Carolina Republicans chose from a field of four candidates hoping to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, who was politically and personally damaged by an affair with an Argentine woman.

State Rep. Nikki Haley has the backing of the tea party and Palin in her bid to become the state’s first female governor. In the past two weeks, two men have come forward to say they had trysts with her, which she denies, and the primary will tell whom voters believe.

In north Georgia, Tom Graves hopes his involvement with the Atlanta Tea Party Patriots will help him defeat Lee Hawkins, another conservative, in a runoff to fill a vacant House seat in a heavily Republican district.

Maine voters will choose nominees for governor in a wide-open race to replace Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, who’s completing his second four-year term. A seven-way Republican primary includes tea party favorite Paul LePage.

Iowa has a three-way Republican primary for the right to oppose Democrat Chet Culver, considered one of the nation’s most vulnerable governors.

Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Dakota and Virginia also will have primaries.