Former CIA operative Valerie Plame has lost her race in the Democratic primary for an open seat representing New Mexico in Congress.
Attorney Teresa Leger Fernandez overcame six competitors to win her party’s nomination to succeed U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján as he runs for the U.S. Senate. Sen. Tom Udall is retiring.
In her first run for public office, Plame harnessed her fame as a former U.S. intelligence operative whose secret identity was exposed shorty after her diplomat husband disputed U.S. intelligence used to justify the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Leger Fernandez was making her first bid for public office as a professional advocate for Native American communities and voting rights issues.
She could become the first woman to represent the state’s 3rd Congressional District, a Democrat-heavy district.
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Controversial Iowa Republican congressman Steve King has lost his bid to be nominated for a 10th term.
The 71-year-old Iowa native faced four challengers in Tuesday’s Iowa primary. Topping the field is a well-funded state senator, Randy Feenstra, who offered support for President Donald Trump, hardline immigration policies and other conservative views without King’s baggage.
Provocative statements piling up over the years have been a drag on King’s latest campaign. He has compared immigrants crossing the border illegally to cattle, made light of rape and incest in defending his anti-abortion views, and wondered aloud when the term “white supremacist” became offensive.
Last year House Republicans stripped King of his committee assignments after his remarks seeming to defend white nationalism appeared in The New York Times. King said they were taken out of context.
Critics in both parties have charged that King is no longer an effective representative for Iowa’s 4th Congressional District on agriculture and other local issues. Worse for King, even his supporters worried that he could lose the seat to a Democratic challenger if he were nominated again.
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Joe Biden has scored a clean sweep of the seven states conducting Democratic presidential primaries on Tuesday, not at all a surprise given that the presumptive Democratic nominee has no active opposition.
Yet the delegate haul is important to Biden’s goal of gaining enough delegates to claim the Democratic nomination before the party’s summer convention. Tuesday’s results may leave Biden just short of the 1,991 delegates he needs, but primaries next week in Georgia and West Virginia could put him over the top.
Of Tuesday’s elections, Pennsylvania’s primary could add the most delegates to Biden’s count. He also won contests in Maryland, Indiana, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Montana, and South Dakota.
Also choosing a nominee Tuesday are voters in the District of Columbia. Those results are pending.
