Orrin Hatch, the six-term Republican senator from Utah, has comfortably retained his party’s backing after fending off a primary challenge from a Tea Party-backed candidate who claimed the incumbent was insufficiently conservative. Mr Hatch will now go forward to the US general election in November, but with Utah solidly Republican, there is no doubt that the 78-year-old will win a seventh term.
Utah also held its Republican presidential primary contest on Tuesday night, the last state to do so. Mitt Romney, who enjoys approval ratings of more than 90 per cent in Utah, partly thanks to his Mormon faith, had long since clinched the nomination but Tuesday’s vote marks the official end of the primary contest.
In Tuesday’s Senate primary, Mr Hatch won 67 per cent of the vote while Dan Liljenquist, the 37-year-old former state lawmaker seeking to oust him from the ticket, took 33 per cent.
This was in line with the commanding lead predicted in a Deseret News/KSL-TV poll published on Sunday, in which 60 per cent of registered Republican voters said they would vote for Mr Hatch, while only 32 per cent said they supported Mr Liljenquist.
“Today was a great win for me and my campaign, and I couldn’t be more pleased to see our hard work pay off,” Mr Hatch said in a statement after the results were announced. “After travelling our state from corner to corner, talking to voters, and discussing the issues of great importance to our state – I believe my message was heard loud and clear and I am grateful that my fellow Utahns have entrusted me once again to be the Republican nominee for this important office.”
Mr Liljenquist forced Mr Hatch into a full primary fight after winning a surprising level of support at the state Republican convention in April. In depth
He had tapped into Utahns’ concerns about the US deficit and blamed Mr Hatch for contributing to it with his votes for the troubled asset relief programme, or Tarp, and the US government rescue of the car industry, both responses to the 2007-08 financial crisis.
Mr Hatch was facing his first primary in 36 years but learnt from the mistakes of colleagues who hewed to their centrist ways, including Bob Bennett, his fellow Utah senator who was ousted by Mike Lee in a Tea Party-backed challenge two years ago.
In Indiana, fellow six-term Senate veteran Dick Lugar had lost his party’s nomination in a heated primary in April, after steadfastly sticking to his principles of bipartisanship and moderation.
But Mr Hatch also overwhelmingly outspent his opponent. He raised more than $10m for his campaign, according to the campaign’s filings with the Federal Election Commission, while Mr Liljenquist raised less than $800,000, half of which came from his own pocket.
