The Legislature will get 15 new senators from open seats that resulted across the state from term limits.
NANCY HICKS and JoANNE YOUNG / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Tuesday, November 4, 2008 6:00 pm
Two Lincoln and Southeast Nebraska incumbent state senators, Tony Fulton and Lavon Heidemann, will return to the state Legislature next year.
And former Lancaster County Commissioner Kathy Campbell will succeed Sen. Ron Raikes in District 25.
In two other Lincoln-area races, Ken Haar led James Arthur Jeffers in District 21, and Colby Coash narrowly led Dan Marvin in District 27.
The Legislature will get 15 new senators from open seats that resulted across the state from term limits.
In District 29, incumbent Fulton beat Democrat Susan Scott, 60, former executive director of Lincoln’s YWCA.
Fulton said the economy was a big issue in his district, and as he campaigned he pointed people to the way he handled the state’s money as a member of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee and how he took care of taxpayers’ money.
In his own family and in his business, he said, “I worry about the economy, too.”
In District 1, Heidemann, 50, won his battle against challenger Jerry Joy, a former Peru State College football coach.
Heidemann, 50, a farmer, said he was fortunate he started early and worked hard, saying he focused on the good job he did in the Legislature for the past four years. Independent campaign committees “dumped a lot of money” into negative advertising near the end of the race, he said. But his early campaigning helped deflect those negative messages.
He chaired the Legislature’s Appropriation Committee for the past two years.
Joy, 67, a Democrat, got in the race late as a write-in candidate on the primary ballot. He was a college administrator for most of his professional career and was heavily backed by the state teachers’ union.
In District 21, Haar had a comfortable lead in his race against businessman Jeffers, 75, to fill the seat vacated by Sen. Carol Hudkins.
Voters in this race got plenty of reading material the past few weeks — with liberal and conservative interest groups and candidates sending a flood of advertising mailers.
Nebraska Right to Life also targeted Haar, a Democrat whose wife is CEO of Planned Parenthood of Nebraska/Council Bluffs.
Haar, 65, of rural Malcolm, a technology consultant and small business owner who served on the Lincoln City Council in the 1990s, walked his district over the past year.
Coash, 33, appeared to take District 27 by 29 votes.
Veteran Sen. DiAnna Schimek served District 27 for 20 years.
Coash walked the Lincoln district several times, knocking on doors and trying to overcome Lincoln City Councilman Dan Marvin’s greater name recognition.
Marvin, an investment adviser who operates his own business, is a Democrat and has been active in Lincoln politics, first with neighborhood associations and later on the Lancaster County Planning Commission.
As of early Wednesday morning, the Lancaster County Election Commissioner had not yet posted one of 225 precinct counts. But the one remaining included only four new resident ballots.
New residents to the county who arrived after the voter registration deadline were allowed to vote under this status.
In addition, provisional ballots, designed for people whose voting status is in question, will be sorted in the next week. Nov. 11 is the deadline for verification and notification to the state canvassing system of provisional ballots status.
State law requires an automatic recount when votes separating candidates are less than 1 percent of the winner’s total.
Campbell beat Travis Wagner, 62, a novice to local politics, for the northeast Lincoln District 25 seat.
Campbell, 61, a Republican, has been active in Lincoln civic and political affairs for more than three decades.
Campbell gave credit to the “wonderful” team of volunteers, including about a dozen Lincoln East High School students who got together one weekend from their citizenship issues class and decided to stay on to help.
Campbell has had a longtime interest in children’s issues, and is interested in finding solutions to the problems of families with adolescents finding mental and behavioral health services, issues that surfaced with the state’s safe haven law.
“That may take a little time,” she said.
Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com. Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com. Reporter Hilary Kindschuh contributed to this article.