title: Parliament of Singapore

text: In general, the privileges, immunities and powers of Parliament and of the Speaker, MPs and committees of Parliament are the same as those of the United Kingdom House of Commons and of its Speaker, Members or committees at the establishment of the Republic of Singapore on 9 August 1965. Such privileges, immunities and powers have effect even though they are not expressly prescribed by the Act, and are required to be judicially noticed in all courts.


title: Parliament of Singapore

text: The Act provides that there shall be freedom of speech and debate and proceedings in Parliament, and such freedom of speech and debate and proceedings is not liable to be impeached or questioned in any court, commission of inquiry, committee of inquiry, tribunal or any other place whatsoever out of Parliament.


title: Parliament of Singapore

text: No civil or criminal process (official notice of legal proceedings) may be served or executed on any person in Parliament or in its precincts while Parliament is sitting, or in any room in Parliament while a committee is sitting in it, except for a contravention of the Act.


title: Parliament of Singapore

text: No person is liable to any civil or criminal proceedings, arrest, imprisonment or damages by reason of any act done under the authority of Parliament or the Speaker and within its or his or her legal powers or under any warrant issued by virtue of those powers. Thus, defamation proceedings cannot be brought against a member of the public on the basis of statements in a written representation sent by him to a select committee of Parliament in response to an invitation that the Clerk of Parliament has issued.


title: Parliament of Singapore

text: Reports, papers or journals that are published by order or under the authority of Parliament are absolutely privileged. If civil or criminal proceedings (for instance, for defamation or sedition) are brought against a person or his or her employee for the publication, the person may give the court a certificate from the Speaker or Clerk of Parliament stating that the documents were published by order of Parliament or under its authority. The court must then immediately stay the proceedings. Further, in any civil or criminal proceedings started for printing or publishing any extract from or abstract of any document published under Parliament's authority, the court must grant judgment in favour of the defendant or accused if satisfied that the extract or abstract was printed or published "bona fide" and without malice.


title: Parliament of Singapore

text: It is for Parliament alone to determine what actions constitute an abuse of privilege and contempt, and the procedure for reaching a decision. On 19 March and 30 July 1986 the Leader of the House objected in Parliament to Opposition MP J.B. Jeyaretnam's allegations that the executive had interfered with the judiciary. The complaints were considered by the Committee of Privileges in September. While the hearing was in progress, Jeyaretnam wrote five newsletters about the proceedings of the Committee and sent them to residents of his constituency. On 9 October, the Leader of the House made a written complaint regarding the newsletters' contents to the Speaker of Parliament, which the Committee also considered. On 27 January 1987 Parliament accepted the Committee's reports on the complaints and found Jeyaretnam guilty of abusing the privileges of Parliament by alleging executive interference in the judiciary, and of contempt of the Committee and Parliament by publishing the newsletters. Fines totalling $26,000 were imposed. Upon Jeyaretnam's refusal to pay the fines, civil suits to recover them were brought against him by the Attorney-General acting on the Government's behalf. Jeyaretnam challenged the suits on the grounds that the Committee had been wrong in law in finding him guilty of contempt, that Parliament could not lawfully punish him by imposing fines, and that natural justice had been breached as he had not been given an opportunity to be heard. However, he failed in his appeals to the High Court and the Court of Appeal, both courts holding that the determinations made by Parliament could not be challenged in court.


title: Parliament of Singapore

text: Where an MP has been found guilty of abuse of privilege in respect of anything said in Parliament by him or her, Parliament may order a suspension from privileges and immunities relating to liability to civil proceedings.


title: Parliament of Singapore

text: Parliament may exclude any officer of Parliament or stranger (that is, a person who is neither an MP nor an officer of Parliament) from any Parliamentary sitting, and regulate the admission of strangers to any sitting.


title: Parliament of Singapore

text: Between 1954 and 1999, Singapore's legislature met at what is now called the Old Parliament House. The building was originally a private mansion designed in the Palladian style by George Drumgoole Coleman and completed in June 1827 for a merchant, John Argyle Maxwell. Instead of living in it, Maxwell leased it to the Government for use as Singapore's first courthouse. The building was eventually sold to Governor George Bonham and the East India Company in October 1842. It served as a courthouse up to 1865, and again from 1875 until 1939, when the courts moved to a purpose-built Supreme Court Building on St. Andrew's Road. The building fell into disrepair and was used as a government storehouse during and after World War II.


title: Parliament of Singapore

text: In 1953, Governor John Nicoll decided that the building should be renovated for use as a legislative chamber. Renamed Assembly House, it was declared officially open on 9 July 1954, and the existing Legislative Council had its first meeting there on 20 July. It was then occupied from 1955 by the newly formed Legislative Assembly of Singapore, and was renamed Parliament House when Singapore became fully independent in 1965. In 1988 the building's debating chamber was extensively renovated to increase the number of seats in it to 90. However, as further extensions were not feasible without causing MPs discomfort and disrupting the chamber's configuration, plans were approved in 1992 for a new Parliament building to be constructed. The present Parliament House, on a part of High Street that was renamed Parliament Place, was completed in July 1999. It was officially inaugurated on 6 September 1999 with a special sitting that began in the Old Parliament House, continued with legislators walking from the old building to the new one, and concluded in the new Parliament House. Three items from the old chamber were brought over: the Mace of Parliament, the Table of the House, and the Speaker's chair. The building formerly occupied by Parliament reopened in March 2004 as a performance venue called the Arts House at the Old Parliament, and the street it is on was renamed Old Parliament Lane.


title: Epigram

text: An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two millennia.


title: Epigram

text: The presence of wit or sarcasm tends to distinguish non-poetic epigrams from aphorisms and adages, which tend to lack those qualities.


title: Epigram

text: The Greek tradition of epigrams began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at sanctuariesincluding statues of athletesand on funerary monuments, for example "Go tell it to the Spartans, passersby...". These original epigrams did the same job as a short prose text might have done, but in verse. Epigram became a literary genre in the Hellenistic period, probably developing out of scholarly collections of inscriptional epigrams.


title: Epigram

text: Though modern epigrams are usually thought of as very short, Greek literary epigram was not always as short as later examples, and the divide between "epigram" and "elegy" is sometimes indistinct (they share a characteristic metre, elegiac couplets). In the classical period, the clear distinction between them was that epigrams were inscribed and meant to be read, while elegies were recited and meant to be heard. Some elegies could be quite short, but only public epigrams were longer than ten lines. All the same, the origin of epigram in inscription exerted a residual pressure to keep things concise, even when they were recited in Hellenistic times. Many of the characteristic types of literary epigram look back to inscriptional contexts, particularly funerary epigram, which in the Hellenistic era becomes a literary exercise. Many "sympotic" epigrams combine sympotic and funerary elementsthey tell their readers (or listeners) to drink and live for today because life is short. Generally, any theme found in classical elegies could be and were adapted for later literary epigrams.


title: Epigram

text: Hellenistic epigrams are also thought of as having a "point"that is, the poem ends in a punchline or satirical twist. By no means do all Greek epigrams behave this way; many are simply descriptive, but Meleager of Gadara and Philippus of Thessalonica, the first comprehensive anthologists, preferred the short and witty epigram. Since their collections helped form knowledge of the genre in Rome and then later throughout Europe, Epigram came to be associated with 'point', especially because the European epigram tradition takes the Latin poet Martial as its principal model; he copied and adapted Greek models (particularly the contemporary poets Lucillius and Nicarchus) selectively and in the process redefined the genre, aligning it with the indigenous Roman tradition of "satura", hexameter satire, as practised by (among others) his contemporary Juvenal. Greek epigram was actually much more diverse, as the Milan Papyrus now indicates.


title: Epigram

text: A major source for Greek literary epigram is the "Greek Anthology", a compilation from the 10th century AD based on older collections, including those of Meleager and Philippus. It contains epigrams ranging from the Hellenistic period through the Imperial period and Late Antiquity into the compiler's own Byzantine eraa thousand years of short elegiac texts on every topic under the sun. The "Anthology" includes one book of Christian epigrams as well as one book of erotic and amorous homosexual epigrams called the (, "The Boyish Muse").


title: Epigram

text: Roman epigrams owe much to their Greek predecessors and contemporaries. Roman epigrams, however, were often more satirical than Greek ones, and at times used obscene language for effect. Latin epigrams could be composed as inscriptions or graffiti, such as this one from Pompeii, which exists in several versions and seems from its inexact meter to have been composed by a less educated person. Its content makes it clear how popular such poems were:


title: Epigram

text: However, in the literary world, epigrams were most often gifts to patrons or entertaining verse to be published, not inscriptions. Many Roman writers seem to have composed epigrams, including Domitius Marsus, whose collection "Cicuta" (now lost) was named after the poisonous plant "Cicuta" for its biting wit, and Lucan, more famous for his epic "Pharsalia". Authors whose epigrams survive include Catullus, who wrote both invectives and love epigrams – his poem 85 is one of the latter.


title: Epigram

text: Martial, however, is considered to be the master of the Latin epigram. His technique relies heavily on the satirical poem with a joke in the last line, thus drawing him closer to the modern idea of epigram as a genre. Here he defines his genre against a (probably fictional) critic (in the latter half of 2.77):


title: Epigram

text: In early English literature the short couplet poem was dominated by the poetic epigram and proverb, especially in the translations of the Bible and the Greek and Roman poets.


title: Epigram

text: Two successive lines of verse that rhyme with each other are known as a couplet. Since 1600, the couplet has been featured as a part of the longer sonnet form, most notably in William Shakespeare's sonnets. Sonnet 76 is an excellent example. The two-line poetic form as a closed couplet was also used by William Blake in his poem "Auguries of Innocence", and also by Byron in his poem "Don Juan", by John Gay in his fables, and by Alexander Pope in his "An Essay on Man".


title: Epigram

text: The first work of English literature penned in North America was Robert Hayman's "Quodlibets, Lately Come Over from New Britaniola, Old Newfoundland", which is a collection of over 300 epigrams, many of which do not conform to the two-line rule or trend. While the collection was written between 1618 and 1628 in what is now Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, it was published shortly after his return to Britain.


title: Epigram

text: In Victorian times the epigram couplet was often used by the prolific American poet Emily Dickinson. Her poem No. 1534 is a typical example of her eleven poetic epigrams. The novelist George Eliot also included couplets throughout her writings. Her best example is in her sequenced sonnet poem entitled "Brother and Sister" in which each of the eleven sequenced sonnet ends with a couplet. In her sonnets, the preceding lead-in-line, to the couplet ending of each, could be thought of as a title for the couplet, as is shown in Sonnet VIII of the sequence.


title: Epigram

text: During the early 20th century, the rhymed epigram couplet form developed into a fixed verse image form, with an integral title as the third line. Adelaide Crapsey codified the couplet form into a two-line rhymed verse of ten syllables per line with her image couplet poem "On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees", first published in 1915.


title: Epigram

text: By the 1930s, the five-line cinquain verse form became widely known in the poetry of the Scottish poet William Soutar. These were originally labelled epigrams but later identified as image cinquains in the style of Adelaide Crapsey.


title: 2010 Florida gubernatorial election

text: The 2010 Florida gubernatorial election took place on November 2, 2010. Republican-turned-Independent incumbent Governor Charlie Crist chose not to run for a second term. He instead ran (unsuccessfully) for the Senate seat vacated by Mel Martínez. This resulted in an open race for Governor of Florida in which Republican Rick Scott narrowly defeated Democrat Alex Sink.


title: 2010 Florida gubernatorial election

text: Despite mixed to unfavorable ratings, Rick Scott benefited greatly from the midterm GOP wave in which Republicans made significant gains across the country. Scott was one of six Republican gubernatorial pick-ups nationwide (counting Crist as an Independent).


title: 2010 Florida gubernatorial election

text: The tight and highly contentious election was one of the standout races in 2010. Despite not professing direct allegiance to the movement, Scott benefited from support and endorsement by Tea Party activists, an influential conservative voting bloc of the 2010 midterms. Furthermore, Scott ran aggressively against the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and exit polls indicated considerable support for that position.


title: 2010 Florida gubernatorial election

text: Alex Sink, the CFO of Florida, was mentioned as a possible candidate to run for Senate or Governor in 2010, but initially declined. When Charlie Crist announced he would not run for re-election, Sink immediately announced her campaign for governor. Sink was the wife of Bill McBride, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2002.


title: 2010 Florida gubernatorial election

text: Sink faced only token opposition in the primary. Her lone opponent was former Socialist Party presidential nominee Brian Moore. On primary day, Sink won the Democratic nomination with nearly 77% of the vote.


title: 2010 Florida gubernatorial election

text: In May 2009, Republican incumbent governor Charlie Crist announced he would not run for re-election, and instead would run for U.S. Senate. The move immediately turned the race competitive, as GOP-hopefuls lined up to run for the open seat. Former congressman and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum emerged as the early favorite. McCollum had previously lost the election for Senate in 2000, and lost the Republican nomination for Senate in 2004. This would be his third attempt at a major statewide campaign.


title: 2010 Florida gubernatorial election

text: Just before the deadline, Rick Scott jumped into the primary fight. Scott started dumping millions of his own personal fortune into the race. The race quickly became one of the most expensive and "nasty" primary campaigns in recent Florida history. Scott and McCollum lashed out with very negative attacks against each other. Scott ran as a political "outsider", and led some early polls, but McCollum re-took the lead in polls just before primary day. Scott benefited in the absentee voting, while McCollum expected to make up the difference based on turnout. On primary day, Scott won the nomination with just over 46% of the vote. The dejected McCollum team reluctantly conceded after midnight.


title: 2010 Florida gubernatorial election

text: The race was dominated by the two major party candidates and spending on their behalf. By the October 25, 2010, Tampa debate between Scott and Sink, Scott had spent $60 million of his own money on the campaign compared to Sink's $28 million. Total campaign expenditure for the race exceeded $100 million, far exceeding any previous spending for a governor's race in Florida. Scott spent $78 million of his personal wealth in the race. Sink made an issue of Scott's connections to Columbia/HCA, a Medicare billing fraud scandal.


title: 2010 Florida gubernatorial election

text: The 2010 governor's race was one of Florida's closest, decided by just over 60,000 votes. Unlike the concurrent Senate race, the governor's race remained in doubt late into the night. When polls closed, Scott had a lead, but as the night progressed, the margin narrowed. The next day, with over 99% of precincts reporting, Scott maintained about a 1% lead in the raw vote. Despite a small number of still-uncounted ballots from Palm Beach County, Sink's chances of winning were negligible, as Scott was still ahead by over 50,000 – much more than the 3,000 uncounted ballots, and more importantly, still above the threshold of 0.5% to trigger a mandatory recount. Sink conceded on Wednesday.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The 2006 United States Senate elections were held on November 7, 2006, with all 33 Class 1 Senate seats being contested. The term of office for those elected in 2006 ran from January 3, 2007, to January 3, 2013. Prior to the election, the Republican Party controlled 55 of the 100 Senate seats.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The Senate elections were part of the Democratic sweep during the 2006 elections, in which Democrats made numerous gains and no congressional or gubernatorial seat held by a Democrat was won by a Republican. However, Democratic incumbent Joe Lieberman in Connecticut was defeated in the primary and was later reelected as a third party candidate; he continued to caucus with the Democrats. Because of this, this is the first time since 1970 in which a member of a third party, who is not an independent, was elected to the Senate. Independent Jim Jeffords in Vermont retired but was succeeded by another Independent, Bernie Sanders, retaining their presence in the Senate. Jeffords and Sanders both caucused with Democrats. Democrats picked up six seats, all via the defeats of incumbents, in Missouri, Montana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Virginia; while holding open seats in Maryland and Minnesota. Republicans held their sole open seat in Tennessee.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Following the elections, no party held a majority of seats for the first time since January 1955. The Democrats were able to control the chamber because the two Independents caucused with the Democrats. They needed at least 51 seats to control the Senate because Vice President Dick Cheney would have broken any 50–50 tie in favor of the Republicans. This was the only time between 1990 and 2022 that Democrats gained Senate seats in a midterm.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: , this was the last time Democrats won a Senate election in Nebraska and the last time they did not win a seat in Connecticut.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Democrats kept their two open seats in Minnesota and Maryland, and Republicans held onto their lone open seat in Tennessee.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Independent Bernie Sanders was elected to the open seat in Vermont to replace Independent incumbent Jim Jeffords, who retired. In the Senate, Sanders caucused with the Democrats, as Jeffords had done.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: In Connecticut, incumbent Joe Lieberman lost his Democratic primary, but won re-election under an ad hoc new party, "Connecticut for Lieberman." After winning reelection, Lieberman continued to caucus with the Democrats, but did not officially consider himself a member of the party.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: In these general elections, the winners were elected for the term beginning January 3, 2007; ordered by state.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican Jon Kyl won re-election to a third term over Democrat Jim Pederson, real estate developer and former Chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The incumbent, Republican Jon Kyl, was elected to the Senate in 1994 and was re-elected to a second term in 2000; having previously spent eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives. Kyl's Democratic opponent for the general election was wealthy real-estate developer Jim Pederson, who served as the Arizona Democratic Party Chairman from 2001 to 2005. During his tenure, Pederson spent millions of dollars of his own money to help Democrats modernize and to elect Janet Napolitano as Governor of Arizona. The deadline for signing petition signatures to appear on the September 12, 2006 primary ballot was June 14, 2006.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Not long after the 2004 election, Pederson's name began being mentioned as a potential Senate candidate for the 2006 race. On July 28, 2005, Pederson formally stepped down as Chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party, further fueling those speculations. In early September 2005, an e-mail was sent from the Arizona Democratic Party's website, inviting people to an announcement by Pederson on September 7. In an anticlimactic move, an e-mail was sent out shortly after the first saying that the announcement would be postponed due to Hurricane Katrina. It was requested that any money that would be donated to Pederson's campaign at the announcement be directed to relief efforts instead. Similarly, a meeting in Arizona of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was scheduled for around the same time. It was also postponed and the same request was made involving donations. On September 7, 2005, Pederson filed to run for the U.S. Senate. On September 14, 2005, Pederson formally announced his intention to run, in his hometown of Casa Grande, Arizona.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Although Kyl started the campaign with a sizable lead in most polls, the gap quickly narrowed, especially after Pederson released his array of ads.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Pederson lost the election by 9.84% or 150,257 votes, despite Democratic Incumbent Governor Janet Napolitano easily being re-elected and winning every county statewide. While Pederson lost it was still notable, as it was the worst performance of Senator Kyl's career. Kyl did well as Republicans usually do in Maricopa County home of Phoenix. Pederson did well in Pima County home of Tucson which tends to support Democrats. Kyl was called the winner by CNN at around 8 P.M. local time, 11 P.M. EST. Pederson called Senator Kyl and conceded defeat at 9:02 P.M. local time, 12:02 P.M. EST.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Feinstein stood against Republican Dick Mountjoy, who had never held a statewide elected position, but had been a state senator for several years. Also running was Libertarian Michael Metti, Don Grundmann of the American Independent Party, Todd Chretien of the Green Party and Marsha Feinland of the Peace and Freedom Party.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Because California is a state that requires a large amount of money to wage a competitive statewide campaign, it is not unusual - as was the case for this race - for a popular incumbent to have no significant opponent. Several prominent Republicans, such as Bill Jones, Matt Fong, and others, declined to run, and a previous announced challenger, businessman Bill Mundell, withdrew his declaration after determining he would not be a self-funded candidate (like Michael Huffington was in the 1994 election).


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On September 22, the Los Angeles Times reported that Mountjoy's official biography, as found on his campaign website, falsely asserted that he had served aboard the battleship "USS Missouri" during the Korean War—he'd actually served aboard the heavy cruiser "USS Bremerton". A review of the ships' logs corroborated this and the website was quickly changed to reflect his service aboard the "Bremerton" rather than the "Missouri". Mountjoy denied having been responsible for adding the incorrect information


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Feinstein won the election easily. Feinstein won almost every major urban area, winning in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, and San Diego. Feinstein was projected the winner as the polls closed at 11 P.M. EST.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Democrat Joe Lieberman lost the August 8 Democratic primary to cable executive Ned Lamont, a former Greenwich selectman. Lieberman formed his own third party and won in the general election to a fourth term.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Because Connecticut was believed to be a Democratic stronghold, Connecticut's Senate seat was considered safe to remain as a Democratic seat by political analysts, but Lieberman's continued support for conservative and Bush administration policies made him vulnerable to a Democratic primary challenger. Lieberman's critics objected to what they call Lieberman's lack of commitment to the Democratic party; his opposition to affirmative action; his opposition to a Connecticut state law that would require Catholic hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims; his membership in the bipartisan Gang of 14; his support of Florida governor Jeb Bush in the Terri Schiavo case; his initial willingness to compromise on Social Security privatization; his alliances with Republicans; and his attacks on other Democrats.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On March 13, 2006, Ned Lamont announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. Lamont was more liberal than Lieberman, but he was not immune from criticism from within his own party. "The New Republic" senior editor and "liberal hawk" Jonathan Chait criticized Lamont's supporters by comparing them to activists who he felt "tore the party apart" in the 1960s and 70s.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Early polling showed Lieberman with as much as a 46-point lead, but subsequent polls showed Lamont gaining until Lamont took the lead just weeks before the primary. A controversy about a "kiss" Lieberman supposedly received from President Bush during the 2005 State of the Union address highlighted concerns that the senator was too close to the unpopular president to be a credible Democratic nominee. Lieberman released several campaign advertisements over the summer of 2006, seeking to connect himself to former President Bill Clinton and to portray Lamont as standing for little more than opposition to Lieberman. Lamont struck back against some of Lieberman's more negative ads with an advertisement produced by well-known political consultant Bill Hillsman. In Lamont's ad, a foreboding narrator says, "Meet Ned Lamont. He can't make a decent cup of coffee, he's a bad karaoke singer, and he has a messy desk." Lamont then chimes in, "Aren't you sick of political attack ads that insult your intelligence? Senator Lieberman, let's stick to issues and pledge to support whoever wins the Democratic primary."


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: From midmorning August 7 to well past August 9, Lieberman's official campaign site was taken offline; officials from Lieberman's campaign claimed "dirty politics" and "Rovian tactics" on the part of Lamont's supporters, and more specifically, a sustained Distributed Denial of Service attack that, according to the Lieberman campaign, had left the site down for several days.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Tim Tagaris, Lamont's Internet communications director, denied the charge and attributed the downtime to the fact that the Lieberman campaign had chosen an inferior web host, or ISP, and was only paying $15/month to operate its site (in comparison to the $1500/month being spent by the Lamont campaign). On December 20, 2006, a joint investigation by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's office and the U.S. attorney's office cleared the Lamont campaign of the hacking accusations. A spokesman for Kevin O'Connor, the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut, stated, "The investigation has revealed no evidence the problems the Web site experienced were the result of criminal conduct."


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Lamont won the primary with 51.79% of the vote, as opposed to Lieberman's 48.21%. However, in his concession speech, Lieberman announced that he would stand by his prior statements that he'd run as an independent if he lost the Democratic primary.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: In the Republican Party primary, Alan Schlesinger drew fire in July when it was revealed that he had been gambling under an alias in order to avoid detection as a card counter. Despite calls to withdraw from the race, Schlesinger remained in the race, ultimately becoming the Republican nominee when no other Republican challengers entered the race.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On June 12, Ned Lamont began running radio ads promising if he lost the primary to endorse Lieberman, challenging Lieberman to abandon consideration of an independent run by making a similar pledge. Lieberman refused to make this pledge; his campaign manager, Sean Smith said, "Are we going to support Ned Lamont? Ah, no!"


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On July 3 in Hartford, Lieberman announced that he would collect signatures in order to guarantee himself a position on the November ballot. Both Lieberman and Smith said that Lieberman will run as a "petitioning Democrat" and would caucus with Senate Democrats if elected. On July 10, the Lieberman campaign officially filed paperwork allowing him to collect signatures to form a new political party, the Connecticut for Lieberman party.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Upon Lieberman's announcement, independent polls continued to show him favored to win a plurality or outright majority of the vote in a three-way general election (see below). The petition issue led to charges against the Lieberman campaign of political opportunism and lack of respect for the political process. Lieberman received strong support from many prominent conservative pundits and publications. "[H]is most vocal support came from places like The "Weekly Standard", "National Review", and "Commentary Magazine"; Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol and right-wing radio hosts cheered for his victory." Thus, "Lieberman was able to run in the general election as the "de facto" Republican candidate — every major Republican office-holder in the state endorsed him — and to supplement that GOP base with strong support from independents."


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On August 9, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and DSCC Chair Chuck Schumer issued the following joint statement on the Connecticut Senate race:


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: According to "The Hill", a Democratic aide to a high-ranking senator commented that Lieberman might be stripped of his Democratic privileges in the Senate. "At this point Lieberman cannot expect to just keep his seniority," said the aide. "He can't run against a Democrat and expect to waltz back to the caucus with the same seniority as before. It would give the view that the Senate is a country club rather than representative of a political party and political movement."


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Lieberman won with approximately 50% of the vote, and served a six-year term from January 3, 2007 to January 3, 2013. Exit polls showed that Lieberman won the vote of 33% of Democrats, 54% of independents and 70% of Republicans. Lieberman won every county in the November general election.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Democrat Thomas R. Carper won re-election to a second term over a Republican Temple University law professor, Jan C. Ting.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson won re-election to a second term over Republican congresswoman Katherine Harris.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which monitors political corruption, complained to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) in October 2006 that the Bacardi beverage company had illegally used corporate resources in support of a fundraising event for Nelson in 2005. CREW had previously filed a similar complaint concerning a Bacardi fundraising event for Republican Senator Mel Martinez, an event that raised as much as $60,000 for Martinez's campaign. The amended complaint alleged that, on both occasions, Bacardi violated the Federal Election Campaign Act and FEC regulations by soliciting contributions from a list of the corporation's vendors.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Nelson was easily re-elected, winning all but 10 of Florida's 67 counties and receiving 60.3% of the vote, winning by 1,064,421 votes or 22.2%. Nelson was projected the winner as the polls closed at 7 P.M. EST.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Democrat Daniel Akaka won re-election to his third full term over Republican State Representative Cynthia Thielen.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Democratic congressman Ed Case ran against Akaka in the Democratic Primary, having stated that although he had the deepest respect for Akaka, Hawaii was in a time of transition with regard to the state's representation in Congress which required that the state elect Senators of the next generation to provide continuity. He warned the state would lose all clout in Washington if the state's two US Senators, both of whom were over 80 years old, left office within a short time of each other. If a Senator were to die, Hawaii election law requires that the governor appoint a replacement of the same party.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Hawaii's other Representative, Neil Abercrombie, and other Senator, Daniel Inouye, pledged their support to Akaka, who won the primary with 55% of the vote.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Hawaii State Representative Cynthia Thielen was selected to be the Republican nominee after Jerry Coffee, who had previously withdrawn his candidacy, won the primary. Akaka won in all 4 Hawaii counties, taking at least 60% of the vote in each area.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican Richard Lugar was unopposed by any Democratic candidate and was re-elected to his sixth six-year term with 87.3% of the vote over Libertarian radio operator Steve Osborn. This would be Lugar's last race of his political career.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Lugar faced no opposition from the Democratic Party, as they felt Lugar was unbeatable. The Indiana Senate race was the only one in 2006 where the incumbent faced no challenger from the other major party. Also running was Libertarian Steve Osborn. Osborn was from La Porte, Indiana and was an amateur radio operator. Exit polls projected a landslide victory for Lugar which was borne out by the result.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The election was not close, with Lugar winning every county. Osborn's best performance was in Switzerland County, where he received just over 22% of the vote.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican Olympia Snowe won re-election to a third term over Democratic activist Jean Hay Bright.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Snowe, who had been elected to both of her previous terms by approximately 2-to-1 margins, had never lost an election. Snowe won by a landslide even as Democrats won across the country due to her being a centrist Republican and having a very high approval rating in Maine. Meanwhile, her Democratic opponent in the 2006 election, Jean Hay Bright, had never been elected to political office.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Democrats' best hope for taking the seat was that Snowe would retire rather than run in 2006, but there was never any indication that she seriously considered not running for re-election.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The filing deadline for major party candidates was March 15, 2006. The primary was held June 13, 2006. Olympia Snowe was unopposed for the Republican nomination; Jean Hay Bright narrowly won the Democratic nod with 50.7% of the vote against Eric Mehnert.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Hay Bright announced her candidacy in May 2005. Hay Bright was previously an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination to the House in 1994 and the Senate in 1996.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The race had been called by FOX News for Snowe 23 minutes after the polls had closed. Snowe won re-election by a greater margin than any U.S. Senator that cycle except Indiana's Richard Lugar, who faced only a Libertarian opponent. Snowe won in all of Maine's counties, taking at least 60% of the vote in each region.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Democrat Paul Sarbanes, Maryland's longest serving United States senator, decided to retire instead of seeking a sixth term. Democratic nominee Ben Cardin won the open seat.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Kweisi Mfume, a former congressman and NAACP President, was the first to announce for the position, in March 2005. Ben Cardin, then a congressman since 1987, was the only other major candidate until September 2005, when Dennis F. Rasmussen, a former Baltimore County Executive, American University professor Allan Lichtman, and wealthy Potomac businessman Josh Rales entered the contest. Thirteen other candidates subsequently also entered the primary. As of August 2006, Cardin had raised more than $4.8 million and collected endorsements from a number of Democratic politicians, the AFL–CIO, and "The Washington Post"; Mfume had raised over $1.2 million and collected endorsements from the Maryland State Teachers Association, Progressive Maryland, former Maryland Governor Parris Glendening, the National Organization for Women, and Maryland Congressmen Elijah Cummings and Al Wynn.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Michael S. Steele, Lieutenant Governor and former Chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, was expected to win the Republican primary, and the Baltimore Sun wrote the month before that he faced "only nominal opposition". Among a field of nine other candidates, the only Republican receiving significant media coverage was Daniel Vovak.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: This was Maryland's first open Senate seat since 1986, when Senator Barbara Mikulski was first elected.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Though Steele lost the general election by 10% of the vote, a much wider margin than predicted, his was and remains the best showing for a Republican in a Senate race in Maryland since Charles Mathias, Jr. was re-elected in 1980 with 66% of the vote.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Cardin primarily attacked Steele over his close relations with President Bush, including pictures of Bush and Steele in Cardin's TV ads. Steele focused on low taxes, less government spending, free markets and national security.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Despite polls days before the election showing the race at a 3% margin, Cardin won by more than 10% with a 178,295-vote margin. Steele conceded defeat at 9:02P.M. EST.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Democrat Ted Kennedy won re-election to his ninth (his eighth full) term, beating Republican language school owner and activist Kenneth Chase. This was Kennedy's last election to the Senate.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: At the Massachusetts Republican Party Convention Kenneth Chase received the official endorsement with a majority of delegates, though both candidates qualified for the September primary. Former White House Chief-of-Staff Andy Card also received 3 votes.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Democrat Debbie Stabenow won re-election to a second term, beating Republican Michael Bouchard, Oakland County Sheriff


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Economic issues took front-and-center in the campaign, as Michigan's unemployment rate was one of the highest in the nation. In July 2006, unemployment in Michigan stood at approximately 7%, compared with a 4.7% rate nationwide. Pessimism about the state's economic future had left Michigan ranked 49th nationally between 2000 and 2005 in retaining young adults. Since its peak, Detroit had lost over a million people. Bouchard claimed that the incumbent had accomplished nothing, dubbing her "Do-Nothing Debbie."


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: From a long way out Stabenow looked like she might be vulnerable. President Bush even came to Michigan to campaign for Bouchard, raising over $1,000,000 dollars for him. However Bouchard never won a single poll. By October the Republican Party, started taking resources out of Michigan to focus on closer races, essentially ceding the race to Stabenow. Stabenow would go on to win the election easily, capturing nearly 57% of the vote. Stabenow did well throughout Michigan, but performed better in heavily populated cities like Detroit, Oakland, Lansing, Ann Arbor, and Kalamazoo. Bouchard did win Grand Rapids, a typical Republican area. He also won in many rural areas around the state. However Bouchard failed to put a dent in Stabenow's lead, largely due to her strong performance in heavily populated areas. Bouchard conceded to Stabenow at 9:58 P.M. EST.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent DFL senator Mark Dayton decided in February 2005 that he would retire instead of seeking a second term. The primary elections took place on September 12, 2006. DFL nominee Amy Klobuchar won the open seat over Mark Kennedy (R), U.S. Congressman.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Kennedy's routine support of President George W. Bush in House votes was a central issue for Democrats in the campaign. In June 2006, allegations were made that many references to and photos of Bush had been removed from Kennedy's official U.S. House website; in rebuttal, Republicans said that there were 72 references to Bush on the website and that the changes noted by critics had been made some time ago, as part of the normal updating process. Ben Powers was the only ballot-qualified candidate not to be invited to appear on Minnesota Public Television's "Almanac" program, despite Mr. Powers's offer to fill the space left unfilled by Ms. Klobuchar's decision not to appear with Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Fitzgerald on the program. Green candidate Michael Cavlan appeared on the program twice during the 2006 campaign as a special guest.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Lott ran for re-election without facing any opposition in his party's primary. While it had been speculated that Lott might retire after his home was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, he instead chose to run for re-election. Fleming is an African American, which represents 37% of the state's population. However, no African American has ever been elected to statewide office. The last black U.S. Senator was Hiram Revels, who was appointed and took office in 1870. Fleming got little help from the DSCC, which only donated $15,000 to his campaign.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican Jim Talent was elected in a special election in 2002 when he narrowly defeated incumbent Democrat Jean Carnahan. Carnahan had been appointed to the Senate seat following the posthumous election of her husband Mel Carnahan, who had died in a plane crash shortly before the 2000 election. Talent was running for a full term, his Democratic opponent was Missouri State Auditor Claire McCaskill. Early on the morning of November 8, Talent conceded defeat to McCaskill, having faced considerable political headwinds. Talent lost the election with 47% of the vote, to 50% of the vote for McCaskill.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The election was always expected to be very close, which seems fitting for a seat that has changed hands twice, both by very narrow margins, within the last six years. In 2000, the late Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, a Democrat, narrowly defeated incumbent Republican Senator John Ashcroft 50% to 48%. Two years later in a special election held for the seat, incumbent Senator Jean Carnahan lost an even closer election to former Congressman Talent, 50% to 49%.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Missouri was seen as the nation's bellwether state throughout the 20th century: It had voted for the winner of every presidential election since 1900, except for 1956 (when the state narrowly favored Adlai Stevenson over Dwight D. Eisenhower). Missouri's bellwether status was due to the fact that it not only voted for the electoral victor, but that its returns usually mirrored national returns.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The state itself is a geographically central state, bordered by both the edges of Southern and Midwestern regions. In statewide contests for much of the 20th century, Missouri favored the Democratic Party. In recent elections, the Republican Party (GOP) has emerged in statewide contests. The election of 2004 was an important one; as George W. Bush was re-elected he carried Missouri. But this time his margin in the state was greater than it was nationwide. Bush won the Presidency 51% to 48%, he carried Missouri 53% to 46%. This trend had begun in 2000, when Bush lost the national popular vote to Al Gore 47% to 48% but still won Missouri, 50% to 47%. Bush's victory also saw Republicans triumph in several statewide contests; Senator Kit Bond was re-elected by a decisive 56% to 43% margin and Matt Blunt won the election for Governor, narrowly defeating state auditor Claire McCaskill 51% to 48%. The GOP also captured control of the state legislature for the first time in eighty years.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Talent, anticipating a tough re-election battle and attempting to dissuade challengers, had accumulated a large campaign fund. For most of 2005, he had no opposition. State Senator Chuck Graham had briefly entered the race early in the year, but dropped out soon after. However, on August 30, 2005, Democrat Claire McCaskill announced her intention to run for Talent's Senate seat.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: McCaskill started with a large financial disadvantage, but she was also an experienced candidate with high name recognition. McCaskill had run two successful campaigns for state auditor. She was also a candidate for governor in 2004, when she defeated the incumbent Democratic Governor Bob Holden in the primary election but lost with 48% of the vote in the general election.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Both Talent and McCaskill faced unknowns in their respective primaries on August 8, 2006, and defeated them soundly.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The Missouri contest was seen as vitally important to control of the United States Senate; as a toss-up election between two strong candidates, the race was expected to attract a lot of interest as well as money spent on ads and turning out supporters. If Talent won, then a Democratic takeover of the U.S. Senate depended upon victories in Tennessee, where the Republican Bob Corker won, and Virginia, where Democrat Jim Webb won; the Democrats needed to win six seats to take control of the chamber with 51 seats. To do this, they would need to retain their 19 incumbent seats, win the four Republican-held seats of Montana, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania (where Democratic chances seemed above 50%, and Democrats won all 4.) and two of the following three "toss-up" races: Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: It is believed that statewide ballot issues drove the November 2006 vote. Talent was on the opposite of the majority of voters in this poll on just about every issue: 66% of Missouri voters favored raising the minimum wage to $6.50 an hour; 62% of Missouri voters favored raising taxes to replace Medicaid funding cut by the current Republican Governor, Matt Blunt; 54% opposed a law that would require all Missourians to show a photo ID before they vote; 58% favored campaign donation limitations; and 66% favored restoring Medicaid coverage to about 90,000 Missourians who lost coverage when Blunt and the Republican legislature tightened eligibility requirements.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Perhaps most importantly, 62% favored a ballot proposal that would allow all types of embryonic stem cell research allowed under federal law - a measure Talent had recently announced that he was against.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On election night the race was, as expected, too close to call. With 85% of the vote in and with still no call, McCaskill claimed victory. At the time McCaskill declared victory, she was ahead by a vote margin of 867,683 to Talent's 842,251 votes; in percentage terms, with 85% of the vote in, McCaskill led Talent, 49% to 48%. Finally, at 11:38 P.M. Central Time the Associated Press called McCaskill as the winner. St. Louis County, adjacent to St. Louis, and Jackson County, home of Kansas City, are probably what pushed McCaskill over the finish line.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican Conrad Burns was running for re-election to a fourth term, but was defeated by Democrat Jon Tester, President of the Montana State Senate, by a margin of 0.87%, or 3,562 votes out of 406,505 votes.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Burns was first elected as a United States senator from Montana in 1988, when he defeated Democratic incumbent John Melcher in a close race, 51% to 48%. Burns was re-elected 62.4% to 37.6%, over Jack Mudd in the Republican Revolution year of 1994. In 2000, Burns faced the well-financed Brian Schweitzer whom he beat 50.6% to 47.2%.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: In 2000, George W. Bush carried Montana 58% to 33% in the race for President, but Burns won by 3.4%. Since the direct election of Senators began in 1913, Burns is only the second Republican Montana has elected to the U.S. Senate. Also, for thirty-two straight years, 1952 to 1984, Montana elected only Democratic Senators.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Burns's involvement in the Jack Abramoff scandal made him vulnerable. A SurveyUSA poll released in March 2006 found that 38% of Montanans approved of him, while 52% disapproved of him. Polls against leading Democratic candidates had him below his challengers.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On May 31, 2006, Richards, citing the closeness of the race, and his own position (third) in the polls, withdrew from the race, and threw his support to Tester. Morrison started off strong in the race for the Democratic nomination for Senator, collecting $1.05 million as of the start of 2006, including $409,241 in the last three months of 2005. but Morrison's advantages in fundraising and name identification did not translate into a lead in the polls. Later, the race was called a "deadlock," but Tester continued to gather momentum.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The race was expected to be close, due to Burns's previous narrow winning margins and recent political scandal involving him personally; Republican incumbents everywhere were facing more challenging races in 2006 due to the waning popularity of Congress and the leadership of President George W. Bush. In July 2006, the Rasmussen report viewed Burns as the "second most vulnerable Senator seeking re-election this year (Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum was still the most vulnerable)."


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Senator Conrad Burns of Montana faced a strong challenge from Brian Schweitzer in 2000, being re-elected by 3.4% in a state that went for Bush twice by margins of over 20%. This, combined with the increasing strength of the state Democratic party and accusations of ethical issues related to the Jack Abramoff scandal, made this a highly competitive race.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On July 27, Burns was forced to apologize after he confronted out of state firefighters who were preparing to leave Montana after helping contain a summer forest fire and directly questioned their competence and skill; Burns was strongly criticized.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On August 31, in a letter faxed to the office of Montana governor Brian Schweitzer, Burns urged the governor, a Democrat, to declare a fire state of emergency and activate the Montana Army National Guard for firefighting. Schweitzer had already declared such a state of emergency on July 11 — thus, activating the Montana Army National Guard. He issued a second declaration on August 11. A Burns spokesman said the senator was "pretty sure" Schweitzer had already issued such a disaster declaration, but just wanted to make sure. "The genesis of the letter was just to make sure that all the bases were covered," Pendleton said. "This is not a political football. It's just a cover-the-bases letter and certainly casts no aspersions on the governor."


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Due to errors with polling machines the Montana count was delayed well into Wednesday November 8. The race was too close to call throughout the night and many pundits predicted the need for a recount. After a very close election, on November 9, incumbent Conrad Burns conceded defeat.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Just before 11:00 AM (MST) on November 8, Jon Tester was declared Senator-elect for Montana in "USA Today". At 2:27 PM EST on November 8, CNN projected that Jon Tester would win the race.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The race was the closest Senate election of 2006 in terms of absolute vote difference; the closest race by percentage difference was the Virginia senate election.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Democrat Ben Nelson won re-election to a second term. As of 2021, this is the last Senate election in Nebraska won by a Democrat.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Republican Pete Ricketts, former COO of TD Ameritrade and future Governor of Nebraska financed his own campaign. His opponents could not raise enough money to keep up. Kramer raised $330,000 and Stenberg raised $246,000 in 2005.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The primary election was held May 9, 2006. Pete Ricketts won the Republican nomination with 48% of the vote. Ben Nelson was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Nelson was elected in 2000 by a margin of 51% to 49% after serving as the state's governor for two terms. Nelson, considered the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, was the lone Democrat in Nebraska's Congressional delegation. This election was one of the most expensive in Nebraska history. In 2005, Ben Nelson raised $3.9 million for his re-election campaign. Pete Ricketts contributed $14.35 million of his own money to his campaign; he raised an additional $485,000 in contributions. The race also attracted national attention and generated several high-level campaign appearances. President George W. Bush appeared at a rally for Ricketts on November 5, 2006, in Grand Island, while then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama appeared at a fundraiser for Nelson and other Nebraska Democrats on May 5, 2006 in Omaha. However, he won re-election by a wide margin.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican John Ensign won re-election to a second term over Democrat Jack Carter, Navy veteran and son of President Jimmy Carter.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Popular Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman had said in January that he would probably run, but in late April, he decisively ruled that out. Goodman did not file by the May 12, 2006 deadline. Carter's advantages included his formidable speaking abilities and kinship with a former U.S. President. On the other hand, Ensign was also considered to be an effective speaker and as of the first quarter of 2006, held an approximately 5-1 advantage over Carter in cash-on-hand.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Democrat Bob Menendez was elected for a full term. The seat was previously held by Democratic Governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine. After Corzine resigned and was sworn in Governor, Corzine appointed Congressman Menendez on January 18, 2006. Menendez was challenged by Republican Thomas Kean, Jr. and seven other candidates. Filing for the primary closed on April 10, 2006. The primary election was held June 6, 2006. Menendez became the first Hispanic to hold a U.S. Senate seat from New Jersey, and was the first Latino elected to statewide office in the state.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Republican John P. Ginty, associate director with Standard & Poor's represented the conservative wing of the New Jersey Republican party. Kean was a moderate, and the son of the former Governor of New Jersey Thomas Kean. Kean won the primary by a 3-1 margin.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The biggest factors in the New Jersey Senate race may have had little to do with the candidates involved and more to do with Governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine and President George W. Bush.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: In mid-summer, Jon Corzine and the Democratic-controlled state legislature held a brief shutdown of state government, which ultimately resulted in a sales tax increase, among other things.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: In a September 2006 poll, SurveyUSA found that Corzine received an approval rate of only 43%, with 48% of the state disapproving. Since Menendez had been appointed by Corzine, some pundits argued that this would be a resonating factor with a number of voters.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: According to a separate September 2006 poll, SurveyUSA found that the state of New Jersey had a rather high disapproval rating for Republican President George W. Bush, with 64% disapproving and only 32% approving. This led some to argue that voters would take their discontent with Bush out on Kean in the November election.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Indeed, some pollsters demonstrated that concerns over the Iraq War and discontent with President Bush solidified the Democratic base in October's advertising blitz, and won over enough independents to seal of fate of the Republican nominee. On the eve of the election, Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind Poll reported that 65% likely voters said that the US invasion of Iraq was a mistake, "including nine of ten Democrats and six of ten independents." Observers also pointed out that "from the beginning, [Menendez] made much of his 2002 vote against the Iraq War Resolution, often referring to it as one of the most important votes of his career. He made it clear as well that he intended to make the race a referendum on the President."


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Others attributed Kean's early strong showing in the polls of this blue state to uninformed voters confusing the three-year state senator with his father, the popular former governor and 9/11 Commission chairman.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Because of Kean's perceived liberalism on social issues, he has been labeled by some conservatives as a "Republican in Name Only".


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On June 13, 2006, Kean held a fundraiser in Ocean County featuring First Lady Laura Bush. It was here that both Senator Kean and Mrs. Bush pointed out that Kean is not George W. Bush, claiming that Senator Menendez seems to confuse the two.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On June 16, 2006 at a New Jersey Association of Counties speaking event in Atlantic City, Kean and his aides beat a hasty retreat from the ballroom engagement and "stampeded" into an elevator in an abortive attempt to avoid the press, only to exit on the same floor as they had entered. Kean declined to answer questions about the scathing attacks on his integrity which his opponent had delivered minutes earlier, instead opting to repeat "a few slogans."


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: In late June, the Associated Press reported that Kean's campaign was planning a "Swift Boat"-style film accusing Menendez of involvement in a New Jersey mob-connected kickback scheme "despite public records and statements disputing that claim." The AP article noted that "[f]our former federal prosecutors who oversaw the case have said Menendez was never involved in any wrongdoing." The airing of unsubstantiated allegations years or even decades old is a hallmark of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign attack style, which gained notoriety during the 2004 U.S. presidential election.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: In mid-September, "The Star-Ledger" reported that Sen. Menendez had declined a national debate with Kean on the popular Sunday morning talk-show, Meet the Press. A Menendez spokesperson stated that the incumbent Democrat would prefer to focus on local citizens and press. Menendez did agree to take place in three locally aired debates with Kean, which will be aired between October 7–17. Kean withdrew from one of the scheduled debates to which he had previously committed, an October 14, 2006, debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters, insisting on a national TV debate as a condition of his participation.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Both candidates agreed to participate in a virtual debate sponsored by the nonpartisan Hall Institute of Public Policy - New Jersey which provided "an unprecedented opportunity for candidates and citizens to engage in an interactive forum on the important issues confronting" New Jersey. Beginning in July and running through Election Day in November, the institute submitted questions to the candidates and then posted their responses on its website.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: David Pfeffer, Santa Fe City Councilman announced on August 23, 2005, that he would be entering the primary. A former Democrat, he supported George W. Bush in 2004 and became a Republican in 2005. In his campaign announcement, Pfeffer focused mainly on border controls with Mexico. He criticised Bingaman in comparison to his own support for reform of the Social Security system and the Iraq War as well as U.S. relations with China, saying "With all due respect, I do not believe the present occupier of the junior seat from New Mexico is doing all that can and should be done on these fronts," he said of Bingaman. "I believe I can do a better job ... " Pfeffer also commented that he would have a hard time raising an amount equivalent to Senator Bingaman, a problem faced by any of the latter's potential challengers.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Bingaman had a 60% approval rating in one poll. He faced no primary opposition. There had been speculation that Bingaman would give up the chance to run for another term to become a lobbyist.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton won by a more than two-to-one margin. Clinton was challenged by Republican John Spencer, a former Mayor of Yonkers, New York.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Clinton spent $36 million for her re-election, more than any other candidate for Senate in the 2006 elections.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On November 7, 2006, Clinton won easily, garnering 67% of the vote to Spencer's 31%. The election was not close, with Clinton winning 58 of New York's 62 counties. Clinton had a surprisingly strong performance in upstate New York which tends to be tossup. When Clinton's upstate margins combined with her huge numbers out of New York City, there was no coming back for the Republicans. Clinton was sworn in for what would be her last term in the senate serving from January 3, 2007 to January 21, 2009 when she assumed the office of United States Secretary of State.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Dem-NPL-er Kent Conrad won re-election to a fourth term, beating Republican farmer Dwight Grotberg.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Popular Republican governor John Hoeven was heavily recruited by prominent national Republicans, including Karl Rove and Dick Cheney to run against Conrad. SurveyUSA polls showed that both Conrad and Hoeven had among the highest approval ratings of any Senators and governors in the nation. A poll conducted by PMR (8/26-9/3 MoE 3.9) for "The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead" had as result for a hypothetical matchup: Hoeven-35%, Conrad-27%, Uncommitted-38%. This poll showed voter conflict between two very popular politicians in a small state where party loyalty is often trumped by personality. In late September 2005, Hoeven formally declined. Hoeven ran for the Senate in 2010 and was elected.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican Mike DeWine ran for re-election but lost to Democratic congressman Sherrod Brown.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: DeWine had approval ratings at 38%, making him the second most unpopular U.S. Senator, behind Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum, who was also up for re-election in 2006. Pre-election stories in the U.S. media suggested that the national Republican Party may have given up on saving Senator DeWine's senate seat before election date. Sherrod Brown, former Ohio Secretary of State and U.S. Representative from Ohio's 13th district was the Democratic candidate, and the eventual winner.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Paul Hackett, Iraq War veteran announced on February 13, 2006 that he would withdraw from the race, because national party leaders had decided that Sherrod Brown had a better chance against DeWine. "The Plain Dealer" (2/18/06) also reported that there had been concerns that Hackett might not have had enough money after the primary to run the statewide advertising customary for a Senate campaign.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Both Republican challengers, engineer William G. Pierce and David Smith, candidate for OH-02 in 2005, campaigned as conservative alternatives to DeWine, citing DeWine's support for legal abortion and his role as one of the Republican members of the Gang of 14 who compromised with Democrats in a dispute about judicial appointments. DeWine won the primary 71.82% of the votes.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Because this race was targeted by Democrats, it made it all the more important to the GOP, who desired to retain Senate control. John McClelland, a spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party said, "It's vitally important to the Republican Party as a whole, so I think that's why you see the president coming to Ohio to support Mike DeWine. Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said, "Mike DeWine Senior is in for the fight of his life, make no mistake about it".


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On July 14, 2006, DeWine's campaign began airing TV commercials depicting a smoking World Trade Center. "The senator was notified ... by a reporter at "U.S. News & World Report" that the image of the burning Twin Towers could not have depicted the actual event because the smoke was blowing the wrong way." DeWine's campaign admitted that the video was actually a still photo of the World Trade Center with smoke digitally added. He also was criticized for using an emotionally charged image to attack his challenger.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Another of DeWine's ads suggested that opponent Sherrod Brown didn't pay his taxes for thirteen years. This claim led to the Associated Press reporting on October 19 that, "Several Ohio television stations have stopped airing a Republican ad because state documents contradict the ad's accusation that Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown didn't pay an unemployment tax bill for 13 years." Brown produced a commercial citing these facts. DeWine's ads were changed to state only that he had failed to pay his unemployment taxes until legal action was taken against him.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: According to an article in the October 16, 2006, edition of "The New York Times", top Republican party officials on the national level determined that DeWine would probably be defeated and were moving financial support from his race to other Republican senatorial candidates they felt were more likely to win.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Brown was called the winner right when the polls closed at 7:30. DeWine had the second worst performance of a Republican incumbent in 2006. Only Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania had a worse performance. While DeWine was able to win rural counties in western Ohio, Brown managed to win most eastern Ohio counties, especially in heavily populated areas. DeWine's narrow 2,000 vote victory in Hamilton County which is home to Cincinnati, came nowhere close to making a dent in Brown's lead. Brown would go on to be re elected in 2012 and again in 2018.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican Rick Santorum ran for re-election to a third term, but was defeated by Bob Casey, Jr. Casey was elected to serve between January 3, 2007 and January 3, 2013. Santorum trailed Casey in every public poll taken during the campaign. Casey's margin of victory (nearly 18% of those who voted) was the largest ever for a Democratic Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, and the largest margin of victory for a Senate challenger in the 2006 elections.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Bob Casey, Jr., State Treasurer, former State Auditor General and son of former Governor Bob Casey, Sr. won the Democratic primary.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Santorum was unopposed in the Republican primary. Republican John Featherman, who ran against Santorum in 2000 as a Libertarian, had been expected to challenge him in the 2006 Republican primary. However, Featherman withdrew his candidacy after a GOP petition challenge because he did not have the necessary number of signatures to get on the ballot.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Republican strategists took as a bad omen Santorum's primary result in 2006, in which he ran unopposed for the Republican nomination. Republican gubernatorial nominee Lynn Swann, also unopposed in the primary, garnered 22,000 more votes statewide than Santorum in the primary, meaning thousands of Republican voters abstained from endorsing Santorum for another Senate term. This may have been partly due to Santorum's support for Arlen Specter, over Congressman Pat Toomey in the 2004 Republican primary for the U.S. Senate. Even though Santorum was perceived to be only slightly less conservative than Toomey, he joined virtually all of the state and national Republican establishment in supporting the moderate Specter. This led many socially and fiscally conservative Republicans to consider Santorum's support of Specter to be a betrayal of their cause. However, Santorum said that he supported Specter to avoid risking a Toomey loss in the general election, which would have prevented President George W. Bush's judicial nominees from getting through the Senate. Santorum said Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito would not have been confirmed without the help of Specter, who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The election was won by Sheldon Whitehouse, former Attorney General of Rhode Island and former U.S. Attorney for the District of Rhode Island. Republican Lincoln Chafee was seeking re-election for a second full term to the seat he had held since 1999, when he was appointed to fill the vacancy created by the death of his father John Chafee. Lincoln Chafee won election to the seat in 2000.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Whitehouse was endorsed by U.S. Senator Jack Reed, U.S. Congressmen Jim Langevin and Patrick J. Kennedy, as well as by former candidate Matt Brown. Carl Sheeler, a former U.S. Marine, a business owner, and an adjunct professor of business, ran on a more progressive platform. Ultimately, however, Whitehouse would trounce his competition in the primary on September 12, winning his party's support by a large margin.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Lincoln Chafee was one of the most liberal members of the Republican Party in the Senate by 2006, and was challenged for the Republican nomination by Steve Laffey, Mayor of Cranston, who had criticized Chafee for his liberal voting record in the Senate. In early 2006, the Club for Growth, a pro-tax cut political action committee, sent a series of mailings to Rhode Island Republicans attacking Chafee's positions and voting record.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The national GOP supported Chafee in the primary campaign, believing that he was the most likely candidate to hold the seat in the general election. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, John McCain of Arizona and Laura Bush appeared at fundraisers for Chafee, while Senator Bill Frist's PAC donated to Chafee. The National Republican Senatorial Committee also ran ads in the state supporting Chafee. Steve Laffey, however, picked up many endorsements from Republican town committees throughout Rhode Island, the national group Club for Growth, and former candidate for the party's Presidential nomination Steve Forbes. On July 10, 2006, the National Republican Senatorial Committee filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Laffey, saying that he had included a political communication in tax bills mailed to residents of Cranston.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Democrats believed that this was one of the most likely Senate seats to switch party control, due to the Democratic tilt of Rhode Island, as well as the fact that Chafee needed to expend part of his campaign fund to win the Republican primary election. Chafee's approval ratings also took a beating from his primary battle with Laffey and may have hurt him in the general election. Another factor that hurt Chafee was the fact that Whitehouse, the Democratic nominee, had a huge head start on him, as he was able to campaign with little opposition for at least half the year and had not had to contend with a major opponent until the general election campaign. Rhode Islanders' historically large disapproval ratings for President Bush and the Republican Party as a whole was another major hurdle for Chafee.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Whitehouse and Chafee very rarely disagreed on political issues. Socially, they agreed almost 100% of the time. Chafee was against the Bush tax cuts, indicating his ideology was liberal-leaning. On some fiscal issues they disagreed on such as on social security and free trade.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Whitehouse carried Providence County, which contains approximately 60% of the state's population, with 59% to Chafee's 41%. Chafee's strongest showing was in Washington County ("South County"), where he took 55% of the vote against Whitehouse's 45%. Chafee also took Kent County by a small margin, while Whitehouse was victorious by extremely slim margins in Bristol and Newport counties.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: After the election, when asked by a reporter if he thought his defeat would help the country by giving Democrats control of Congress, he replied, "to be honest, yes."


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Winner Bob Corker replaced Republican Bill Frist who retired upon the end of his second term in 2007. Corker was the Republican nominee, and the Democratic nominee was Harold Ford, Jr., U.S. Representative. The race between Ford and Corker was one of the most competitive Senate races of 2006, with Corker winning the race by less than three percent of the vote. Corker was the only non-incumbent Republican to win a U.S. Senate seat in 2006. Since 1994, the Republican Party has held both of Tennessee's Senate seats.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Ford is known nationally for his keynote address at the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California, and for a challenge to Nancy Pelosi for leadership of the House Democrats. Rosalind Kurita, a six-term state Senator from Clarksville, Tennessee dropped out of the race in early April 2006. No official reason was given, but Ford enjoyed substantial support from Democratic leaders in Washington and Nashville and held a substantial lead in fundraising. Ford won the Democratic nomination by a wide margin in the primary.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Only 11 percent of Tennesseans knew who Corker was when he began running for the Senate race. All three Republicans had run statewide campaigns in the past, albeit unsuccessful ones: former U.S. Representative Ed Bryant for the 2002 Republican Senate nomination, losing to Lamar Alexander; businessman and former Mayor of Chattanooga Bob Corker for the U.S. Senate in 1994, losing to Frist in the Republican primary; and former U.S. Representative Van Hilleary for Tennessee Governor in 2002, losing to Democrat Phil Bredesen. Corker won the nomination by obtaining 48% of the primary vote to Bryant's 34% and Hilleary's 17%.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Not long after Corker's primary victory was assured, Ford, at a rally of his supporters attended by Bill Clinton, challenged Corker to seven televised debates across the state. In response, Corker said he will debate Ford but did not agree to Ford's request of seven debates. Both of Corker's primary opponents endorsed Corker immediately after they conceded the race.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Before a Corker press conference in Memphis on October 20, Ford approached Corker in a parking lot and confronted his opponent about Iraq in front of local news cameras, pointing out that some of Corker's fellow Republicans are changing their minds on the war and wanting to debate him about the issue. In response, Corker said, "I came to talk about ethics, and I have a press conference. And I think it's a true sign of desperation that you would pull your bus up when I'm having a press conference." Ford replied that he could never find Corker. Corker then walked away to his press conference.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On November 2, Nielsen Monitor Plus indicated that the Corker campaign had purchased more television advertising than any other Senate candidate in the country through October 15.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: A particularly negative ad titled "Who Hasn't?" sponsored by the Republican National Committee ("RNC") that aired during the third and fourth weeks of October gained national attention and condemnation from both Ford and Corker. The ad portrayed a scantily clad white woman (Johanna Goldsmith) acting as a Playboy bunny who "met Harold at the "Playboy" party" and invites Ford to "call me".


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Responding to questions about the ad, a Ford spokesperson said that Ford went to a 2005 Playboy-sponsored Super Bowl party that was attended by more than 3,000 people, and Ford himself said that he likes "football and girls" and makes no apology for either.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison won re-election to a third term over Democratic attorney Barbara Ann Radnofsky.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The Democratic nominee who had never run for public office and was expected to face an uphill battle in the general election, especially in a state that has not elected a Democrat statewide since 1994 and against a historically popular Hutchison. Since neither Radnofsky nor her main opponent, Gene Kelly, had received a majority of votes in the Democratic primary, a runoff was held April 11, 2006, which Radnofsky won. Radnofsky's campaign platform is available on her website. Scott Lanier Jameson won the Libertarian Party nomination at the party's state convention on June 10, 2006, defeating Timothy Wade and Ray Salinas. Arthur W. Loux, a Roman Forest City Councilman and a member of the Minutemen, was running as an independent.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Hutchison co-sponsored legislation supporting the creation of a constitutional amendment that would limit terms for senators, but had been quoted saying that she would only leave after two terms if such a law applied to all senators. After deciding not to challenge Governor Rick Perry this year, as had been widely speculated, Hutchison was running for a third term. She had no opposition in the Republican primary, and had approval ratings in the 60 percent range going into the General Election , although they had been slipping rapidly.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican Orrin Hatch won re-election to a sixth term over Democrat Pete Ashdown, the founder and CEO of Utah's oldest Internet service provider, XMission.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Hatch won all but one county with 60% to 70% of the vote. Ashdown won the remaining one county by 342 votes.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Independent Jim Jeffords decided to retire rather than seek re-election to a fourth term in office and Bernie Sanders was elected to succeed him over Republican businessman Richard Tarrant.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Sanders represented Vermont's at-large House district as an independent, won the Democratic primary and then dropped out to run as an independent. Many Democratic politicians across the country endorsed Sanders, and no Democrat was on the ballot. The state committee of the Vermont Democratic Party voted unanimously to endorse Sanders. Sanders won the open seat with 65% of the vote.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Four candidates ran in the Democratic primary. Sanders won the primary, but declined the nomination, leaving no Democratic nominee on the ballot. This victory ensured that no Democrat would appear on the general election ballot to split the vote with Sanders, an ally of the Democrats, who has been supported by leaders in the Democratic Party.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: In mid-August 2006, the campaign heated up considerably, with Tarrant fully engaged in heavy media advertising, most of which criticized Sanders's public stances. Tarrant ran several ads accusing Sanders of representing himself differently from his voting record in the House of Representatives, citing such examples as Sanders's votes against Amber Alert and against increased penalties for child pornography. Sanders responded with an ad stating that Tarrant's claims are "dishonest" and "distort my record" and presented what he viewed as more accurate explanations of his voting record.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Sanders won a majority of the votes in every county in the state, with 57% as his lowest county total.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Incumbent Republican George Allen ran for re-election to a second term, but lost in a narrow race to Democrat Jim Webb.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Allen, who previously served as Governor of Virginia and was considered a possible candidate for president in 2008, was running for his second term. Webb, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, writer and former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan won the Democratic nomination after being drafted by netroots activists, such as those at the blog Raising Kaine. Polls clearly favored Allen through mid-August, when he was caught on videotape on August 11 twice using an ethnic slur in reference to a Webb campaign volunteer, S.R. Sidarth, who is of Indian ancestry. Allen denied any prejudice in the comment, but his lead shrank considerably. Still, he led in most polls until late October, when several surveys showed Webb with a lead — mostly within the margin of error. The election was not decided until nearly 48 hours after the polls closed, when Allen, behind by a margin of about 0.3%, conceded on November 9, 2006. With all of the other Senate races decided, the outcome swung control of the Senate to the Democrats.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The week before the primary, businessman Harris Miller said a Webb campaign flier characterized him in an anti-Semitic way; Webb denied that it did.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Webb focused on his early and outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq, which Allen supported. In a September 4, 2002, opinion piece in "The Washington Post", Webb wrote: "A long-term occupation of Iraq would beyond doubt require an adjustment of force levels elsewhere, and could eventually diminish American influence in other parts of the world." Webb's son, a U.S. Marine, served in Iraq.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Allen and Webb differed on other issues. Allen is anti-abortion; Webb supports abortion rights. Allen supported George W. Bush's tax cuts while Webb said more of the benefits should have gone to middle-class Americans. Both candidates supported the death penalty, right-to-work laws, and Second Amendment rights.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Virginia has historically been one of the more Republican Southern states: for instance it was the only Southern state not to vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976, its congressional delegation was mostly conservative, with eight of eleven Congressmen and both Senators belonging to the Republican Party prior to the 2006 election. This made Virginia's Congressional delegation the most Republican of any Southern state. Despite this, Democrats had won the previous two gubernatorial races, in 2001 and 2005. The state's political majority has been changing from conservative white to a mixture of races, especially Hispanic. The state is increasingly diverse; it had the highest percentage of Asians (4.7%, according to the 2005 American Community Survey of the U.S. Census) of any Southern state. 9.9% of Virginians are foreign-born.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Webb, like Governor Tim Kaine in 2005, won the four major fast-growing counties in Northern Virginia outside Washington, D.C.; Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and Arlington. President Barack Obama carried Virginia by a 6.3% margin over Republican Senator John McCain.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: When results began coming in, Allen quickly built a sizeable lead, which began to narrow as the night went on. With 90% of precincts reporting, Allen held a lead of about 30,000 votes , or about 1.5%. However, as votes began to come in from population-heavy Richmond, Webb narrowed the gap, and pulled ahead within the last 1 or 2% of precincts to report. Preliminary results showed Webb holding a lead of 8,942 votes, and many news organizations hesitated to call the election for either candidate until the next day. At 8:41 PM EST on November 8, AP declared Webb the winner.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: In all Virginia elections, if the margin of defeat is less than half of a percentage point, the Commonwealth of Virginia allows the apparent losing candidate to request a recount, paid for by the local jurisdictions. If the margin of defeat is between one and one-half of a percentage point, the losing candidate is still entitled to request a recount, but must cover its expense.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Because the difference was less than 0.5%, George Allen could have requested a recount paid for by the government, but declined to make such a request. That was likely because:


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: The filing deadline was July 28, 2006, with the primary held September 19, 2006. Cantwell consistently led in polling throughout the race, although political analysts saw her as vulnerable this election cycle due to her extremely narrow win in 2000 and discontent among progressive voters. In November, The National Journal ranked Cantwell's seat as number 13 of the top 20 races to watch based on the likelihood of switching party control, and the third-highest Democratic seat likely to flip. However, in an election marked by discontent over the Republican leadership in D.C., Cantwell easily won by a 17% margin of victory.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Statewide politics in Washington had been dominated by the Democratic Party for many years. The governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, state auditor, and insurance commissioner were all Democrats, while only secretary of state, attorney general, and commissioner of public lands were Republican. Of the nine representatives Washington sent to the House of Representatives, six were Democrats. Democrat Patty Murray was the state's senior senator. Cantwell won her initial election to the Senate in 2000 over Slade Gorton by 2,229 votes. Due to the closeness of that race, and the close gubernatorial contest between Democrat Christine Gregoire and Republican Dino Rossi in November 2004, many Republicans believed they had a strong chance of capturing Cantwell's seat in 2006.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On March 9, 2006, Aaron Dixon announced his decision to seek the Green Party's nomination for U.S. Senate, challenging Cantwell on her continued support for the U.S. presence in Iraq and the USA PATRIOT Act. On May 13, 2006, Mr. Dixon secured the party's nomination at the Green Party of Washington state's Spring Convention.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Initially, Cantwell had two challengers from within the Democratic primary, both of them taking strong stances against the Iraq war that brought attention to Cantwell's votes for the Iraq Resolution and against a timeline for withdrawal. Three other Democrats also entered the primary race.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On August 8, 2006, the incumbent Democratic Senator from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman, lost his primary race to challenger Ned Lamont by 52%-48%, and then ran as an Independent in the general election. A great deal of attention was focused on this race as an early barometer of both anti-incumbent and anti-war sentiment nationwide. Comparisons were made between Lieberman's troubles and Cantwell's re-election bid, citing Cantwell's vote in favor of the Iraq Resolution that led to the war, her refusal to say she regretted the vote, and her vote against a timetable for withdrawal.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Unlike Lamont's campaign, Cantwell's anti-war opponents' campaigns received much less funding and did not have the same support from the blogosphere that brought Lamont to prominence and improved his name recognition. Also, unlike Lieberman, Cantwell altered her position on the war during her campaign and criticized the Bush Administration for its conduct of the war. She also hired her most vocal anti-war primary opponent, Mark Wilson, at $8,000-a-month salary, a move that was described by political commentators as "buying out" the opposition (which she also allegedly attempted with other anti-war challengers Hong Tran and Aaron Dixon). The article noted that, despite the differences in exact circumstances, the Lieberman defeat also showed that voters were in an anti-incumbent mood, which could've created problems for Cantwell. This was supported by another P-I article that also noted that the primary loss of Lieberman and two House incumbents, Michigan Republican Joe Schwarz and Georgia Democrat Cynthia McKinney, on the same day indicated that there may have been a nationwide anti-incumbent trend.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Following the primary results, Cantwell endorsed Ned Lamont and McGavick responded by endorsing Senator Lieberman. The Dixon campaign released a statement criticizing Cantwell's "spin and vague rhetoric" on the war, and equating her current position to a pro-war stance similar to Lieberman's.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On August 14, less than a week after Lamont's win and nearly four years after the actual event, Cantwell for the first time said she would have voted against the authorization to use force in Iraq if she knew then what she knew in 2006. However, she did so only after hearing her opponent McGavick say that he would have voted against the authorization under those conditions. Cantwell has stated that she had no regrets for her vote in favor of the authorization and did not change that position.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On July 9, anti-war challenger Mark Wilson announced he would abandon his bid, endorse Cantwell, and take a paid position offered by Cantwell's campaign, one day after progressive activist and anti-war critic Dal LaMagna had been hired to be the Cantwell campaign's co-chair. Initially, Cantwell's campaign refused to state how much they were paying Wilson, but under pressure from the media, disclosed that he was receiving $8,000 per month, only slightly less than Cantwell's campaign manager Matt Butler, who earns $8,731 per month. The next day, Hong Tran received a call from LaMagna saying they would like her to join their campaign, in a context that she interpreted as a job offer, which she refused. Political commentators, including those at the Seattle Post Intelligencer and one at The Washington Times, expressed their views that Cantwell was attempting to eliminate the viable options anti-war Democrats had to voice their opinion on the war in the upcoming primary by having Wilson join her campaign and then soliciting Tran.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: Wilson's supporters and journalists expressed surprise at his withdrawal from the race after a 16-month campaign, where he was a sharp critic of the incumbent Senator, who he referred to on his campaign website as a "free-trading corporate elitist" who "bought her seat", then "alienated and alarmed" her base. When asked by reporters if he still believed what he said about Cantwell during his primary bid, he stated: "I believed in it to a point in order to capitalize on what was already existent, which was a rift within the Democratic Party over the issue of the war." Both Dixon and Tran publicly doubted that Wilson's apparent change of heart was genuine, citing his paid position with the campaign and his initial refusal to disclose his salary.


title: 2006 United States Senate elections

text: On September 25, Joshua Frank reported that Dixon was alleging that he had been contacted twice in July by Mark Wilson, who implied that large donations to Dixon's non-profit organization, Central House, would be made if he were to withdraw his candidacy before filing. Dixon also claimed that Wilson was not the only Cantwell staffer to contact him, but declined to disclose who the other staff was. Dixon also made this claim on a Democracy Now! broadcast. David Postman of the Seattle Times contacted the Cantwell campaign about the allegations; their spokesperson didn't say it didn't happen, but stated that no one on the campaign had been authorized to speak to Dixon about his campaign. The campaign did not allow access to Wilson so he could respond as to whether the conversation took place. Other reporters also had trouble contacting Wilson; Susan Paynter of the Seattle P-I, in an article on his shunning of the media, noted that there had been a widespread assumption after Wilson's hire that the intent was to silence him and that his disappearance only reinforced this assumption, calling it "the political equivalent of a farm subsidy." Paynter also quoted Hong Tran as saying that the reaction to Wilson's initial appearances on the campaign trail after he had joined Cantwell were so negative that she was not surprised he disappeared.