Jim DeMint Defeats Alvin Greene In South Carolina Senate Race

COLUMBIA, S.C. — U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint will return to Washington for a second term after an easy election that saw his national status rise as a kingmaker for the tea party movement and an unlikely challenge from an oddball opponent.

Based on AP analysis of preliminary exit poll data, the Republican rolled over unemployed military veteran Alvin Greene, a Democrat who won his party's nomination but not its support.

Greene lives with his father and faces a felony obscenity charge, accused of showing pornography to a female college student. During occasional interviews in his nominal campaign, Greene insisted that DeMint had started the recession.

Greene barely campaigned and never raised enough to break the $5,000 threshold that required him to report finances.

DeMint spent $3.5 million he raised to instead help other conservative candidates.

Comments

[PasadenaAnnoyed]

12:44 AM on 11/03/2010

Y'all are getting this WRONG! DeMint is going to create jobs! Remember, he believes that gay people and sexually active single women "don't belong in the classroom." Just think of all the new jobs that will be created when this prohibition is enacted! All those sexually active male teachers and adulterous married teachers that are currently out of work will get NEW jobs!

[Exfl]

11:18 PM on 11/02/2010

Had Democrats run someone who could speak in complete sound bites DeMint might have been history. As it was, Alvin, the inarticulate possible felon, still got about 1/3 of the vote.

[Dr. Jonathan David Farley]

07:17 PM on 11/09/2010

Had Democrats not attacked their own nominee, DeMint might have been history.

[Yeah-sure]

10:17 PM on 11/02/2010

Hope there's a federal investigation into how DeMint managed to get this guy as his opponent. It's way too fishy. And would be nice to see him behind bars where he belongs.

[kbeth]

10:27 PM on 11/02/2010

I have wondered that myself, He had to have been planted by the republicans, he doesn't have the brains or the resources to run without help and I can't see the Democrats wanting him.

[Dr. Jonathan David Farley]

07:18 PM on 11/09/2010

What's fishy is why the Republicans would do this only once, and only in super-safe South Carolina. What's fishy is why Democrat Jim Clyburn would advance this theory, thus hurting his own party's nominee.

[CarolinaYankee]

10:04 PM on 11/02/2010

Channel 10 S.C. has voting machine concerns...ha ha ha like this whole election was legal

[CarolinaYankee]

10:02 PM on 11/02/2010

We still have some hope here in S.C. Nikki Haley (Sanford's clone) is in a really tight race for Governor, and Joe Wilson (You Lie) is also losing right now. And even Wilson's son may lose for Atty. General. (He should he failed the bar)..We will see what happens.

[plugnpillai]

09:03 PM on 11/02/2010

Yeah, some democracy we are. Reminds me of some of the African countries tin-pot 'elections'.

[Mister Wu]

08:57 PM on 11/02/2010

The fix was in months ago. Smart move.

[Anthony Dodd]

08:50 PM on 11/02/2010

Roadkill could have beat Alvin Greene. And did.

[SaddieMcCall]

08:50 PM on 11/02/2010

Alvin Greene had a plan for jobs - to make little dolls of him.

[Dr. Jonathan David Farley]

07:20 PM on 11/09/2010

Yeah, and public works projects, ending free trade agreements,...but knowing that would require you to actually look at his website.

[jjflazhhp]

08:47 PM on 11/02/2010

Showing that the majority of voting Kentuckians are dumb as rocks.

[JLFY]

09:59 PM on 11/02/2010

I suppose if Kentuckians are voting in a South Carolina election, they're pretty dumb.

[jjflazhhp]

10:13 PM on 11/02/2010

True. I was actually referring to Mitch and Rand.

[tnlcallen]

08:43 PM on 11/02/2010

Whatever percentage Alvin got gives you an indication of the percentage of Democratic voters who have no clue what they are doing.

[hammered at hotair]

08:43 PM on 11/02/2010

Greene lost? Wow, just last week I was driving in Charleston and saw a handmade sign that said that Alvin Greene was "Fare and Balanced".

Why wouldn't the people of SC give a guy as smart as that a shot at being in the Senate?

[wethepeople3884]

08:38 PM on 11/02/2010

he did win something - alvin greene soundly defeats martha coakley as worst candidate in recent memory.

[ladyvader]

08:50 PM on 11/02/2010

Alvin Greene was nothing but a strawman put on the primary ballot by a member of the GnOP. DeMint had over a 20 point lead in September. Did anyone actually thing he was going to lose? This is a state that is in the bottom third in every category that matter and top third on those that don't.

[lizipoo]

08:32 PM on 11/02/2010

He should be real proud, he was able to beat a shadow candidate snuck in by his boyz. He'll take good care of them as usual. The good ol' boys network is alive and well in his hood.

[sambaso777]

08:40 PM on 11/02/2010

Proof? 10k is not a fortune. A few thousand voters in a primary is not an accurate sample size. If the fee was 100k and 500 thousand people voted you would have valid concern, but when only a handful of people go out and vote and fail to elect someone who only raised 186k and has no name recognition thats not surprising at all.

[captainindustry]

08:29 PM on 11/02/2010

news flash...

Al Greene just asked Demint if they could stay together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lus8OTnLo7w