Impeached former Gov. Evan Mecham of Arizona failed in his comeback try and Jesse Jackson won his first primary race for something other than the presidency as voters selected nominees in 10 states and the District of Columbia.
Jackson's victory Tuesday in Washington, D.C., was in a Democratic primary for the purely symbolic post of "shadow senator," created to lobby for statehood for the city.Minnesota's Democratic Gov. Rudy Perpich, whose eccentric habits earned him the nickname "Governor Goofy," won a closely contested bid for renomination to another term after 10 years in office. Perpich's opponent, former commerce commissioner Mike Hatch, conceded defeat as Perpich had 56 percent of the vote with two-thirds of the precincts in.
In the Republican race to oppose Perpich, businessman Jon Grunseth defeated state auditor Arne Carlson and a third candidate. Perpich said he got the opponent he wanted.
"This makes it much easier for us because we've got the middle ground," Perpich said.
Other incumbents had an easy time on the biggest primary day of the election year, and one that nearly completes the fall election lineup.
Three Republican governors easily won renomination: Judd Gregg in New Hampshire, Edward DiPrete in Rhode Island and Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin.
Democratic Gov. William Donald Schaefer coasted to renomination in Maryland.
One former governor who was making a comeback try, Vermont's Richard Snelling, easily won his Republican primary and will face Democrat Peter Welch in the fall. Snelling served four two-year terms before retiring in 1984 and was succeeded by Democrat Madeleine Kunin, who decided not to run again this year.
Mecham lost to Phoenix developer J. Fife Symington in the race for the GOP nomination for governor of Arizona. Former Mayor Terry Goddard of Phoenix, son of a former governor, swamped his opponent in the Democratic primary.
With nearly half the precincts reporting, Symington had 43 percent to Mecham's 24 percent, and the rest was divided among three other candidates.
"I'll support Fife," Mecham said. "Even he'll be better than Goddard. As I've said many times, Goddard will be a 100 percent disaster. Fife will only be an 80 percent disaster."
Mecham, a former car dealer, was impeached in 1988 after two tumultuous years as governor in which he stirred controversy for his outspoken opposition to establishing the Martin Luther King holiday and drew charges of financial wrongdoing. Democratic Gov. Rose Mofford, who inherited the job when Mecham was forced out, decided not to run for a full term.
In Washington, D.C., Sharon Pratt Dixon, who had been an also-ran in pre-election polls, scored a surprising victory in the Democratic primary for mayor to succeed Marion Barry. Barry, convicted on a single drug count in August, is running as an independent in November for a City Council seat.
"The bottom line now is to close ranks," said Dixon, a former utility company executive and Democratic National Committee member who was making her first bid for elective office. She will face former police chief Maurice Turner, a Republican, though she will be heavily favored in the city where Republicans are outnumbered 9 to 1.
Jackson, the two-time presidential candidate who moved to the heavily black city from Chicago just last year, had 56 percent of the vote in a five-way race for a pair of nominations for unpaid "shadow senator" posts that carry neither voting nor floor privileges.
Nonetheless, it was Jackson's first time on any ballot other than in a presidential primary.
In another D.C. race, Eleanor Holmes Norton narrowly won nomination for the city's non-voting congressional delegate, despite a weekend disclosure that she and her husband had failed to file city tax returns over an eight-year period. Norton said she thought her husband had filed them.