By the end of the year, Rep. Jackie Speier will have been on the ballot a total of three times. She’s now won two of those races handily — a result she hopes to replicate for her final election of the year in November.
The 58-year-old attorney beat out three other candidates in the Democratic primary for the 12th Congressional District on Tuesday.
In April, Speier won a special election to replace Rep. Tom Lantos, who died in February, and will serve the remainder of Lantos’ term, which expires Jan. 3, 2009.
If Speier wins in November, she will hold the congressional office for the next two-year term, from January 2009 to January 2011.
Running against Speier in Tuesday’s Democratic primary were Michelle McMurry, a health policy advocate who also ran in April’s special election; Robert Barrows, an advertising and public relations executive who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the seat in 2006; and Frank Wade, an accountant who has never before ran for office.
Speier now will battle Republican Greg Conlon, who won the race for the Republican Party nomination against Mike Moloney on Tuesday.
Both candidates ran unsuccessfully against Speier in April. Conlon, a businessman and accountant from Atherton, ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2002.
The 12th Congressional District spans from the southern neighborhoods of San Francisco through much of northern San Mateo County. It historically has been a heavily Democraticdistrict and has proven itself difficult for Republican candidates to win.
Speier made headlines immediately after being sworn into office, when, in her inaugural speech, she criticized President Bush and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain on their policy in Iraq and was booed by Republican representatives.
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