By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff

The Democratic presidential campaign may be entering its final phase, but the 2008 congressional primary schedule continues apace: voters in Nebraska and West Virginia on Tuesday will select their nominees for the November elections.

In Nebraska, both parties have primary elections to determine the candidates who will vie to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel . In West Virginia, Democrats will select a challenger to four-term Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito .

Nebraska Republican voters are expected to overwhelmingly nominate Mike Johanns, a former governor who resigned as President Bush’s Agriculture Secretary last September to prepare for the Senate race. He faces a minor primary challenger in Pat Flynn, a businessman.

Johanns’ quest for the Republican nomination was aided considerably by the withdrawals of Hal Daub, a former U.S. House member and mayor of Omaha, and then by Jon Bruning, the state Attorney General who had planned to challenge Hagel in a Republican primary prior to the senator announcing his retirement in September.

The top candidates in the four-candidate Democratic primary are Scott Kleeb, a Yale-educated rancher and educator who was the losing Democratic nominee in the state’s heavily Republican 3rd District in 2006, or Tony Raimondo, a businessman who recently switched from the Republican Party.

Kleeb, 32, said in a recent interview on Nebraska public television that he chose to run for the Senate this year because “now is a critical moment in our history.” He’s concerned about the $9 trillion federal debt and supports greater transparency in identifying federal contracts and appropriations earmarks.

Raimondo was turned off by the efforts of national Republican officials to clear the field for Johanns. He’s acknowledged his Republican ties but says he’s worked with Nebraska governors of both parties and said that today’s Democratic Party is more hospitable to political centrists.

“If you look at my record, I define a moderate . . . I think if you look at my track record, you’ll see that I do not believe in party politics when you’re talking about education and when you’re talking about economic development. We should be working on what’s good for America,” Raimondo said.

Nebraska is one of five states where Republican senators are retiring this year. CQ Politics presently rates the Nebraska Senate race as “Republican Favored,” a mildly competitive rating that gives the incumbent party a strong edge. Republican-held open Senate seats in Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico are much more vulnerable to a takeover campaign by the Democrats than Hagel’s seat in Nebraska.

Republican Reps. Jeff Fortenberry of the Lincoln-centered 1st District, Lee Terry of the Omaha-based 2nd District and Adrian Smith of the rural 3rd District are all heavily favored to win new terms. Terry and Smith face minor primary opposition.

In West Virginia, the only congressional primary race of note is a Democratic primary in the 2nd District which traverses the state’s midsection to take in the state capital of Charleston and also the eastern Panhandle. Capito will face the winner of a three-candidate primary in which the party-preferred candidate is Anne Barth, a longtime former aide to veteran West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd .

Barth, who has backing from Democratic officials in West Virginia and in Washington, D.C., is favored against primary opponents Richie Robb, a former mayor of South Charleston and an unsuccessful candidate for the 2nd District seat in 2006, and Thornton Cooper, a lawyer.

In the 1st District, 13-term Democratic Rep. Alan B. Mollohan is unopposed in both the primary and general elections. In the southern 3rd District, 16-term Democratic Rep. Nick J. Rahall II is unopposed in the Democratic primary and is expected to defeat Republican nominee Marty Gearheart, who lost a 2006 Republican primary in the 3rd District.