I understood Largent’s loss and Hillaery’s, but Salmon’s always remained odd to me.
Well, at the time, Napolitano was a statewide officeholder as Attorney General with decent (mid 50s) approval ratings going into the election. Salmon hadn’t run statewide. In hindsight, the woman he beat in the primary, Betsy Bayless, the Secretary of State, might’ve been stronger (although she had lost by a wide margin to Salmon).
Napolitano was well-funded because of AZ campaign funding laws, and she also ran outright as a “Conservative Democrat” (of course, we know that was bullcrap). Add to that, former Democrat Richard Mahoney (a former statewide officeholder) was running as well on the odd platform of being to the left of Napolitano on social issues, but to the right of Salmon on fiscal issues, and he ended up with 7%. Barone himself wasn’t clear on who Mahoney took more votes from, perhaps splitting them equally (though anyone who believes a politician can be fiscally right and socially left is an idiot).
Some of those 2002 gubernatorial races were a real kick in the balls.
The 3 candidates you mentioned and Bebout (Wyoming), should have won. And TT’s liartarian brother shouldn’t have thrown Wisconsin the rat, and Governor Schweiker should have run again in PA.
Rat Attorneys General are Satan, they are great at winning higher office.