Congressional Elections 2008

An election to fill former Sen. Trent Lott's seat in Congress will coincide with the general election in November, the state Supreme Court ruled in Jackson, saying a separate vote would be costly and unreasonable. Republican Gov. Haley Barbour had set the special election for Nov. 4. Atty. Gen. Jim Hood, a Democrat, had challenged the date.

Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan has qualified to run as an independent against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in November's general election. San Francisco election officials Monday said they have verified enough signatures of registered voters on Sheehan's petitions to qualify her for the ballot. Sheehan, whose oldest son was killed in Iraq, became a symbol of the antiwar movement when she began a vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch.

Mark R. Warner is expected to reignite his political career with an easy election to the Senate in November in much-watched Virginia. But he already was viewed as a prime presidential contender at some future date. His selection as keynote speaker for the upcoming Democratic National Convention will only intensify such chatter. At Politico.com, for instance, Mike Allen rates Warner, 53, a "rising star" in the party with "a post-partisan message" resembling Barack Obama's.

Rep. Don Young won the Republican primary for the state's only House seat, state officials said in Juneau. With the last 350 absentee and provisional ballots tallied from the Aug. 26 election, Young beat Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell by 304 votes. Parnell, who had the backing of Gov. Sarah Palin, has said he would ask for a recount. That could take 10 days, officials said.

During an election year in which Democrats and Republicans are in a bare-knuckled fight to gain seats in Congress, Hawaii Democrat Daniel K. Inouye is traveling far and wide to work for a fellow senator's reelection. But the colleague Inouye is trying to help is a Republican, Ted Stevens of Alaska. Stevens, who has been indicted on corruption charges, has become a top Democratic target in a race that could be crucial to the party's hopes of securing a filibuster-proof majority.

One thing is certain about the Nov. 4 election: A veteran of the war in Iraq will be elected to Congress from the 52nd Congressional District in eastern San Diego County. Iraq veterans fared poorly as candidates nationwide in 2006, with only one elected to Congress, narrowly defeating an incumbent in Pennsylvania. Other veterans failed to make their service a sufficient selling point to voters. But in the 52nd District, both major candidates have combat experience in Iraq. Republican Duncan D.

Having come up short in campaigns for governor, lieutenant governor, state controller and Congress, Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock is making another run at higher office, prospecting for votes for a congressional seat here in Gold Country, hundreds of miles from his Ventura County-based legislative district.

Anton Gunn is a Democratic candidate for the statehouse. He is also a black man running in a majority-white district -- a swath of Old South countryside and new suburban sprawl that hasn't elected a Democrat in 24 years. Two years ago, Gunn ran for the same office and lost. But he believes that 2008 is his year. He has learned a lot since then as state political director for Barack Obama's primary campaign in South Carolina.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, has out-raised his Democratic challenger by more than 2 to 1 in his reelection campaign. A 23-year veteran, he's a mainstay of politics in Kentucky, a state that President Bush easily won and that GOP presidential nominee John McCain is expected to carry. Yet two weeks before the election, McConnell's reelection is in question.

Elwyn Tinklenberg is living the long-shot candidate's political dream. There weren't enough chairs for the volunteers crammed inside the four-room campaign office Wednesday morning. Every time aides hit "refresh" on their computers, hundreds more online donations appeared. Downstairs, the postal carrier spent 10 minutes trying to cram a two-foot stack of envelopes stuffed with checks into the mail slot.