Nebraska Republicans choosing Senate candidate

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former senator won the Democratic nomination for Nebraska's open U.S. Senate seat Tuesday, while a tea party-backed challenger upset the party establishment's choice in a three-way Republican primary that reflected the divisions within the party.

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey, who is seeking to reclaim his old seat in one of the year's most contested Senate races, easily captured the Democratic nomination.

Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, a two-term moderate, is retiring and both parties are eyeing his seat. Democrats want to keep it to maintain their narrow Senate majority, while Republicans see an opportunity in their drive to win back control of the Senate.

Democrats control the Senate 51-47, plus two independents who caucus the majority. But the outcome in November of several competitive Senate races could result in a power shift.

The Republican primary illustrated the split between the party's establishment which is backing State Attorney General Jon Bruning and tea partyers who helped state Sen. Deb Fischer make a late play for the nomination. State Treasurer Don Stenberg also was on the ballot for his fourth attempt to become a U.S. senator.

With 90 percent of the precincts reporting, Fischer had 41 percent of the vote to Bruning's 36 percent, with Stenberg a distant third at 19 percent.

Elsewhere, Oregon helped Mitt Romney inch closer to his all-but-certain presidential nomination. He was expected to pick up most — if not all — of Oregon's 25 delegates. Nebraska Republicans picked Romney although no delegates would be allotted in a vote that amounts to a beauty contest. The state's 32 delegates to the Republican National Convention later this year will be determined at the state convention on July 14.

Idaho voters also were picking nominees for state and congressional offices.

Romney was 171 delegates short of the 1,144 needed for the nomination and was on pace to get them before the month ended. He spent his day in Iowa, a competitive general election battleground state, criticizing President Barack Obama on voters' top concern, the economy.

"This is not solely a Democrat or a Republican problem," Romney said in Des Moines in a clear pitch to independent voters who will decide the election. "The issue isn't who deserves the most blame, it's who is going to do what it takes to put out the fire."

The likely Republican nominee offered a far-reaching indictment of Obama's tenure and portrayed himself as a beacon of fiscal responsibility with the public and private sector experience to prove it.

"A prairie fire of debt is sweeping across Iowa and our nation, and every day we fail to act that fire gets closer to the homes and children we love," Romney told supporters at a downtown Des Moines hotel. He emphasized an issue that's a big concern of the middle-class voters from across the political spectrum he and Obama are wooing.

The White House promptly dismissed Romney's critique.

Press secretary Jay Carney blamed federal overspending primarily on Romney-backed tax cuts for the wealthy that were enacted during President George W. Bush's administration and on the costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Carney said Romney wants to repeat policies that led to high deficits and the recession and to repeal Obama policies "that reversed the cataclysmic decline on our economy and that now has us growing for 11 straight quarters."

The Romney campaign's fresh focus on debt and spending came one day after Obama launched an effort to castigate his Republican rival's business credentials as the presidential campaign entered a more critical phase six months before the election. Obama's campaign and an allied group were unveiling advertisements in key battleground states that suggest Romney put profits over people during his tenure at Boston-based Bain Capital.

The biggest race Tuesday was Nebraska's Republican Senate primary.

Kerrey, who served Nebraska as governor and as a U.S. senator before leaving Congress in 2001 to become a university president in New York, reluctantly agreed to run again to help give Democrats a shot at holding a seat they've long controlled. Kerrey was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992.

A decorated veteran and former Navy SEAL, Kerrey faced questions about his residency and Republicans filed a legal challenge. The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled it had no jurisdiction to consider the challenge, clearing the way for Kerrey to run for Senate.

Republicans in Washington turned to Bruning, who has been successful in statewide races and had raised $3.5 million through the end of April.

But in the final stretch of the Senate campaign, Fischer surged past him in the polls.

Fischer, a rancher in rural Nebraska, mounted a feisty campaign that in the past few weeks attracted attention and endorsements from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, failed presidential contender Herman Cain and other favorites of the tea party movement which advocates limited government, deep spending cuts and no tax increases. She was also backed by an outside group, created by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, that's running TV ads on her behalf.

Stenberg, for his part, argued that he is the only "genuine, life-long conservative" in the race. He won the backing of Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and the fiscally conservative Club for Growth but has failed each of the three times he has run for Senate since 1996.