Tag Archives: gordon ball

Gordon Ball files for divorce three days after losing U.S. Senate election

Gordon Ball, who lost his bid for U.S. Senate Tuesday, has filed for divorce, reports the News-Sentinel.

The complaint filed in Knox County Chancery Court names his wife of 10 months, Marjorie Happy Hayes Peterson Ball, as the defendant.

“I really don’t have any comment on it,” Ball said when contacted via mobile phone by the News Sentinel. “The campaign was very stressful and we’re getting a divorce.”

On Tuesday Ball, a Democrat, lost his challenge to incumbent U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican, by almost a two-to-one margin. Both men are from East Tennessee; Alexander is a former governor from Maryville, Ball is a multimillionaire attorney living in Knoxville.

Ball’s wife, Happy Hayes Ball, was unavailable for comment, but information on her LinkedIn profile showed that she relocated to Ocean Ridge, Fla. in October and was previously in Boynton Beach, Fla.

Both Ocean Ridge and Boynton Beach are in South Florida, more than an eight-hour drive from Destin, the site of a recent dispute over a condominium that Ball sold.

Ball wouldn’t say whether there was any connection to his divorce and the condo dispute.

…His divorce complaint filed Friday cites “irreconcilable differences, inappropriate marital conduct” and “intolerable indignities” as the grounds for divorce.

Ball claims, in his complaint, that his wife has been abusive, spent his money from his business account without permission, and “routinely incurs thousands of dollars a month in charges for items to be paid by Plaintiff Husband, who is the marriage’s sole breadwinner.”

The complaint also claims Ball’s wife threatened to reveal private matters to the public if Ball did not give her money.

Ball also said, in the court papers, that his wife sent “lewd email/text messages” to his ex-wife.

And Ball’s wife apparently played a role in the Florida condo dispute.
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Alexander’s victory remarks

News release from Sen. Lamar Alexander’s campaign:
KNOXVILLE – Lamar Alexander told supporters following his re-election to the United States Senate tonight that he will help move the country in a different direction.

Speaking at the Crowne Plaza in Knoxville, Alexander said, “I ran for re-election to be part of a new majority in the Senate that will fix our broken system, get the right things done, and begin to move our country in a new direction. I’ll do this in a way Tennesseans know well—to work with others to get results. Tennesseans want a senator who knows how to get things done, not just make a speech.”

The senator is currently the top Republican on the Senate committee overseeing health care, education and labor, and he is also the top Republican on the appropriations subcommittee on energy overseeing funding for facilities such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In a Republican Senate, he would be poised to serve as chairman of both committees.

Alexander’s full remarks as prepared follow:
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Alexander, Haslam promptly declared winners as polls close

The AP bulletins:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Republican Lamar Alexander has won a third term representing Tennessee in the U.S. Senate.

Alexander was beating Democrat Gordon Ball in early returns Tuesday night.

Alexander emerged from a closer-than-expected primary campaign against state Rep. Joe Carr, and then he left little to chance against Ball in the general election campaign. Alexander shed his usual feel-good campaign image to harshly criticize his Democratic opponent in TV ads and in public appearances.

Alexander spent more than $8.6 million what was one the most difficult campaigns of his 40 years in Tennessee politics.

Ball tried to capitalize on anti-incumbent sentiment. He attempted to portray Alexander as out of touch with Tennessee voters.
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Republican Bill Haslam has been re-elected to a second term as Tennessee governor.

The outcome of Tuesday’s election was widely expected, as Haslam faced no serious opposition either in the primary or the general election. He beat Democrat Charlie Brown, who raised no money in his bid for office.

This year’s re-election campaign was a far cry from Haslam’s first run for governor four years ago, when he faced a spirited nomination fight with U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp and state Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey. Haslam went on to defeat Democrat Mike McWherter by 32 percentage points in 2010.

Election day stories on Ball vs. Alexander

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee voters are deciding whether to grant Republican Lamar Alexander a third term in the U.S. Senate after what has been one of the more difficult campaigns in the former governor’s races over the past 40 years.

Alexander faces Democrat Gordon Ball, a Knoxville attorney who has largely self-funded a campaign that has focused on portraying the incumbent as out of touch with Tennessee voters.

Alexander has hit back at Ball as being beholden to Democratic President Barack Obama’s agenda and for being a “slick-talking personal injury lawyer.”

Alexander is a former governor who also ran for president twice. He had spent a combined $8.6 million on his primary and general-election campaigns through the latest reporting deadline.
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Further, from the Commercial Appeal:
Alexander, 74, spent Monday meeting with supporters in Nashville before heading to Knoxville for a University of Tennessee basketball game. Ball, 65, was in Memphis working on get-out-the-vote efforts and visiting a phone bank urging “No” votes on the anti-abortion Amendment 1 on the ballot. “This amendment needs to be defeated,” he said.

Alexander told reporters he thinks he has a “good chance” of winning a third Senate term with 51 to 54 percent of the vote, and that Republicans will win control of the Senate.

“I think it’s a pretty simple choice: I think most Tennesseans, like most Americans, don’t like the direction the country is going, and they know the only real way to change it is to change the leadership of the Senate. I’m one more vote for a new Republican majority that will move the country in a different direction, and my opponent is one more vote for President Obama’s agenda,” he said.

…Ball, a Knoxville lawyer, visited Planned Parenthood in Memphis where volunteers made phone calls urging people to go to the polls and vote “No” on the amendment that would remove any right to abortion from the Tennessee Constitution and allow the state legislature to enact whatever regulations on abortion are permitted by the federal courts.

Ball criticized Alexander again for refusing to participate in televised debates. “Tennesseans would like to know why you voted against student loan relief and why have you tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act countless times without offering an alternative.” He earlier criticized the senator’s opposition to the federal minimum wage, a minimum-wage increase, and equal pay for equal work by women.

TNGOP contends Ball holding illegal raffle

News release from Tennessee Republican Party:
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—The Tennessee Republican Party today filed a formal complaint with the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Division of Charitable Solicitations and Gaming due to the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Gordon Ball’s illegal raffle the campaign alerted supporters to yesterday.

“All donations made to support Gordon Ball in the next 24 hours will be entered to win” reads the campaign email.

According to the Tennessee Code, “only a qualified 501(c)(3) organization that has submitted an application to the Division of Charitable Solicitations and Gaming, and that has been approved by the Tennessee General Assembly, can hold a raffle.” Additionally, Gordon Ball’s campaign raffle is not shown on the approved list of events on the Secretary of State’s website.

Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Chris Devaney remarked, “Once again, Gordon Ball is trying to skirt the rules the rest of us abide by — first it was by failing to pay tens-of-thousands of dollars in fees and taxes, and now it’s with this illegal raffle. We’ve filed the appropriate complaint with the State of Tennessee to stop the illegal event in question. Who knows? He probably got the idea from another Democrat and decided to copy and paste it here. But Tennessee’s laws don’t work that way. His campaign will soon be over thanks to Tennessee voters who have grown tired of his continual efforts to distract from his liberal record and questionable personal history.”

Alexander spent $548K, Ball $325K from Oct. 1 through 15th

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander spent more than $548,000 during the first two weeks of October, mostly on an advertising blitz, reports The Tennessean.

The splurge put a dent in Alexander’s campaign account, which typically doesn’t dip below seven figures. He had $767,787 left as of Oct. 15, according to his latest Federal Election Commission report.

Alexander is running for a third term against Democrat Gordon Ball.

Ball reported $728,940 left in his account as of Oct. 15. He has loaned his campaign about $1.4 million.

Between Oct. 1 and Oct. 15, Alexander’s campaign spent $459,691 producing and airing TV ads. Five days after the media buy, his campaign started airing a negative ad that calls Ball a “slick-talking” lawyer. His campaign’s final ad, which doesn’t mention Ball, started airing statewide Monday.

…Alexander has spent about $9 million in campaign money since his last election in 2008, when he won with 65 percent of the vote. His campaign also shows $150,000 in debts from the August primary.

Ball, a Knoxville lawyer, has raised a total of $218,344, not including the loans, according to a summary of his reports compiled by the Federal Election Commission. He has spent $880,105.

During the first two weeks of October, Ball’s campaign spent $325,470, including $290,798 on media advertising.

Alexander: Things will be good when GOP controls the U.S. Senate

Sen. Lamar Alexander says a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate won in next week’s election would grease the wheels of that body and produce results for Tennessee, reports the Commercial Appeal.

“Sen. (Mitch) McConnell has said with Republicans in charge, we’ll put bipartisan bills on the floor, we’ll debate them, we’ll work Mondays and Fridays, and we’ll start dealing with the problems that Americans expect us to deal with,” Alexander said. “And it’s absolutely ridiculous that we haven’t been in Washington these last several weeks.”

Alexander said this could mean replacing the Affordable Care Act “as rapidly and responsibly as we can,” stressing local decision-making on education, defending right-to-work laws and reducing the “growth of runaway spending and fix the debt.”

“Perhaps more important than anything else, we’d try to restore the Senate,” he said. “We’d try to put the Senate back to work.”

Alexander spoke to The Commercial Appeal Tuesday afternoon after spending some of the day in Jackson, where he helped Republican state Senate candidate Ed Jackson campaign. Alexander was to hold a fundraiser, his last of the 2014 cycle, in Memphis Tuesday night before heading to East Tennessee Wednesday to continue his efforts in the final week of a campaign against Democratic nominee Gordon Ball.

In Memphis Monday at the first stop of a West Tennessee bus tour, Ball said the recipe for change wasn’t in changing leadership, but in changing Tennessee’s senator.

“If you want six more years of Mitch McConnell and Lamar Alexander, then the people of this state can go vote for them,” Ball said.

McConnell, the Senate minority leader from Kentucky, is poised to become majority leader if Republicans claim the Senate — and if he defeats Democratic nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Rhodes College graduate, in that state’s race. The New York Times’ statistical projection gives Republicans a 68 percent chance of winning the Senate, which is about in the middle of the various projections it has collected on its site.

Republicans need to win six seats to win the majority.

Alexander, 74, who is seeking a third six-year term, shrugged off a question about whether this is his last campaign — “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it” — but said the chances of serving in a GOP majority were central to his desire to seek re-election. He is poised to become the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.

Ball, state Senate candidate Lamb campaign together

Excerpts from a Jackson Sun story on District 27 state Senate candidate Randy Lamb and U.S. Senate candidate Gordon Ball, both Democrats, campaigning together at Jackson Monday.

Lamb is facing Republican Ed Jackson, independent James Baxter and Constitution Party candidate Tim York for the seat being vacated by Lowe Finney, while Ball is running against incumbent Lamar Alexander.

“It just shows that the Democrats are serious about wanting to do our part and to take back as much of the Senate and the House that we can,” Lamb said of Ball stopping by.

Ball joined Lamb as he continued across the state on his “No Show Lamar” Bus Tour after making stops in Weakley County and Jackson on Monday. Lamb said that having Ball join him in Jackson was a “dual benefit” as both worked their way around the room shaking hands for most of the evening before giving speeches.

“We’re feeling really good,” Lamb said about his campaign. “We’re getting a lot of positive feedback about how we’re running our campaign versus how the other side is running theirs, and we’re proud of that.”

…”Here’s where we are, I think,” Ball said. “Lamar Alexander started out at 58 percent. He’s now according to our polls and I think his polls, he’s down to 45 percent, and we’re at 38 percent. So the next few days are crucial.”

But according to The Chattanooga Times Free Press, an online poll of 974 Tennesseans, conducted by The New York Times, CBS News and YouGov.com, shows Alexander leading Ball by 22 points, 55 percent to 33 percent.

“It’s a survey,” Ball said about the report. “It’s so skewed; when you look at the questions it is so skewed. Lamar Alexander wouldn’t be attacking me if I was 22 points down.”

The Senate race has had more negative ads than most anticipated it would have, and Ball said it caught him off guard as well. Regardless, he said he is still pushing on toward Election Day, November 4.

“When I got into this race, I wanted Lamar Alexander to wake up on Oct. 15 and know that he was in a race,” Ball said. “He woke up Oct. 1 and realized he was, and that’s when all the mean-spiritedness started.”

Poll finds Alexander leading Ball 55-33 with leaners

A new New York Times/CBS News/YouGov tracking poll shows U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander leading Democratic challenger Gordon Ball — but still polling under 50 percent of likely voters, according to the Commercial Appeal.

When poll respondents who indicated they are “leaning” Republican or Democratic in the race are included, however, Alexander was leading 55 to 33 percent in the poll of 974 likely voters conducted Oct. 16-23. Without the leaners, Alexander led 47 to 30 percent when respondents were asked which candidate they would vote for in the Senate election.

…The poll may be somewhat skewed because it did not include enough respondents in either the 18 to 29 age category nor the Hispanic category to include those voters in the breakdowns by age and race.

The poll indicates Alexander had the backing of 81 percent of Republicans, 49 percent of those who identified themselves as independents and 5 percent of Democrats, while Ball had the support of 75 percent of Democrats polled, 18 percent of independents and 3 percent of Republicans.