Veteran Indiana senator loses primary battle

WASHINGTON (AP) — Veteran Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar was routed by the right flank of his own Republican Party Tuesday night, and North Carolina voters decided overwhelmingly to strengthen their state's gay marriage ban. It was a conservative show of enthusiasm and strength six months before the nation chooses between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney.

Lugar's loss to state Treasurer Richard Mourdock ends a nearly four-decade career in the Senate highlighted by his efforts on nuclear nonproliferation treaties. Mourdock enjoyed the support of the insurgent conservative tea party movement.

North Carolina voters approved an amendment to their state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman, effectively outlawing gay unions, in a ballot measure pursued by conservatives.

Also Tuesday, Democrats overwhelmingly picked Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to challenge Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in a June 5 recall election. The primary outcome set up a re-match of the 2010 gubernatorial election in which Barrett lost to Walker.

The June 5 recall is one of the most closely watched elections in the U.S. outside of the presidential race. Walker has embodied the Republican rise to power in 2010 and hopes to avoid becoming just the third state governor to be recalled in U.S. history.

The highly charged and hard-fought contests overshadowed Romney's continued progress toward the Republican presidential nomination.

He swept the Republican presidential primaries in Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia on Tuesday, drawing close to the 1,144 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination at the party's national convention in late August in Tampa, Florida. He won at least 60 delegates, with 35 still undecided. He had 916 delegates, 228 shy of what he needs to become the formal nominee.

Even Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, was essentially ignoring the primaries. He spent the day campaigning in Michigan, where he castigated Obama as an "old-school liberal" whose policies would take the country backward. The Obama campaign recently began using the slogan "Forward."

The results of Tuesday's far-flung voting gave clues about the state of the electorate — and illustrated the political minefields facing both Republican and Democratic candidates — with the presidential contest well under way. The results were a warning to incumbents. They also highlighted tea party enthusiasm. And, in North Carolina, they indicated that wedge issues are still a force even with an electorate focused on economic concerns.

Also, there was an indication of just how unpopular Obama is in some parts of the country.

A man in prison in Texas was getting nearly 4 out of 10 votes in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary against Obama, who faces no serious primary challenger. The inmate, Keith Judd, is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999.

In the biggest race of the night, Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, lost to Mourdock. With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Mourdock had just over 60 percent of the vote, while Lugar had just under 40 percent.

"We are experiencing deep political divisions in our society right now. These divisions have stalemated progress in critical areas," Lugar, a Capitol Hill diplomat and a deal-maker, said as he conceded to Mourdock.

Tea party groups were crowing about the win, and Mourdock urged supporters to donate to his general election campaign, saying: "We left everything on the table to win the primary."

Mourdock will face Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly in the November general election. Within minutes of Lugar's loss, Democrats were already painting Mourdock as too extreme for the state.

Republicans need to gain four seats to take control of the U.S. Senate, and a Lugar loss "gives Democrats a pickup opportunity," said Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat.

Earlier in the day, Lugar, 80, made clear he would stand by Tuesday's outcome, ruling out running as an independent.

"This is it," he said.

Playing out in a conservative state, the race illustrated the electorate's animosity toward many incumbents and anyone with deep ties to Washington. That was clear when Lugar, who hasn't faced questions about his residency in decades, found himself on the defensive over whether he lived in Indiana or northern Virginia.

Mourdock had painted Lugar as too moderate for the conservative state, and the incumbent took heat for his work with Democrats on issues such as nuclear nonproliferation, underscoring deep polarization in the country as well as a split in Republican ranks between the establishment wing and the insurgent conservative tea party. The tea party advocates small government, deep spending cuts and no tax increases, disdaining compromises with Democrats.

In a statement, Obama praised his former Senate colleague Lugar as someone "who was often willing to reach across the aisle and get things done."

Lugar's primary loss coincides with a general disinterest in foreign policy issues during this presidential election year. It would remove from the Senate, which is responsible for ratifying international treaties, an influential advocate for a bipartisan foreign policy. Lugar and former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn were responsible for the 1991 passage of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CRT), more commonly known as Nunn-Lugar.

CRT provided money to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction in states of the former Soviet Union. That resulted in the denuclearization of Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus. It also made available funding and expertise to decommission nuclear, biological and chemical weapons stockpiles as agreed to by the Soviet Union under disarmament treaties such as SALT II.

The Mourdock vs. Donnelly matchup could develop into a hotly contested race with the potential to affect the White House contest.

Obama carried Indiana in 2008, partly because of his ties to the populous northwestern part of the state neighboring his hometown of Chicago. Democrats acknowledge it will be difficult to win Indiana again this year. Still, the state could become more hospitable to Obama if the Democrats, believing they have a better chance with Lugar out of the race, spend heavily to compete against Mourdock. The state now is on the Obama team's watch list.

Elsewhere, North Carolina voters moved in the opposite direction from a string of states — Democratic-leaning places such as New York and Vermont as well as middle-of-the-road Iowa — where same-sex marriage is now legal. Six states and Washington, D.C., now recognize gay unions.

North Carolina law already bans gay marriage, but the amendment on the state ballot effectively slammed that door. The amendment also goes beyond state law by voiding other types of domestic unions from carrying legal status, which opponents warn could disrupt protection orders for unmarried couples.

With 74 percent of precincts reporting, more than 60 percent had voted to strengthen the gay marriage ban, while just under 40 percent had opposed it.

In the days before the North Carolina vote, two top administration officials — Vice President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan — expressed support for gay marriage. Obama supports most gay rights but has stopped short of backing gay marriage.

The Biden and Duncan comments sent the White House into damage-control mode as gay rights advocates pressed for Obama to publicly support of same-sex unions before November. Aides also tried to use the focus on the issue to criticize Romney's equivocations on gay rights over the years.

Obama's campaign said Tuesday that the president was "disappointed" with the state's amendment. Obama's spokesman for North Carolina, Cameron French, called the measure "divisive and discriminatory."

Romney, in turn, emphasized his position that marriage should be solely between one man and one woman. He has said he supports a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

In Wisconsin, voters chose Barrett — one of four Democrats on the ballot — to challenge Walker in the June 5 recall election.Walker easily defeated token opposition in the Republican primary.

Union rights are dominating the recall.

Walker effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most state workers after taking office last year, triggering weeks of protest by thousands of opponents at the state Capitol in Madison.

Walker emerged from the fight as a national conservative hero to Republicans, but a villain to unions and Democrats who responded by collecting more than 900,000 signatures on petitions to put Walker up for recall less than two years into his four-year campaign.

The recall effort has dominated the state political landscape, even overshadowing Romney's primary victory there that essentially ended the nomination fight.

The presumptive nominee Romney had no serious opposition in the three primary contests Tuesday.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who gave Romney a tepid endorsement Monday night via email, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have dropped out of the race. Libertarian-leaning Texas Rep. Ron Paul is still contesting the nomination, but he lags far behind in the delegate count.