Yesterday's Missouri primary resulted in a few surprises. The biggest, perhaps, was Congressman
Lacy Clay's stunning victory over Congressman
Russ Carnahan for Missouri's First Congressional District that includes all of St. Louis and much of the county. Clay garnered 63.2 percent of the vote to Carnahan's 33.9 percent in the newly redrawn district that had the two Democratic incumbents battling for the same seat.
Related content:Gubernatorial Candidate Dave Spence's Epic FailPeter Kinder Burned by Former DonorsRuss Carnahan to Lacy Clay: "[Screw] You!"In the U.S. Senate race, Republican Congressman
Todd Akin won 36 percent of the vote to win the Republican primary. Akin will face incumbent U.S. Senator
Claire McCaskill in November. Akin's opponents, businessman
John Brunner (who spent millions of his own money on the race) and
Sarah Steelman captured 30 percent and 29.2 percent of the vote, respectively.
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Palin's endorsement wasn't enough for Steelman.
Republican candidate for governor, Dave Spence won 60 percent of the vote in his party's primary. He'll face Democratic incumbent
Jay Nixon in November. For lieutenant governor, the
scandal-plagued incumbent,
Peter Kinder, narrowly edged out challenger
Brad Lager (44.2 percent to 41.6 percent) in the Republican primary. Kinder will face former Missouri State Auditor
Susan Montee, winner of the Democratic primary, in November.
Democrat
Jason Kander will face off against Republican
Shane Schoeller for the Secretary of State office that incumbent
Robin Carnahan is vacating later this year. And
Tea Party favorite Ed Martin easily won the Republican primary for Attorney General with 71.6 percent of the vote. He'll meet Democratic incumbent
Chris Koster in the general election.
As was predicted, the so-called "Right to Pray" initiative (a.k.a.
Amendment 2) passed easily statewide with 82.8 percent of the vote.
In local elections, the St. Louis race for city treasurer also resulted in a bit of a surprise.