Nikki Haley, an Indian-American woman, handily won the Republican nomination for governor and Tim Scott, a black lawmaker, grabbed the GOP nod for a House seat in South Carolina primary runoffs Tuesday, a fresh sign of racial progress in the Deep South and the GOP.
Six-term Republican Rep. Bob Inglis fell to prosecutor Trey Gowdy, making him the 5th incumbent House or Senate lawmaker to lose this year.
In North Carolina, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall overcame a challenge from state Sen. Cal Cunningham, winning the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Sen. Richard Burr in the fall.
Voters in Utah and Mississippi also decided on their final nominees, just over four months before November balloting.
Tuesday’s runoffs and primaries played out across a handful of states, the latest cluster of contests to determine matchups for the midterm congressional elections. Already, 2010 is shaping up to be an anti-establishment year with angry voters casting ballots against candidates with ties to Washington and the political parties.
With her victory, state Rep. Haley moved one step closer to becoming the first female governor in the conservative-leaning state. She brushed aside allegations of marital infidelity and an ethnic slur to come within a percentage point of winning the gubernatorial nod outright on June 8. And with 66 percent of the precincts reporting in the runoff, she led with 65 percent of the vote to Rep. Gresham Barrett’s 35 percent.
Scott, also a state lawmaker, hoped to become South Carolina’s first black GOP congressman in more than a century. He beat Paul Thurmond, the son of the late U.S. Sen. and former segregationist Strom Thurmond in the runoff after securing the backing of several Republican leaders in Washington. With 83 percent of precincts counted, he led with 69 percent of the vote to 31 percent for Thurmond.
The GOP-leaning district stretches down the Carolina coast and includes Fort Sumter where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. If elected to the House, Scott would be the GOP’s first black lawmaker since Oklahoma’s J.C. Watts retired in 2003.