Gov. Jan Brewer's more moderate picks for the state Legislature led the way over the hard-right conservatives endorsed by her SB 1070 compadre, Sen. Russell Pearce.

As the primary election votes were counted Tuesday, the score in the Senate: Brewer 3, Pearce 2.

That could thwart Pearce's plans to become Senate president, jeopardize his proposal to deny birth certificates to babies of illegal immigrants and portend a more harmonious relationship with whomever wins the Ninth Floor in November.

In one of the nastiest and most closely watched legislative contests, Sen. Sylvia Allen had a comfortable lead over Rep. Bill Konopnicki, who spent a considerable amount of money in hopes of knocking her out of her District 5 Senate seat.

Allen is Pearce's pick and is expected to support him in a bid for Senate president.

In another high-dollar contest, in northeast Phoenix, Rep. Adam Driggs was cruising to victory over Rich Davis for the District 11 Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Barbara Leff. Davis battled charges of carpet-bagging and campaign violations.

Driggs is likely to support a more moderate candidate for Senate leadership, such as Sen. Steve Pierce or John McComish, if he runs.

Chalk District 6 up to Pearce, whose conservative candidate, Lori Klein, was whalloping Sen. David Braswell, who was appointed to fill the seat vacated when Pamela Gorman resigned to run for Congress.

Klein won despite her history of DUI and Braswell's short, but relatively successful time in the Senate. In any other year, he would be considered quite the conservative.

Brewer got her pick in Nancy Barto, who was running against her District 7 House seatmate, Ray Barnes, for a vacant Senate seat.

Ben Quayle may have overcome his connection with a bawdy website and won the Republican nomination in Arizona’s 3^rd Congressional District.

With more than 90 percent of the precincts reporting late Tuesday, the son of former vice president, Dan Quayle, held a small lead over the nine other opponents in the crowded field.
If his lead holds Quayle  will face wealthy Democrat and attorney Jon Hulburd in the Republican leaning district the covers north Phoenix as well as Anthem and New River. 

Quayle delivered a very short speech at Arizona Republican Party headquarters in Phoenix in front of a small but rowdy group of supporters. Quayle refused to take questions from the media but he did return a call from the Guardian.

“It was a long and hard-fought campaign,” Quayle said during a phone interview. “So now we’re going to wait for all the votes to be counted and see what happens.”

The results include ballots cast before what some considered a fatal stumble for the former vice president's son, his denial – then admission – that he wrote for a raunchy website, TheDirty.com.

Quayle was leading the race with 22 percent of the vote. Businessman Steve Moak was second with 18 percent and former state Sen. Jim Waring was third with 17 percent.

Former Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker rounded out the top four with about 16 percent of votes cast, according to the Maricopa County Recorder’s website.

Huburd said he was looking forward to a “wild and wooly race" against the Republican nominee. He called the non-issue-driven GOP campaign a "distraction" and downplayed the party's registration advantage.

"I think people might be confusing a 16-year incumbency with a locked district, and that’s not the same thing," Hulburd said.

Another surprise of the evening came in Southern Arizona's CD 8, where former state Sen. Jonathan Paton was trailing fellow Iraq veteran and political neophyte Jesse Kelly by 7 percentage points. U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had been targeted by the national GOP and many political insiders predicted her path to victory in the general got a lot easier with Kelly’s victory.

In CD 5, former county treasurer David Schweikert jumped out to an early, not unexpected, lead over longtime politician Susan Bitter Smith in the race to go up against U.S. Rep. Harry Mitchell in November.

Also as expected, U.S. Sen. John McCain trounced former congressman J.D. Hayworth by a 2-1 margin. Hayworth generated a lot of Tea Party excitement when he left his radio show and entered the race earlier this year, but revelations of his work on a shady infomercial took the steam out of his campaign.

In the Democratic U.S. Senate race, former Tucson City Councilman Rodney Glassman was hanging on to his early lead, with 35 percent of the vote, followed by longtime state administrator and former lawmaker Cathy Eden at 28 percent. Eden jumped in the race late, but is helped by her experience, name ID and connections to Democratic insiders.