ER Physician Loses Congressional Bid; 10 Health Leaders Still Running

With 94% of the vote counted, Lesko led Tipirneni 52% to 47%.

Lesko will fill a seat left vacated by former Rep. Trent Franks, also a Republican, who resigned previous year amid allegations he’d offered staff members $5 million to serve as the surrogate mother for his child.

Republican officials described their efforts as precautionary, a nod toward the party’s humiliating special election losses in Alabama and Pennsylvaniaand an acknowledgment that they must fortify their defenses in even the reddest of districts. Despite Trump and fellow Republicans claiming victory by undermining the Affordable Care Act at every opportunity and being unable to actually make improvements to health care policy, instead simply moving things backwards, it doesn’t seem like voters have been convinced that’s a win for them. “We really can’t blame anything”.

Tiperneni, who is part of the wave of Democratic women inspired to run for office since Trump was elected, entered the race to challenge Franks. Past elections have yielded similar results: during the 2008 presidential election, John McCain won the district by 22 points, despite winning the state by a smaller margin of 8.5 percentage points overall.

Franks resigned in December, faced with a House Ethics Committee investigation into whether his behavior constituted sexual harassment.

Democrats, who did not invest in the race as heavily as they had in other special elections, said the numbers represented a promising swing toward their party.

Gov. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is one of many leaders with healthcare experience running in the 2018 midterm elections. “It’s time for us to vote the Republicans out.”.

With the rising awareness of sexual harassment in the USA and a rejuvenated women’s movement, the Republicans also fielded a women, Debbie Lesko, to run against Ms Tipirneni.

Tipirneni released a statement Wednesday congratulating the Republican victor Debbie Lesko and wishing her “good luck in Congress”.

AZ-08 is significantly more Republican than the Pennsylvania district Lamb won last month, with heavy by-mail early voting adding to the demographic advantages the GOP enjoyed (like a district dominated by conservative white retirees).

Should Tipirneni advance past the August 28 primary, in which Westbrook and two other candidates – Bob Musselwhite and Bob Olsen – are seeking the nomination, Tipirneni would have that chance November 6 against the Republican. The party had hoped to pull off a shock win similar to a congressional race in Pennsylvania in March. Not looking to nationalize the race, the party will spend money quietly in a contest and then announce its efforts shortly before polls close. That’s all the relevant information about yesterday’s special election in Arizona, which Donald Trump was very insistent that you should hear.