DeLay wins four-way battle for nomination
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-08 14:04

Rep. Tom DeLay won the GOP nomination to the House on Tuesday, beating three challengers in his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as majority leader.

With 14 percent of precincts reporting, DeLay had 10,005 votes, or 64 percent. His closest challenger, environmental attorney Tom Campbell, had 4,049 votes, or 26 percent.

"I have always placed my faith in the voters, and today's vote shows they have placed their full faith in me," DeLay said in a statement. "Not only did they reject the politics of personal destruction, but they strongly rejected the candidates who used those Democrat tactics as their platform."

In the other big Texas primary race, a former Democratic congressman from Houston won the right to challenge Republican Gov. Rick Perry in a state where the GOP holds every statewide office.

Chris Bell prevailed over Bob Gammage, a former Texas Supreme Court justice who jumped into the race in December after a decade out of politics. Perry won his primary easily, collecting 85 percent of the vote against three little-known opponents.

With more than 20 percent of precincts reporting, Bell had 129,052 votes, or 63 percent. Gammage had 59,435, or 29 percent.

Bell said the victory was "exactly the boost my campaign needed" heading into what could be a historic four-way race for governor in November. Two independents with considerable political charisma 锟斤拷 Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn and musician and professional wiseacre Kinky Friedman 锟斤拷 are seeking enough signatures from voters who do not vote in the primary to get onto the fall ballot.

In a third contest Tuesday, Democratic voters in a congressional district stretching from San Antonio to Laredo had to decide a rematch between freshman Rep. Henry Cuellar and Ciro Rodriguez, who served 3 1/2 terms on Capitol Hill before losing to Cuellar in 2004. With no Republican running in the district, the winner will take the seat.

Rodriguez seized on a photo of President Bush affectionately cupping Cuellar's cheeks at the recent State of the Union address to portray Cuellar as a stealth Republican.

With about half of precincts reporting, Rodriguez had 11,269 votes, or 56.4 percent. Cuellar had 7,304 votes, or 36.6 percent, but votes from his base along the U.S.-Mexico border were still being counted.

DeLay, 58, was indicted last year and is awaiting trial on charges he illegally funneled corporate donations to GOP candidates for the Texas House in 2002. The Republicans won a majority in the Legislature that year, and then pushed through a congressional redistricting plan engineered by DeLay that sent more Republicans to Washington in 2004.

DeLay has also come under scrutiny over his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to fraud in January and is cooperating in an investigation of influence-peddling on Capitol Hill.

Tuesday's contest was DeLay's first serious primary challenge in the 22 years since he took office.

Campbell, a lawyer who was general counsel for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration during the first Bush administration, was considered the front-runner among DeLay's Republican challengers, who also included Mike Fjetland and Pat Baig. Campbell portrayed himself as a man of integrity and branded DeLay "unelectable."

After voting in his hometown of Sugar Land, DeLay returned to Washington for a campaign fundraiser hosted by two lobbyists. He criticized his opponents for their "politics of personal destruction," saying such tactics "were rejected just like they will be in November."

The Democratic nominee in the fall will be Nick Lampson, a well-financed former congressman ousted from office in 2004 under the new congressional map engineered by DeLay. Lampson had no primary opponent Tuesday.

DeLay "gets headlines for all the wrong reasons," Lampson said Tuesday. "I'm looking forward to that headline on November 8th: 'No Further DeLay.'"

The state's top election official predicted only 13 percent of the 12.7 million registered voters would cast primary ballots, so Strayhorn and Friedman should not have much trouble finding the 45,000-plus voters they each need to sign their petitions over the next two months.

Strayhorn, who calls herself "one tough grandma," got elected comptroller as a Republican but is running for governor as an independent, avoiding a primary against the popular Perry. She is the mother of White House press secretary Scott McClellan. Friedman is a cigar-chomping cowboy musician whose backup group on the road was called the Texas Jewboys.

At least two veterans of the Iraq war are running for Congress from Texas. David T. Harris, a Democrat, is expected to take on Rep. Joe Barton (news, bio, voting record) in November, and Van Taylor, a Republican, won the nomination Tuesday to go up against Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards (news, bio, voting record) in the Crawford-area district that includes Bush's ranch.