elma, Ala., elected its first black mayor yesterday, a businessman who unseated a reformed segregationist.
In New York, meanwhile, Hillary Rodham Clinton breezed past a little-known challenger to win the Democratic Senate primary, and Michael Forbes, a US representative from Long Island, was locked in a dead heat in a Democratic primary with a 71-year-old former librarian who raised just $40,000 to his $1.4 million.
As nine states and the District of Columbia held contests on the last big primary day of 2000, Clinton built a wide lead over orthopedic surgeon Mark McMahon en route to her contest against unopposed Republican Representative Rick Lazio in November.
With 97 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton had 527,527 votes, or 82 percent, to McMahon's 119,357 votes, or 18 percent.
In Selma, James Perkins defeated Joe Smitherman, a white man first elected before the bloody civil rights march of 1965.
Perkins received 6,326 votes, or about 57 percent of the vote in the nonpartisan runoff marked by heavy turnout. Smitherman had 4,854 votes, or about 43 percent.
''Many have said it's about black and white. That ain't so,'' Perkins said. ''Faith won this campaign.''
Smitherman, 70, was a segregationist when he first took office in 1964. He later welcomed blacks into his administration as blacks grew to become the majority in this central Alabama city of about 22,000 people.
In the New York City area, despite shifting demographics that spurred strong challenges to Democratic incumbents, Representatives Eliot Engel and Major Owens won nominations for new terms. Both are in districts so heavily Democratic that the nomination is almost tantamount to victory in November.
Forbes left the GOP last year saying the party had become too extremist, but his primary opponent, Regina Seltzer, attacked his conservative voting record. With 98 percent of the ballots tallied she led by just 44 votes out of 11,592 cast.
The GOP choice for Lazio's open seat on Long Island was Islip Town Clerk Joan Johnson, who would be the first black woman Republican in the House if elected.
In Minnesota, GOP Senator Rod Grams' first term left him with poor poll numbers and a Democratic scramble to unseat him. He easily beat a little-known candidate for his party's nomination.
Department store heir Mark Dayton beat three other Democrats for the nomination in a $10 million race that broke state records. Half the spending came from Dayton, a former state auditor.
No US senator or governor wound up with a strong primary challenger.
In Wisconsin, Democratic Senator Herb Kohl breezed to the nomination. Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl and Connecticut Democratic Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, who is also running for vice president, faced no primary challenges.
In Arizona, Jeff Flake, the former executive director of the Goldwater Institute, won the GOP nomination to replace retiring Republican Representative Matt Salmon. Among the defeated: Tom Liddy, son of Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy.
Also in Arizona, returns were too close to call in the city of Prescott on a referendum to overturn a ban of the traditional July Fourth water fights. The ban was enacted after complaints that the fun had turned too rowdy.
Brown County in Wisconsin approved a sales tax to renovate and expand Lambeau Field, the home of the beloved Green Bay Packers, the only publicly owned team in the NFL.
Long before the final votes were counted, a cheer went up at the Stadium View Sports Bar and Grill in Green Bay when a TV station ran projections showing the tax would pass.
The tax will provide a $160 million public share for renovating Lambeau Field.
The referendum had been projected as a close one, pitting voters' love of the Packers against their pocketbooks. In the end, 53 percent of voters favored a 0.5 percent sales tax to pay off bonds for the renovation.
