Tuesday's Primary Results - A November Forecast?

This past Tuesday, some of the most competitive primaries took place in Arkansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. The outcomes of those races forecast competitive elections in November. In Arkansas, the heated Democratic primary race between sitting Senator Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Governor Bill Halter has been forced into a run-off because each candidate received only 46 percent of the vote (in Arkansas, one must receive at least 50 percent of the vote in order to be declared winner).  Unions announced multimillion dollar commitments for Halter in the run-off because of Blanche Lincoln's principled stance against "card check" legislation in the Senate. The Arkansas run-off election will take place in two weeks on one of the largest primary days this season - June 8, when California, Iowa, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Virginia head to the polls. Meanwhile in Kentucky, the election shows either that the Republican candidate was not up to task or that there is power in the Kentucky Tea Party movement. Either way, the clear win by activist Rand Paul, son of Libertarian Congressman Ron Paul, was a blow to the Kentucky GOP establishment and its hand-picked candidate, Trey Grayson, Kentucky's current Secretary of State. Pennsylvania's primary may have been the most talked about primary of the day.  Rep. Joe Sestak defeated Sen. Arlen Specter, who recently switched to the Democratic Party last year in what is now a failed attempt to save his political career.  Sestak will face Republican Pat Toomey in the general election this November. Democrat Mark Critz declared victory Tuesday night over Republican candidate Tim Burns in Pennsylvania's 12^th District.  The special election took place after February's passing of Rep. John Murtha (D).  Critz served as a staff member to Murtha for nearly a decade. This was a Democratic seat won by a Democratic candidate who ran a pro-life, pro-gun, anti-Obamacare campaign for office.