With 20% of the precincts reporting Al Franken will win the Democratic Farm Labor (DFL) primary for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota. Al Franken has a commanding lead over Priscilla Lord Faris winning 70% of the total primary votes so far.
Al Franken received the DFL endorsement from the party leaders back in June. With a late challenge by Priscilla Lord Faris, an attorney from a well-regarded family in state Democratic politics, Al Franken still managed to cruise to an easy primary win. Six other DFL candidates were on the ballot along with Al Franken, but Priscilla Lord Faris was the only challenger to Al Franken that was able to hit double digits by gaining roughly 27% of the votes.
Some of Priscilla Lord Faris' criticisms of Al Franken, which she used in TV spots, were also used by the Republican incumbent Norm Coleman. This drew criticism of Priscilla Lord Faris from DFL insiders and she ended up pulling the TV spots.
Al Franken's coast-to-coast recognition and "Saturday Night Live" fame enabled him to amass 10's of millions of dollars for his campaign equaling that of Norm Coleman's war chest and making the Minnesota Senatorial race one of the most expensive in the country to date.
For almost 19 months now Al Franken has been working tirelessly to nail down the Democratic nomination in his home state of Minnesota. It will be a bittersweet victory for Al in November if he is able to win back the seat previously held by his friend Paul Wellstone until his untimely death in 2002.
