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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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This will obviously be a short entry for as red as Wyoming is, Hawaii is likewise blue.
Wyoming
One of the reddest states in the country will continue to be so come November. Besides the at-large House seat currently held by Republican Lynn Cheney, there is also a Senate race and an open Governor’s race. The GOP is expected to sweep all three races as they barely register a blip on the political radar. Perhaps the only interesting thing involved the Republican Senatorial primary where incumbent Senator John Barrasso became the subject of a Wyoming political trivia inquiry sometime in the future. He is the first incumbent Republican Senator from Wyoming to register less than 70% of the vote in a primary. That’s it for excitement from Wyoming. In the open gubernatorial race, Republican Brad Gordon should defeat his Democratic opponent, Mary Throne.
Hawaii
Conversely, in Hawaii all the drama was played out in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. There embattled incumbent David Ige faced a daunting task against former House member Colleen Hanabusa. She, you may recall, lost an excruciatingly close Democratic Senatorial primary to Brian Schatz a few years back. In March and through the summer, Ige was left for dead by most pundits and trailed Hanabusa by as much as 15 points in the polls. When he defeated then Democratic incumbent Governor Neal Abercrombie four years ago in the primary, he had the backing of Hawaii’s strong labor unions and a plethora of Leftist organizations. The Hawaii Democratic Party let that primary play out.
Skip ahead four years and Ige lost the support of the unions, most “progressive” organizations and the Democratic Party and Hanabusa became the odds-on favorite to win. But, Ige surprised everyone by defeating Hanabusa this year in their primary and is now the heavy favorite to defeat state house minority leader Andrea Tupolo, the Republican candidate.
In the Senate race, Brian Schatz should win a full term back to Washington while both House seats are safely in the hands of the Democrats. That includes Tulsi Gabbard who seems to have weathered the criticism of meeting with Darth Vader- a/k/a President Trump- shortly after his victory.
In this series, five states down and 45 to go. Thus far, it looks like this:
US House: 11-4 in favor of Republicans; US Senate: 5-5, and; Governors 3-2 Republican.
Tomorrow: Idaho, Utah and New Hampshire
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