Elections Today
- Pennsylvania
Recent Projections
| State | Candidate | Delegates |
|---|---|---|
 Donald Trump | ||
Pennsylvania |  Joe Biden |
Political storms: Katrina helps tilt Miss. race
— -- Voters in off-year elections Tuesday decide whether to keep Republican governors in Mississippi and Kentucky, elect four big-city mayors and consider ballot issues including a Utah proposal to pay state tuition aid for students in private schools.
In Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour was benefiting from relative success in managing the post-Hurricane Katrina rebuilding of the state's devastated Gulf Coast. He was considered a heavy favorite for re-election over Democrat John Eaves.
The 2005 storm and flooding left Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman, on far firmer political ground than it did his neighbor in Louisiana, where Republican Bobby Jindal last month won the governorship. Democrat Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, whose popularity suffered in Katrina's aftermath, did not seek re-election.
In Kentucky, first-term Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a physician and former congressman, was in an uphill battle for political survival.
Fletcher trailed by 15 to 23 percentage points in polls against Democrat Steve Beshear, a former lieutenant governor who was benefiting from the political and legal tumult that has surrounded Fletcher's term in office.
The first GOP governor in Kentucky in more than 30 years, Fletcher was indicted in 2006 on misdemeanor charges that he illegally rewarded political supporters with protected state jobs. He pre-emptively pardoned his entire administration and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Charges were eventually dismissed in a deal with prosecutors. A subsequent special grand jury concluded he had approved a "widespread and coordinated plan" to skirt the state's hiring laws.
Fletcher called the allegations a political witch hunt and tried to turn tables on Beshear by alleging ethics violations in his legal work for an insurance company.
One of the most closely watched ballot initiatives was over school vouchers in Utah.
With the backing of Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman, the Legislature narrowly passed a bill this year providing state vouchers for $500 to $3,000 in tuition assistance for students enrolling in private schools. Opponents, arguing the aid would drain public schools of money, launched a successful petition drive putting the issue up for a referendum. A defeat for the measure today would kill the broadest-ever state school voucher law.
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