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One final update for the evening. In the race to succeed Rep. Bud Cramer (D-AL5), Parker Griffith (D) has defeated Wayne Parker (R) in a close race, 52-48%. In the 22nd District of Texas, meanwhile, it appears Rep. Nick Lampson (D) will lose to challenger Pete Olson (R): with 94% of the vote in, Olson was leading 52.4-45.4%. In Texas Rep. John Culberson (R) has been reelected to the 7th District, fending off a challenge from Michael Skelly. With two-thirds of the vote in, Culberson had a 55.7-42.7% lead. The news, though, is still not good for Nick Lampson, who continues to trail Republican challenger Pete Olson. With 41% of the vote in, Olson led Lampson 51.9-46.1%. According to the barebones election results page at the web site of the county clerk in Otero County, New Mexico, voters there are narrowly rejecting a one-eighth of one percent gross receipts tax increase to help fund Spaceport America. As of a little before 11 pm EST, there were 322 more “against” votes than “for”, 3,985 to 3,663. It appears that there is only one precinct still to report, as well as absentee and early ballots. A rejection of the tax would be a setback for spaceport proponents, but not a fatal blow, since the Otero tax would contribute only a few percent of the projected cost of the facility. In the race to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Bud Cramer, another Democrat, Parker Griffith, is leading Republican Wayne Parker by a narrow margin: 51.3-48.7% with 60 percent of the vote in. (Updated stats from the AP show effectively the same margin with 63% of the vote in.) The 5th District of Alabama includes Huntsville and NASA Marshall, so space is a significant issue here. Results are trickling in in Texas Congressional races, and the news is mixed for a pair of Houston-area incumbents with a strong interest in space. In the 7th District, Republican Rep. John Culberson has an early lead over Democrat Michael Skelly, 54.7-43.9%, with 12% of the vote in. This district would normally be a safe Republican district, but Skelly outspent Culberson and narrowed the gap in the weeks leading up to today. In the 22nd District, incumbent Democrat Nick Lampson is losing to Republican challenger Pete Olson 46.8-51.5%, although with only 3% of the vote in. Lampson had been one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents given the demographics of the district, once held by Tom Delay; Lampson, though, had been promised the chairmanship of the space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee if he does win reelection. Although there’s been no formal declaration or projection, it appears increasingly likely that Bill Posey will succeed Rep. Dave Weldon in Florida’s 15th Congressional District, on the Space Coast. With 84 percent of precincts reporting, Posey, a Republican, was leading Democrat Steve Blythe 54-40%. Weldon, of course, had been a strong advocate of NASA during his time in Congress, and Posey positioned himself similarly. “Whomever’s preeminent in space will control the security and the destiny of Earth, and I think that needs to be Americans,” he said in a campaign ad. Posey also picked up the endorsement of Florida Today last month in part because the paper believed he would be a “strong advocate for NASA and its moon plan”. Update: Posey has indeed declared victory in the race for Weldon’s seat. The Rocky Mountain News in Denver has projected Mark Udall the winner for the open Senate seat in the state. Udall, who had been chair of the space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee, gave up that seat to run for the Senate seat vacated by Republican Wayne Allard (who had a strong interest in military space issues). Udall’s Senate campaign site did have a section on “Science, Technology, and Space”, although there’s little in the way of specific policy proposals there, other than the fact that all three are important and should be supported. File under better late than never: the Fall issue of Space Lifestyle Magazine is now available online, with an article about where John McCain and Barack Obama stand on space issues. (The issue was supposed to be available online last week, but a publishing problem delayed it until today, the author, Nancy Atkinson, informed me in an email today.) The article features insights from Keith Cowing and Scott Pace, as well as myself (including a photo of myself with an attractive blonde, albeit aircraft nose art). No permalink directly to the article: select the “Space Vote 2008″ from the Contents menu. The Orlando Sentinel is projecting that Suzanne Kosmas will defeat incumbent Rep. Tom Feeney in Florida’s 24th Congressional District, which includes NASA/KSC. As of 8:30 pm EST, Kosmas was head of Feeney 57-41% with just over half of the precincts reporting. Feeney had been the ranking Republican on the space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee. Although most of the attention here has been on the space policies of the presidential candidates, as well as key Congressional candidates, there is one other election today with direct relevance to space. Voters in Otero County, New Mexico, which includes the city of Alamogordo, will be voting on a sales tax increase to help fund Spaceport America. The tax is similar to those passed last year in neighboring Doña Ana County (Las Cruces) and earlier this year in Sierra County (Truth or Consequences), although the Otero tax is only one-eighth of a percent, half the increase approved in the other two counties. Spaceport supporters, including governor Bill Richardson, have been pushing hard to get the tax passed; Richardson mentioned it during a press conference at Las Cruces International Airport on October 24 about a partnership between the state, Rocket Racing, and Armadillo Aerospace to develop suborbital vehicles that could fly from the spaceport. “I urge all the residents of Otero County to vote for the gross receipts tax,” he said. “It’s happened in Sierra County, it’s happened in Doña Ana County. We’ve got one more to go and we are off.” There is local opposition to the spaceport tax, primarily among residents concerned about a tax increase during troubled economic times and/or skeptical about the economic impact Spaceport America will have on their county, some distance from the spaceport. Spaceport supporters, though, have warned that if the county doesn’t pass the tax, they’re unlikely to reap any benefits from it all. |
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