• Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann wins tight race in Minnesota

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    MINNEAPOLIS – Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, the Tea Party champion and failed Republican presidential nomination candidate, secured a fourth term by winning a very tight race for re-election against Democrat challenger businessman Jim Graves early on Wednesday.

    Bachmann led Graves by 3,256 votes - or just under one percentage point - out of more than 351,000 votes cast in the Minnesota 6th Congressional District with 98.2 percent of precincts reporting, according to unofficial state elections returns.

    In a statement released to NBC News, the Congresswoman said: "It has truly been an honor and a privilege to represent the people of Minnesota's Sixth District in Congress, and I am humbled that they have placed their trust in me for another term.

    "I pledge to continue to work everyday to create jobs and do everything I can to make life more affordable for Minnesota's families. Our children and grandchildren deserve a future filled with opportunity in a country that is safe and secure, and that's what I'm fighting for in Washington."

    A champion of Tea Party backers of smaller government and conservative on social issues such as abortion and gay rights, Bachmann was running in what has been regarded as the most conservative-leaning district in Minnesota.

    Slideshow: The political life of Michele Bachmann

    Mark Wilson / Getty Images

    A look at the political life of the third-term Minnesota congresswoman who's running for the GOP nomination.

    Launch slideshow

    Her bid for the Republican presidential nomination until early in 2012 raised her name recognition nationally, but left her vulnerable to accusations by Graves that she was not representing district interests.

    Her remarks, including an insistence on a link between an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Muslim Brotherhood, were denounced by some in her own party.

    Bachmann, a former Minnesota state senator, has never won more than 53 percent of the vote in the district and won by only 3 percentage points in the last presidential election year of 2008.

    The redrawing of districts after the 2010 census put Bachmann, who lives in Stillwater near the Minnesota border with Wisconsin, outside of the sprawling district that takes in suburbs to the east, north and west of Minneapolis and St. Paul and stretches northwest to include farms and smaller cities.

    Friday's Deep Dive features NBC's Luke Russert giving a special look at Michelle Bachmann's uphill reelection battle for her House seat in Minnesota. MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry, Republican strategist Phil Musser, and The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus also join the discussion.

    It was the nation's most expensive House race in terms of both money raised and spent by the candidates as of mid-October, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The candidates had raised a total of $22.7 million and spent $20.8 million, the center reported, but Bachmann had outspent Graves by more than 12-to-one.

    Bachmann sought to tag Graves, founder of the AmericInn hotel chain and now the head of Graves Hospitality, as a supporter of President Barack Obama's health reform law in television ads early in the campaign.

    U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann's attacks against an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prompted Sen. John McCain to denounce her from the Senate floor on Wednesday. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.

    Later Bachmann commercials portrayed the congresswoman as focused on the needs of district residents and able to work across party lines to reach goals.

    Graves, who describes himself as fiscally conservative, has said there are positives in the Obama healthcare program, but the "heavy lifting" has not yet begun. Graves also has said he believes Bachmann has been ineffective as a congresswoman.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Favorites headed to victory in four US state primaries

    By Brendan O'Brien, Reuters
    MILWAUKEE -- Favored candidates for the U.S. Senate easily won primary contests in Florida and Connecticut on Tuesday, as Republicans and Democrats in four states picked candidates for the November 6 general election that will decide which party controls Congress.

    Democrats control the Senate by a 53-47 majority. Two years ago, Republicans seized control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 mid-term election and hold a 240 to 192 majority.

    In Florida, two-term Democratic Senator Bill Nelson faced minor opposition in his primary, but was expected to be in for a tough re-election battle in November against the Republican primary winner, U.S. Representative Connie Mack.

    Mack, the son of a former senator, easily won the Republican primary over three other candidates and could edge out the incumbent Nelson in a general election, according to a recent poll. But political analysts said Nelson has ample resources to attack Mack.

    "Tonight's results really show that a lot of Republicans are voting for the candidate they think will have the best chance of beating the Democrat" and putting aside negative concerns about individual candidates, said University of South Florida political analyst Susan MacManus.

    Because of population shifts over the past decade, Florida added two congressional seats, but the redrawn districts pitted two incumbent Republicans against each other. Republican John Mica, a 20-year veteran, easily beat Sandy Adams, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, in a central Florida district.

    The Cook Political Report considers seven of the 23 Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate seats to be toss-ups. Nelson's re-election chances were seen as particularly tough. Three of the 10 Republican-held seats up for election this year are toss-ups.

    "It's a 50-50 ball game right now," said Cook Political Report analyst Jennifer Duffy. "When I look at the map, I find it improbable that any party would have 52 (Senate) seats, with 51 more probable."

    A 50-50 tie in the Senate would give control of the chamber to the candidate who wins the presidency - Democratic President Barack Obama or his Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

    Wisconsin race 
    A wild card in the Senate will be if former Maine Governor Angus King, an independent, wins the seat of retiring Republican Olympia Snowe. King has said he will not declare which party he will side with until after the November vote.

    Wisconsin and Connecticut voters set the stage to fill U.S. Senate seats being vacated by retiring Democrat Herb Kohl and Joseph Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

    Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin, a seven-term U.S. representative and avowed liberal, ran unopposed in her party's primary. Former four-term Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson beat businessman and political neophyte Eric Hovde and two other candidates for the Republican nomination.

    Thompson may benefit in the general election from Romney's choice over the weekend of Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, analysts said.

    However, Ryan is a polarizing figure in Washington, where he led his party's push to cut domestic spending, lower taxes and scale back the size of the federal government as chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee.

    The Connecticut contest was won by favorite Linda McMahon, a professional wrestling executive. McMahon is seeking another chance after she lost a Senate race two years ago despite spending $50 million.

    On the Democratic side, U.S. Representative Christopher Murphy was favored to win the primary and has already been targeted by McMahon's campaign ads.

    In June, a Quinnipiac University poll found Murphy with a slight lead over McMahon if the two candidates face each other in the November general election.

    Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, was predicted to be heavily favored in November against the winner of the Republican contest. The party-endorsed candidate, Republican state representative Kurt Bills, was leading handily with more than half the vote counted. 

    (Additional reporting by Edith Honan in New York, David Bailey in Minneapolis and David Adams, Tom Brown and Barbara Liston in Florida.; Writing by Andrew Stern. Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Christopher Wilson) 


  • Former Bachmann staffer sues campaign

    By NBC’s Jamie Novogrod

     

     

    A former staffer for Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign filed suit Monday against Bachmann and her senior campaign staff, alleging emotional distress and a damaged reputation during the run-up to the Iowa caucuses.

    The staffer, Barb Heki, who was the campaign’s Homeschool Coalitions Director, says she was unjustly blamed during a flap last fall over the use of a list of thousands of homeschool families for campaign e-mails. Heki, based in Johnston, Iowa, says she and her husband lost their seats on the board of the Iowa homeschool network "NICHE" shortly afterward.

    “The Plaintiffs have been isolated and expelled from their professional, social, political, and spiritual lives and careers, in Iowa and nationally,” said the petition, filed in Polk County District Court in Des Moines.

    Read the lawsuit here (.pdf)

    Heki alleges that Iowa State Sen. Kent Sorenson, then the campaign’s Iowa chairman, took the list from her computer. 

    Also named in the petition are campaign manager Keith Nahigian and other senior staff, who Heki says were aware of what Sorenson had done but nevertheless allowed her reputation to suffer.

    Reached by phone late Sunday, Sorenson denied taking the homeschool list.

    “No, I did not,” Sorenson said, adding that he dealt extensively with NICHE in the aftermath to rectify things.

    The Bachmann campaign paid NICHE, a 501c3 nonprofit, several thousand dollars in order to keep the group compliant with federal elections law prohibiting political activity.

    Nahigian also released a statement on Dec. 1, noting the campaign “regrets any inconvenience this mistake may have caused.”

    Nahigian was not available for comment Monday.

    In an telephone interview, Heki said her “whole life and reputation was destroyed” by the events. But, she said, she still supports Michele Bachmann’s conservative platform, and she won’t vote for Mitt Romney for president in November.

    Bachmann is currently facing a tough reelection fight in Minnesota’s 6th district.

    “We need her in Congress,” Heki said.

    Bachmann dropped out of the Republican presidential race on Jan. 4, after finishing last among the candidates competing in the Iowa caucuses.

  • Obama who? Gay marriage foes seek to extend gains

    In an interview with Good Morning America's Robin Roberts, President Obama announced his personal support for same-sex marriage. NBC's Chuck Todd reports on the announcement and its likely fallout.

    By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Fresh off their win in North Carolina, opponents of gay marriage are pushing forward to enact similar constitutional amendments in more states this fall – and to actually override pro-gay marriage legislation in two others.

    Foes of gay marriage now have won 31 popular votes on the issue, and they hope to extend their gains with ballot initiatives in Minnesota, Maine, Washington and Maryland.

    “North Carolina once again reminds us that there is an unshakeable majority of Americans firmly wedded to the idea of traditional marriage,” said Thomas Peters, cultural director of the National Organization for Marriage. “We look forward to seeing that movement grow in the months ahead.”

    With North Carolina voters approving a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage by more than 20 percentage points, 38 states now have statutes or constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. For the moment, that number includes California, where a federal court has overturned its constitutional amendment, known as Prop. 8 – a decision that has been appealed and could make it to the U.S. Supreme Court. Same-sex marriage is legal in eight states, plus the District of Columbia.

    Despite their loss in North Carolina, advocates of same-sex marriage are not giving up. They got a boost on Wednesday, when President Barack Obama said he supported their cause, days after Vice President Joe Biden said he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage.

    “[North Carolina] was certainly a heartbreaking loss, but the fight goes on and we will continue to march forward. We remain optimistic that we will achieve full marriage equality in all 50 states, it’s only a matter of time,” said Paul Guequierre, a spokesman for Human Rights Campaign, which works on equal rights for the LGBT community. “We know that we’ll face more referendums and we will be at the ballot boxes pushing for people to vote for marriage equality in those states where we have to do that.”

    Fifty percent of Americans think same-sex marriage should be legal and bestow the same rights as traditional marriage, compared to 48 percent who don’t, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday. Support for gay marriage fell slightly in the new Gallup poll from a record high of 53 percent in 2011 -- the first time a majority of Americans favored gay marriage -- while opposition rose from 45 percent.

    Opponents of same-sex marriage discount national polls and say they are plugging away at getting marriage defined as between one man and one woman in all 50 states: They are campaigning for a constitutional amendment that will go before voters in Minnesota, and are opposing an initiative that would provide for same-sex marriage in Maine. They are also working on gathering enough signatures to overturn statutes in Maryland and Washington state that legalized gay marriage, and are giving $2 million to efforts to unseat Republicans who helped the legislation pass last year in New York.

    First Read: Obama's careful line on same-sex marriage
    Gay marriage opponents: North Carolina no longer 'vulnerable' 

    “The only poll that matters is the vote that happens the day of the election in every state,” Peters said. ”We won 31 times ... so 33, 34, 35 doesn’t seem so unlikely.”

    In Maryland, supporters of gay marriage knew their opponents would push for a voter referendum after state lawmakers approved gay marriage earlier this year. They expect the referendum to make it on the ballot, because the number of signatures required is relatively low at 56,000, said Kevin Nix, a spokesman for Marylanders for Marriage Equality.

    “There’s no doubt that we’re disappointed from [Tuesday] night. So, I think that what happened in North Carolina serves as a wake-up call … to re-motivate everybody,” he said, noting he thought the vote in Maryland would be a “nail biter” but was optimistic they would prevail.


    In Washington state, opponents of gay marriage have collected 70,000 signatures out of 120,577 needed by June 6 to get the issue on the November ballot, said Christopher Plante, deputy campaign manager for Preserve Marriage Washington. He believes they will get the signatures they need.

    “... the vote in North Carolina being so overwhelming in going 'against the tide’ of the polls and all of the pundits who said it was going to be too close to call, will certainly encourage Washington voters and Washington marriage supporters to continue this fight and to bring it to fruition,” he said.

    While the North Carolina outcome appears to have emboldened opponents of gay marriage -- especially after a vacuum of four years since the last vote on a constitutional amendment on the issue -- same-sex marriage advocates should take heart, said John Dinan, a professor of political science at Wake Forest University.

    “It’s a long-term effort to ... educate residents of the state about your arguments, about your concerns and about, ultimately, your cause,” he said. “It was a loss, but could also be seen as part of an overall stepping stone” in a longer campaign. 

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