Primary Updates

Jillian Bandes | August 25, 2010 12:30 AM

Florida Rep. Kendrick Meek has won the Democratic senatorial primary in Florida, defeating self-funded billionaire Jeff Greene. As I mentioned earlier, this means good things for

Marco Rubio. The theory is that potential Charlie Crist voters would be more likely to pull for the moderate Meek instead of Greene, who is more liberal.

Rick Scott beat Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Florida GOP governor's race. It was an upset — Scott got in the race less than four months ago, and McCollum had all of the official GOP endorsements. But Scott outspent McCollum two to one, and played up tea party support.

Take a look at these numbers, though: in the Florida GOP gubernatorial primary 806,123 votes were cast, and in the Democratic primary: 469,230 total votes were cast. There's the Republican enthusiasm gap at work! Overall, it's light turnout — but the party turnout says everything.

Meanwhile, Rubio easily won his GOP nomination for Senate after Crist dropped out to run as an Independent. Allapundit links to Rubio's victory speech. And, Daniel Webster will be the one to take a crack at crazy 'ole Alan Grayson in Florida's eighth district.

Early in the evening, McCain established a quick primary lead against J.D. Hayworth, leading the AP to call the race by 11:20 eastern time. And Jan Brewer easily picked up her party's nod in Arizona.