Millionaire Leads 6 in Bid to Challenge N.C. Senator

A millionaire lawyer led six rivals Tuesday for the Democratic nomination to challenge North Carolina Sen. Lauch Faircloth, as Ohio and Indiana voters chose nominees to succeed retiring Sens. John Glenn, a Democrat, and Dan Coats, a Republican.

Faircloth, seeking a second term, was easily renominated over two political unknowns, grabbing four of every five votes cast. On the Democratic side, 44-year-old John Edwards led with 170,931 votes, or 52%, with 63% of precincts reporting. He needed 40% of the vote to avoid a runoff.

Glenn and Coats are among five senators giving up their seats this year. Glenn, 76, will return to space aboard the shuttle Discovery, while Coats, 54, is heading back to the private sector.

In Indiana, three Republicans were trading places in a very tight race for the Senate nomination: Fort Wayne Mayor Paul Helmke; Peter Rusthoven, an attorney and former speech writer for Ronald Reagan; and John Price, also an attorney and advocate for socially conservative causes.

In Ohio, Republican Gov. George Voinovich, barred from running for a third term, sought Glenn’s Senate seat instead and easily won the GOP nomination over token opposition. He’ll face Democrat Mary O. Boyle, a former Cuyahoga County commissioner, who faced no primary opposition.

Indiana and Ohio both also had primaries to replace longtime Democratic congressmen who are retiring.

In southeastern Indiana’s 9th District, voters faced their first election in 34 years without Lee Hamilton on the ballot. Hamilton decided to retire. His party’s nominee is Baron Hill, a former state representative, who easily beat two rivals Tuesday.

The four-way GOP race included Jean Leising, a former state senator who lost the last two elections to Hamilton, and Michael Bailey, who shocked the nation during a losing 1992 campaign with graphic anti-abortion ads that purported to show dead fetuses.

In Ohio’s 11th District, which covers Cleveland’s east side and suburbs, Louis Stokes, the state’s first and only black congressman, is calling it quits after 30 years. The front-runner among five Democratic candidates is Cuyahoga County prosecutor Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who fought against reopening the Sam Sheppard murder case. On the Republican side, talk show host James Hereford led three rivals.