Both Homocon US House Candidates Lose Bids

Homocon candidates Clay Cope and Sheriff Paul Babeu both lost their bids for the US House yesterday. From the Hartford Courant:

After nearly three hours of startlingly close results, Republican Clay Cope late Tuesday night conceded the 5th Congressional District race to Democratic incumbent Elizabeth Esty. The 5th District was by far the tightest Congressional race in the state, with only partial – and tight – results available at 10:45 p.m.

But the race widened soon afterward, with Cope losing a few typically Republican suburbs and facing the likelihood of a tide of Democratic wins in the vote-rich cities of New Britain, Meriden and Waterbury.

Cope conceded at 10:50, and Esty proclaimed victory soon afterward in a talk to her supporters at the Marriott Courtyard in Waterbury. Cope conceded at about 10:50, saying his campaign had succeeded in calling attention to Esty’s lackluster “performance issues” and her focus on gun control.

If Cope could have pulled out a victory, he would have become the first Republican member of Connecticut’s Congressional delegation in a decade.

From Phoenix’s ABC affiliate:

Democrat Tom O’Halleran kept Arizona’s Congressional District 1 seat blue with a decisive victory over Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu Tuesday. O’Halleran, a former Republican, defeated Babeu, the subject of an ABC15 investigation involving his role overseeing an abusive Massachusetts boarding school.

Babeu had scant support from national Republicans in the Democratic-leaning district spanning Flagstaff to the Tucson suburbs.

O’Halleran had his own issues to overcome. He was a Republican in the state Legislature from 2001 to 2009, ran for House as an independent in 2014 and registered as a Democrat last year. He takes over for Ann Kirkpatrick, who left the seat to run — unsuccessfully — against John McCain in the U.S. Senate.

Both men were endorsed by the Log Cabin Republicans.