Hilliard fights for political life against Davis
06/06/02MARY ORNDORFF
News Washington correspondent
U.S. Rep. Earl Hilliard, once considered among the safest members of Congress, awoke Wednesday to the fight of his political life.
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After a decade of representing the 7th Congressional District without serious challenge, more than half the Democrats announced their unhappiness with him Tuesday by casting a ballot for somebody else.
Artur Davis, a relative unknown when he was clobbered by Hilliard in the same primary two years ago, is now in a dead heat.
"The fact he forced a runoff, that in and of itself is already an upset," said D'Linell Finley, an adjunct professor of political science at Auburn University-Montgomery.
The final vote count Tuesday was Hilliard with 46 percent, or 46,562 votes; Davis with 43 percent, or 43,374 votes; and Sam Wiggins III with 11 percent, or 11,376 votes.
Fifty-four percent of the Democrats in the 12 counties in the district voted for someone other than Hilliard.
"These are active party loyalists. They're the kind of people who should be your absolute best friends as an incumbent, and they voted for somebody else," said Amy Walter, the House analyst for the Cook Political Report in Washington.