Hatch wins 7th term in US Senate


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SALT LAKE CITY — Orrin Hatch will serve his seventh term as a Utah Senator.

The senator says that this will be his final term in the office.

In his speech at the Utah Republican Headquarters, Hatch expressed gratitude for family and his campaign staff.

"This has an eventful evening — it's certainly been a tough campaign for me, but I've enjoyed it every step of the way," Hatch said. "I intended to win right from the start and I'm so happy that it's culminated in this win."

"I'm grateful for this wonderful state. It means everything to me. As long as I'm in the United States Senate, I'm going to do the very best job I possibly can."

In a later interview with KSL, Hatch called President Barack Obama to work with Congress.

"All I can say is, should President Obama be our president, I'll do everything in my power to work with him," Hatch said. "He hasn't shown a great propensity to work with Congress. I think he'll have to."

"I want to help the president, if he'll wake up and start to perform like he ought to, my gosh, he'll have a lot of support from me," Hatch said.

Hatch noted that he'll be the most senior Republican in the U.S. Senate and said people "have come to the conclusion that I am a tough old bird."

"Anybody that thinks I'm part of the establishment doesn't know what they're talking about," Hatch said. "I stand up for what I think is right and I stand up for Utah values and I"m going to continue to do it."

Howell is a former Democratic state senator who previously lost to Hatch in 2000. He garnered headlines recently when he made Hatch's age and the senator's 36 years in office a major point of his campaign, sending emails to voters suggesting the 78-year-old may retire or die before the end of his term.

In an interview with KSL and later in his concession speech, Howell credited Hatch's win on Romney's nomination.

"Orrin ran completely on the coattails of Romney, who by the way, is a great man. (Romney) ran a great campaign and I would have loved to have gone back there and worked with him or president Obama.

"...This race was great. We had Republicans, Democrats all working for us, and I'll tell you what, if Mitt Romney hadn't been in this race, Orrin Hatch would've been retired."

The results were closely in line with last week's poll, conducted by Dan Jones for KSL/Deseret News, which showed six-time Senator Orrin Hatch was ahead of Howell by 37 percentage points. Support for Hatch was at 63 percent, whereas Howell garnered only 26 percent of voters' support.

Contributing: Mike Headrick and Associated Press


US Senate Results
CandidateVotes %Winner
Shaun Lynn McCausland (CON)3%
Scott Howell (DEM)29%
Daniel Geery (JUS)0%
Orrin Hatch (REP)65%
Bill Barron (Unaffiliated)0%
1,616 of 2,335 precincts reporting at 11:15 p.m.
For a complete listing of election results, click HERE.

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