LITTLE ROCK — U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln overcame ardent national labor support for her challenger, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, and won the Democratic nomination for the Senate on Tuesday, closing the toughest battle in years for an Arkansas party nomination.
“I cannot begin to thank each and every one of you across this great state for doing such a tremendous job in letting a message out that was loud and clear,” Lincoln told supporters, her husband, Steve, beside her. “That message was [that] the vote of this senator is not for sale and neither is the vote of the people of Arkansas!”
With 2,383 of 2,388 precincts reporting, the unofficial count was:
Lincoln .....................133,897
Halter ......................123,490
Lincoln will face another tough battle in the fall. She takes on the Republican nominee, John Boozman of Rogers, in the Nov. 2 general election. He’s been the congressman for Northwest Arkansas since 2001. Polls have shown him leading.
Halter appeared somber with his wife, Shanti, as he addressed supporters.
“Folks ... you have done an incredible job, an amazing job,” Halter said. “You have run a tough, honorable, highly motivated campaign statewide. The working men and women of Arkansas should be proud and take that passion into the next race and everything you do going forward.”
Halter’s watch-party was at the Peabody Little Rock hotel; Lincoln’s was at her campaign headquarters at Union Station in Little Rock.
He benefited from workers put in action by unions and liberal groups such as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Unions also funded millions of dollars of television ads against Lincoln.
Lincoln, in an election-night e-mail to supporters, said she got a congratulatory call from former President Bill Clinton, dubbing her the “new comeback kid,” a description given him in his 1992 bounce back as a presidential nomination seeker.
In the race, Halter’s campaign repeatedly accused Lincoln of answering to Washington and Wall Street rather than working families in Arkansas. In her speech, Lincoln said her victory says that “Washington needs to work for us in Arkansas. I can tell you right here and now that Arkansas and this senator will be part of the solution to get this country back on track.”
She said she “stood up to special interests.” She congratulated Halter for a “good fight and a good race. We’re going to ask for their help.”
Democrats in Arkansas have “passion” and will “spread it across the nation,”Lincoln said.
She avoided being the first Arkansas U.S. senator to lose since Republican Tim Hutchinson in 2002 to Democrat Mark Pryor.
“She feels like she finished in a strong position,” Lincoln campaign manager Steve Patterson said early in the evening. “We don’t know how it’s going to turn out. But everybody’s pretty much at peace with our campaign. We’ve done everything we possibly could have done. We come into the night with no regrets.”
He said no incumbent across the country has had to face the onslaught of opposition as Lincoln has.
Labor groups had been open about their desire to beat Lincoln partly to send a message to other Democrats to not ignore them.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee recently ran an ad accusing Lincoln of wanting to cut Social Security, which she said is false.
Committee official Adam Green said two committee employees “co-directed Halter’s field program.” Green said the committee “designed Halter’s grass-roots program,” raised $250,000 for Halter, and made more than 380,000 calls to Arkansas voters.
Halter thanked committee members in an e-mail Monday.
Lincoln’s campaign described that message as Halter thanking “out-of-state liberals for financing his run.” Halter paid the committee $20,000 “for staff time salary and benefits,” according to Lincoln’s campaign.
Ilyse Hogue, a political director at MoveOn.org, said 60,529 of her group’s members donated $2.4 million to Halter's campaign and made 45,000 phone calls for him.
Lincoln spent election day in Little Rock and North Little Rock, making stops at several churches to greet voters.
She and her husband, Steve, voted at the St. James United Methodist Church on Pleasant Valley Drive near their Little Rock residence.
Halter on Tuesday was scheduled to visit Conway, North Little Rock and Little Rock. He voted at Central Baptist Church on Fairview Avenue in North Little Rock, where he lives.
“On June 8, it’s you and a ballot box,” Halter’s website said Tuesday. “Vote for a real Democrat. Vote Halter.”
Lincoln led in the May 18 voting in unofficial and still uncertified results, 146,431 to Halter’s 139,770, which was about 44.5 percent to 42.5 percent for Halter. The other candidate, D.C. Morrison of Little Rock, had 42,689 votes.
The race was in a national spotlight. National labor unions helped Halter because Lincoln refused to support a bill to make it easier to unionize. Halter declined to say whether he’d vote for or against that bill.
Through May 19, Lincoln raised $9.3 million and Halter $3.4 million. Other groups, including business interests backing Lincoln, spent millions more.
Lincoln, 49, entered the Senate in January 1999. A native of Helena, she represented eastern Arkansas’ 1st Congressional District from 1993-96. At 38, she was the youngest woman ever elected to the Senate.
Halter, also 49, was elected lieutenant governor in 2006 after flirting with the idea of running for governor in the Democratic primary against then-Attorney General Mike Beebe.
The last time an incumbent senator in Arkansas faced a runoff was in 1972. U.S. Sen. John McClellan led a four way primary and later beat U.S. Rep. David Pryor in the runoff, 242,983 to 224,262.
Then, as now, a key issue was unions supporting the challenger.
Lincoln and former President Bill Clinton, who has endorsed her, have accused unions of helping Halter only to beat her and send a message across the country to politicians about what happens when they oppose labor.
Halter has responded that he’s supported by all types of Arkansans, including business interests and workers.
Halter was born in Little Rock but spent most of his youth in North Little Rock. He graduated from Catholic High School in Little Rock, received a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a master’s degree from Oxford University, England, where he was a Rhodes scholar.
He started his career in Washington, working as a management consultant and as an economist with the Senate Finance Committee. He later returned to Little Rock as president of the now-defunct Arkansas Institute. He then worked on Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.
He returned to Washington to work for the Office of Management and Budget and later became deputy commissioner for the Social Security Administration under Clinton and was briefly acting commissioner under President George W. Bush.
He was a trustee at Stanford, a staff member for Wesley Clark’s 2004 presidential campaign and a board member of five companies before being elected lieutenant governor in 2006.
He and his wife, who practices law part-time from their home, have two children.
Lincoln was born in Helena where her family owned and operated a farm. She graduated from Helena High School and received a bachelor’s degree from Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Ashland, Va.
She began her career working as a receptionist for U.S. Rep. Bill Alexander, the congressman for eastern Arkansas’ 1st District. She later worked as a research assistant for three Washington lobbying firms.
In 1992, she decided take on Alexander and run for Congress. She beat him in the Democratic primary.
She and her husband, a medical doctor who practices in Fairfax, Va., have two children.
Also general election Senate candidates are write-in candidate Stephan Hercher of Barling and independent candidate Trevor Drown of Russellville.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/09/2010