Lee Terry spends big, wins small

Joe Jordan | Nebraska Watchdog

After shelling out some $900,000, looking to tightly cinch his party’s nod all over again, GOP Congressman Lee Terry survived a scare from his Republican challenger Dan Frei.

With very few votes left to count:

Terry: 53%, 20,195

Frei: 47%, 17,704

But as those numbers clearly show, plenty of Terry’s core supporters—aka the GOP base— aren’t happy.

Terry and Frei spent the last few days of the campaign squabbling over some last-minute mailers. Terry accused Frei of favoring amnesty and being a liberal, likening him to President Obama and Nancy Pelosi.

Frei, who spent roughly $40,000, called the hits “dirty politics.”

The 8-term incumbent has run into a slew of anti-Terry primary voters the past few years.

In both 2010 and 2012 Terry’s GOP rivals picked up nearly 40 percent of the vote.

He once told Nebraska Watchdog these primary fights only “soften” him up for the Democrats in November.

Terry easily won re-election in 2010 but struggled to a mere two-point victory in 2012.

Contact Joe Jordan at joe@nebraskawatchdog.org

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Category: Nebraska, Dan Frei, Joe Jordan, Lee Terry, Nebraska Watchdog