BOISE (AP) - After winning their parties' 2012 primary elections on Tuesday, Democratic congressional candidate Nicole LeFavour will face seven-term Republican Rep. Mike Simpson in November in Idaho's 2nd Congressional District.

Meanwhile, Rep. Raul Labrador beat Reed McCandless in the 1st Congressional District's Republican primary.

In the race to challenge first-term incumbent Labrador, former NFL football player Jimmy Farris was leading Cynthia Clinkingbeard in a surprisingly close Democratic nomination fight.

That's after Clinkingbeard made the biggest news of her campaign on March 16 when she walked into a Boise office-supply store and brandished a gun.

Though Simpson and LeFavour weren't running head to head, Simpson's preliminary vote totals highlight the steep challenge faced in the coming general election by Democrats.

With more than half of precincts reporting, Simpson had collected nearly 38,000 Republican votes. By contrast, LeFavour's 82 percent Democratic support included less than 7,000 votes, a sign of just how Republican red the district stretching from Boise to Wyoming really is.

And come the general election, minority Democrats will have an added hurdle: With GOP favorite Mitt Romney slated to be on the presidential ballot, Republican voters are expected to flock to the polls as they try to hold President Barack Obama to a single term.

LeFavour, a former teacher from Boise's North End neighborhood, was challenged by Jack Wayne Chappell, a Buhl resident and semi-perennial who ran as a Republican against Simpson in 2008.

Simpson beat Marvin "Chick" Heileson easily for the second time since the 2010 primary.

Though Heileson again actively campaigned on a tea-party infused theme branding Simpson a free-spending liberal, the 66-year-old former contractor picked up only 28 percent of the vote to Simpson's 72 percent, with just over half of precincts reporting.

Labrador, who overcame a big fundraising deficit in 2010 to beat former Democratic U.S. Rep. Walt Minnick in the big midterm "Republican wave" election, faced only token opposition from McCandless.

McCandless, a truck driver who now lives in Moscow, didn't run an active campaign, had no website and didn't file Federal Election Commission reports.

Farris' Democratic rival, Clinkingbeard, who suffers from mental illness, was arrested and is awaiting trial on aggravated assault charges.

Still, Farris, who is making his first run at elected office, was fewer than 500 votes ahead with nearly half of precincts reporting by 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.