Posted on 06/27/2006 10:32:40 PM PDT by Spiff
Jacobs Concedes, Cannon Moves on to General Election
June 27th, 2006 @ 11:12pm
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, challenged by a political newcomer who accused the five-term incumbent of being soft on illegal immigration, was leading in Utah's Republican primary Tuesday with more than half of precincts reporting.
Cannon led John Jacob 58 percent to 42 percent, or 19,575 votes to 14,395 votes, with 313 of 623 precincts reporting. That includes 100 percent of returns from Juab, Beaver and Millard counties.
The 3rd Congressional District race focused primarily on who stands taller in opposition to Bush's call for a path to citizenship for some 11 million illegal immigrants.
Cannon voted last December for a House bill that would toughen border security, criminalize people who help illegal immigrants and make being in the U.S. without the required papers a felony. But he also supports Bush's proposal for a guest-worker program and says "there's massive room for negotiation."
Cannon's willingness to compromise made him a target of Team America, a conservative group that calls illegal immigration the most critical problem facing the nation. It spent $40,000 on radio ads criticizing him.
Jacob, a millionaire real-estate developer, favors returning illegal immigrants to their home countries before giving them a shot at U.S. citizenship and punishing businesses for hiring them.
At the state Republican convention last month, Jacob captured 52 percent of the delegate votes while Cannon got 48 percent. Sixty percent was needed to avoid Tuesday's primary.
The winner will face Democrat Christian Burridge, among others, in November in a district that anyone but a Republican has little chance of winning. Bush carried the 3rd District with 77 percent of the vote in 2004.
The sprawling district, which stretches south from Salt Lake County and west to Nevada, is heavily Mormon and predominantly white. Hispanics make up about 10 percent of the population; blacks less than 1 percent.
In 1996, Cannon won the seat, in part by arguing that the Democratic incumbent, U.S. Rep. Bill Orton, was soft on immigration. In 2004, Cannon's actions on the issue prompted conservatives to back Matt Throckmorton, who managed 42 percent in his GOP primary loss.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Cannon won because you didn't start enough threads.
LOL!! Thrashed, stomped, beaten, kicked, treated like a red-headed step-child......every one of those words applies to Jacob's thorough whipping in this primary.
If anything, the good people of the third district of Utah showed they won't be represented by a mental patient.
Pretty much. He fired a silver bullet at a fellow GOP House member and shot himself instead.
This is a humiliating loss for the Bayster too. Almost as bad as her brother's losses every time he decides to run for anything.
Well, all politics is local and Utah has less of an illegal problem than a lot of other states.
Pubbies in states and/or districts with a bigger problem tack Cannon's line on illegals at their peril.
Time to look for another illegal loving puke to throw out of office.
Agreed.
Just curious, how is it a "thrashing" when Cannon didn't get the support of his own state party forcing him into a runoff with a political novice, he had to call on everyone (including the president and first lady) just to hang onto a seat he has held for 5 terms and he only got 55.8% of the vote in the primary?
You can say he won without question but to say it was a thrashing is beyond exaggeration considering the muscle he had pulling for him down the stretch.
We aren't going to stop targeting the illegal lovers for removal from office. We will force them to defend themselves continually from now on. They get no more free passes.
Good post.
Jacob may have conceded, but this was NOT a referendum on the illegal immigration issue.
Some folks would like to believe that this was a referendum on the illegal alien issue, and that it is "time to move on to other things", but this is simply wishful thinking on their parts.
Uh 56-44 is not "just hanging on" it's considered a mild landslide.
It seems the voters like Cannon much better than the one issue zealots who inundated the GOP convention.
Also Jacob spent 6 times the amount of money than Cannon's 2004 opponent and that got him a whopping 2% bump.
And finally turnout was poor(7% in Salt Lake County) despite all the local and national publciity on how this was a referendum for immigration, few Utahan voters came out, basically saying that voters in one of the most conservative districts in the country really don't have immigration high on their political radar.
LOL! hewo you guys heads are spinning faster than a top.
We will continue to target your beloved open border candidates, and we will do it with even more ferocity in the future.
Growls from a
Be as juvenile as you'd like Dane.
We've come to expect as much from you.
ROFL
Tancredo won in that he forced a runoff with a VERY popular, VERY conservative (on every other issue) Republican in a VERY conservative state. That seems like quite a win to me.
Cannon won because he won, and will win in November, and the GOP will hold the seat.
So here you have Cannon, who is conservative on every other issue, holding; and in SD you have Bilbray, who is liberal on almost every other issue, winning because of immigration. Seems like a wash to me.
It's not a "single issue." It's a CRITICAL issue that sooner or later must be dealt with. Thank God for the House holding the line on this hideous abomination from the Senate---but one "open borders" guy winning and one "fence" guy losing in a primary is hardly a referendum on anything.
What the anti-Tancredo people should take from this is this:
TWO YEARS AGO THIS WOULDN'T EVEN HAVE BEEN ON THE RADAR.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.