Former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon won an encore smackdown over Republican opponents Rob Simmons and Peter Schiff to become the GOP Senate nominee in Connecticut.

Sen. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who chairs his party's Senate campaign committee, immediately signaled that McMahon's wrestling association will be an issue in her fall campaign against Democrat Richard Blumenthal.

"Under her watch, violence was peddled to kids, steroid abuse was rampant, yet she made her millions," Menendez said in a statement.

McMahon put the focus on the economy. "This election is about jobs. The American Dream is threatened, but Washington continues its reckless spending, massive debt and tax increases. Washington is suffocating small businesses and killing jobs," she said in her victory statement. "It's time for something different."

Tonight's victory marked a second big win for McMahon, a political rookie.

At a GOP convention in May, McMahon beat out Simmons -- a veteran of the Vietnam War, the CIA and Congress -- as well as Schiff, a financier. But the two losing candidates gathered signatures to qualify for the primary ballot. Simmons at one point put his campaign on ice, then reignited it in time for the election. He won the endorsements of a number of newspapers, including the Hartford Courant. The newspaper said Simmons' "impressive resume" outweighed his "strange campaign."

McMahon, on the other hand, has an impressive bank account. The political rookie has put more than $22 million of her own money into the race so far, according to the tab compiled by our friends at the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

She and Blumenthal will be vying for the seat being vacated by Chris Dodd, a Democrat who earlier this year announced he would retire at the end of 2010, his 30th year in the Senate.

Check out our colleague John Fritze's story about how Blumenthal, Connecticut's attorney general and a onetime golden boy of state politics, is trying to bounce back from embarrassing revelations that he overstated his military record.

It's one of the hot races that we're tracking on USA TODAY's interactive politics map.

Connecticut voters also are choosing nominees for governor. In the Democratic primary, Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy beat Ned Lamont, the man who turned Sen. Joe Lieberman into an independent. Four years ago, Lamont ran a liberal insurgent campaign to deny Lieberman the Democratic nomination. Then Lieberman beat Lamont that fall as an independent.

Malloy's Republican opponent will be Tom Foley, the former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, who bested Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele in the GOP primary.

Republican Gov. Jodi Rell is not seeking re-election.

(Posted by Kathy Kiely)