Samoa News: Aumua Amata is our new Delegate to the U.S. House
Congressional candidate Aumua Amata was yesterday elected to serve as American Samoa’s non-voting Delegate to the U.S. House, unseating longtime incumbent, Congressman Faleomavaega Eni. She is the first woman to be elected to represent American Samoa in the U.S. Congress.
A veteran campaigner for the Delegate seat, Amata, a declared Republican, now joins the majority GOP controlled U.S. House and the U.S. Senate following yesterday’s mid-term elections across the United States.
In yesterday’s election, Amata’s lead began with results from the polling stations in Manu’a, followed by the absentee ballots — which included local and off island ballots as well as Swains Islander voters, whose ballots were counted at the Election Office. Amata has dominated the Manu’a polls in the past several elections.
Of the 45 polling stations — including the Election Office — Amata won in 33 of the polling stations and tied with Faleomavaega at one polling station.
Total votes counted in the Delegate race stand at 10,246 with Amata getting 4306 (42%); Faleomavaega 3157 (30.8%); Togiola Tulafono 1,130 (11%); Mapu J. Jamias 652 6.47%); Meleagi Suitonu-Chapman 229 (2.2%); Tuika Tuika 201 (2%); Rosie Fualaau Tago Lancaster 268 (2.6%); Mark Ude 143 (1.4%); and Tua’au Kereti Matautia Jr. 160 (1.6%)....
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New York Times: Republicans Have Already Won a Governor’s Race Today, in Guam
Even before noon on the East Coast, Republicans notched a governor’s race victory on Tuesday: in Guam, where Gov. Eddie Calvo was re-elected in a landslide. In the nearby Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Gov. Eloy Inos, also a Republican incumbent, leads with most of the votes counted but is likely to face a runoff....
Mr. Calvo won 64 percent of the vote, defeating Carl Gutierrez, a Democrat he only narrowly beat four years ago. But his landslide win does not appear to have translated into a Republican takeover of Guam’s legislature; current results show a narrow lead for Democrats....
Guam, which has 165,000 residents — about three times the population of the Northern Marianas — is the territorial equivalent of a swing state. Every four years since 1984, it has included a straw vote for president on its general election ballots; every time, Guam residents have chosen the same candidate who won the election nationally. Local politics in Guam are closely divided between Republicans and Democrats. Mr. Calvo was first elected governor in 2010 with 50.6 percent of the vote; the unicameral legislature had a 9-6 Democratic majority going into today’s election....
Mr. Calvo, who “admittedly has little charisma,” represents a shift in Guam’s politics. His campaigns have had a heavy emphasis on policy, and particularly on fixing the territory’s messy public finances. His campaign themes were similar to ones you often hear from Republican candidates in blue states or large, left-leaning cities: not so much about shrinking government as about making it more efficient and rooting out patronage.
For example, Mr. Calvo noted in last week’s debate that under his administration, Guam’s main public hospital has fewer total employees, but more doctors. “I don’t know who he was hiring at the hospital back then,” he said of Mr. Gutierrez, who served as governor in the 1990s and early 2000s. Mr. Calvo has set a policy of hiring only government employees with at least a high school diploma, which Mr. Gutierrez has attacked as discriminatory.
Mr. Calvo has stopped some of Guam’s worst fiscal practices (such as financing itself by delaying tax refunds) and has run consecutive budget surpluses; as a result, Standard & Poor’s upgraded its credit rating last year — albeit to BB-, which is still a junk rating, six notches below the worst-rated state (Illinois)....
The territory has suffered nearly two decades of economic stagnation, dating from the Asian economic crisis that started in 1997....
The Northern Mariana Islands’ politics are even more idiosyncratic than Guam’s. Mr. Inos was elected Lieutenant Governor in 2010 as a member of the local Covenant Party. Last year, Gov. Benigno Fitial resigned under threat of impeachment; Mr. Inos became governor, failed to merge his party with the Republicans, and then became a Republican himself. According to the Marianas Variety newspaper, he leads with 44 percent with most of the votes counted, but will most likely face a runoff against independent candidate Heinz Hofschneider....
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Republican Dan Sullivan Leads Alaska Senate Race 49% to 45%
Alaska Dispatch: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan appeared to grab an insurmountable lead over incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Begich early Wednesday, with all of Alaska's precincts reporting.
With results from all 441 precincts counted, Sullivan led 49 percent to 45 percent. The margin remained essentially the same from the first returns early in the evening.
read ... Sullivan lead holds in Alaska U.S. Senate race; Begich won't concede
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