Kilpatrick loses bid for re-election

DETROIT (AP) - Michigan voters fired seven-term Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick and chose political newcomer Rick Snyder as the Republican nominee in the race to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm in a state severely battered by the economic downturn.

The two outcomes on Tuesday reflected the electorate's strong anti-establishment sentiment and intense desire for new faces just three months before midterm elections that will determine power in Congress.

Kilpatrick was the sixth incumbent lawmaker to lose this year, defeated by State Sen. Hansen Clarke.

Sens. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, and Arlen Specter, D-Pa., were ousted by their respective parties. Reps. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., Parker Griffith, R-Ala., and Bob Inglis, R-S.C., have failed in their primary bids.

State Sen. Hansen Clarke of Detroit beat Kilpatrick and, throughout the campaign, stressed the legal problems of her son, Kwame Kilpatrick, who resigned as Detroit mayor in 2008 after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice. Kilpatrick tried to overcome her son's legal woes by emphasizing her membership on the House Appropriations Committee and what she called her record of providing for the metropolitan Detroit district.

In the Michigan governor's race, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero grabbed the Democratic nod by beating House Speaker Andy Dillon.

But Snyder automatically became the favorite in the economically ailing state. Michigan has the nation's second-highest unemployment rate - at 13.2 percent - and scores of foreclosures, and that has been a drag on Granholm, the Democratic governor who must leave office after two terms.

Snyder - who grabbed attention with ads promoting himself as "one tough nerd" - overcame Attorney General Mike Cox, Rep. Pete Hoekstra and two others. The former computer executive - he once served as president and chief operating officer of Gateway Inc. - spent $6 million of his own money through mid-July.

Snyder estimates that he's had a hand in helping create 400 Michigan jobs and 1,200 nationally. But he's been criticized for Gateway's decision to drop most of the 9,000 U.S. jobs added while Snyder was in management when it moved much of its manufacturing operations to other countries. He was still on Gateway's board when the change occurred, but wasn't involved in those decisions.