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David Jolly keeps Florida U.S. House seat in GOP hands
Jolly, a Washington lobbyist and former House aide, defeats Democrat Alex Sink in 13th District special election
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpoiltics.com editor
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (CFP) — Republican David Jolly has won a special election for Florida’s vacant 13th U.S. House District, narrowly beating Democrat Alex Sink and dashing Democratic hopes of taking away what had been seen as a vulnerable GOP seat.
U.S. Rep-elect David Jolly
Jolly won 48.5 percent in the March 11 race, compared to 46.6 percent for Sink, a margin of less than 3,500 votes. Libertarian Lucas Overby carried 4.8 percent.
National Democratic officials had pulled out all the stops for Sink, including visits by Vice President Joe Biden and Bill Clinton. The main fault line in the campaign was Obamacare, which Sink embraced and Jolly opposed.
Jolly, 41, is a Washington lobbyist and former aide to the late U.S. Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young, who held the St. Petersburg-based seat for more than 42 years before his death in October.
Sink, 65, is the state’s former chief financial officer. She was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2010, narrowly losing to Gov. Rick Scott.
Democratic nominee Alex Sink
Sink does not live in the district. But after she was recruited to run by national party officials, other Democrats in Pinellas County stepped aside.
Outside Democratic and Republican groups had poured more than $9 million into the race, which was seen as a bellweather of their political prospects heading into November’s mid-term election.
While Republicans hold a lead in party registration in the 13th District, President Barack Obama narrowly carried it in both 2008 and 2012. The district is one of only three Republican-held seats in the South that went for Obama in 2012.
Jolly will have to defend the seat in November, and he told Fox News that he expects Democrats to come at him just as hard.
“This will be just as close of a race,” he said.
In her concession speech, Sink did not say if she plans to seek the seat again in November.
Analysis: Tea Party Senate challengers can take comfort from Texas
U.S. Senator John Cornyn’s weak margin of victory shows other incumbents might be vulnerable
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
The good news for the other four Republican U.S. senators facing Tea Party challenges this year is that Senator John Cornyn won in Texas.
The bad news? Cornyn’s win was hardly impressive.
Facing a primary field that was, to be charitable, less than viable, Cornyn failed to clear 60 percent of the vote. More than four in 10 Texas voters in his own party wanted somebody — anybody — else.
Compare that result with the Republican primary race for governor, where Attorney General Greg Abbott swept almost 92 percent of the vote against three challengers.
Cornyn’s chief Tea Party challenger, U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, jumped in at the last minute and ran an erratic campaign. That allowed Cornyn to survive.
But imagine what might have happened if a stronger Tea Party competitor had run. No doubt some Texas conservatives who passed on this race are now kicking themselves over what might have been.
Cornyn was a Tea Party target because he is the minority whip in the Senate. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is also facing a primary challenge from Louisville businessman Matt Bevin, who, unlike Stockman, is raising money and has the backing of outside conservative groups.
If the unhappiness with Cornyn seen in Texas is duplicated in Kentucky, McConnell could be in trouble.
Likewise, Senators Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, Lamar Alexander in Tennessee and Thad Cochran in Mississippi all face Tea Party challengers.
Alexander and Graham seem to be holding their own. Cochran, on the other hand, faces State Senator Chris McDaniel, who is also getting a boost from outside conservative groups, which sat on the sidelines in Texas.
And in addition to races with incumbents, the preferred GOP establishment candidates for seats in North Carolina, Louisiana and West Virginia are also battling Tea Party challengers. In Georgia, there’s a free-for-all among five major candidates, at least two of whom are expected to draw from the Tea Party part of the party.
Now that he’s survived the primary, Cornyn is the prohibitive favorite to win the general election. But if Tea Party challengers win in any of the other states where they have a shot, Democrats will be waiting in the wings.
That is causing heartburn in the GOP establishment. Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said as much when he opined recently that a McDaniel win in the Magnolia State could open the door for a Democrat.
Cornyn’s tepid showing in Texas isn’t making that heartburn any better.
U.S. Senator Mark Pryor drawing fire for remarks about opponent’s military service
Pryor says U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton gives off ‘sense of entitlement’ because of his Army service
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LITTLE ROCK (CFP) – Arkansas Republicans are demanding an apology from U.S. Senator Mark Pryor for saying in a television interview that his GOP opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, has exhibited a “sense of entitlement” because he served in the U.S. Army.
U.S. Senator Mark Pryor
In an interview with MSNBC on March 5, Pryor was asked whether Cotton’s military service, which is prominently mentioned in his campaign, should be a qualification to become a senator.
“No, there’s are a lot of people in the Senate who didn’t serve in the military,” Pryor said. “In the Senate, we have all kinds of different people, all kinds of different folks that have come from all kinds of different backgrounds.”
“And I think that’s part of this sense of entitlement that (Cotton) gives off, is that almost it’s like, ‘I served my country, therefore elect me to the Senate.’ That’s not how it works in Arkansas.”
However, Pryor also said he has “total respect” for Cotton’s two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and thanked him for his service.
But the Arkansas Republican Party pounced on what it called Pryor’s “outrageous” comments.
“To suggest, as Senator Pryor has, that military service is not a qualification to run for office is an affront to every man and woman who has put on the uniform to serve this country,” State GOP Chairman Doyle Webb said in a statement.. “He should immediately apologize to them and to Congressman Tom Cotton.”
U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton
Responding to Pryor’s comments on the Fox News Channel, Cotton, who graduated from Harvard Law School before joining the Army, said, “I didn’t leave a good law job to join the Army out of a sense of entitlement. I left because I wanted to serve my country.”
“I’m not like Mark Pryor. I haven’t spent 25 years in politics, but I can tell you this — you learn a lot more about leadership at officer candidate’s school and Ranger school at Ft. Benning and leading troops in the streets of Baghdad than you learn in the halls of Congress.
Cotton also said he was “surprised that Mark Pryor doesn’t think we need more veterans in Congress. Frankly, I think if we had more people in the Congress who were veterans, Congress might be a little more respected, just like our military is.”
So far, Pryor has not apologized. His campaign did release a statement saying that while the senator is “grateful” for Cotton’s military service, the campaign should be a contrast between their records in Congress.
“Cotton has said himself that military experience shouldn’t be the sole or primary qualification for political office,” the statement said.
Watch Pryor’s comments on Cotton’s military service:
Democrat Travis Childers jumps into Mississippi U.S. Senate race
Childers, a former congressman, hopes to unseat Republican U.S. Senator Thad Cochran
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com
TUPELO, Mississippi (CFP) — U.S. Senator Thad Cochran’s quest for a seventh term faces a new complication with a potentially formidable Democrat, Travis Childers, entering the race even as Cochran is dealing with a primary challenge.
Former U.S. Rep. Travis Childers
Childers, who represented northern Mississippi in the U.S. House from 2008 to 2011, said he’s running because Washington is “more partisan and dysfunctional than ever.”
“What I know is that the old ways of Washington aren’t working, and a new breed of partisanship isn’t the answer,” Childers, 55, said in statement announcing his candidacy on February 28.
“Mississippians know that I have a solid record of being an independent guy who will work across party lines and stand up to the powers that be when needed.”
When he ran for re-election to his U.S. House seat in 2010, Childers, who styles himself a Blue Dog Democrat, had the backing of the National Right to Life Committee and the National Rifle Association. But he still lost in the GOP wave to U.S. Rep. Alan Nunnalee.
Despite the Magnolia State’s pronounced Republican tilt, Childers gives the Democrats at least a fighting chance in the general election, particularly if Cochran doesn’t survive a primary challenge from State Senator Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party favorite who is getting backing from national conservative groups.
McDaniel, 41, has been endorsed by both the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund, which have been critical of Cochran for being, in their view, insufficiently conservative. Chief among Cochran’s sins: His vote in favor of the compromise legislation that restarted the government.
U.S. Senator Thad Cochran
Cochran, 75, is the most senior Republican in the Senate and was a former chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Since winning election in 1978, he hasn’t faced serious opposition, winning re-election four times with more than 60 percent of the vote.
Cochran is one of five Southern Republican senators facing a Tea Party-inspired prmary challenges this year. Those other races are in Texas, South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucy.
Party leaders have expressed concerns that if any of those Republicans fall, it could open those seats to Democrats and imperil GOP hopes of taking back the Senate this year.
Poll: Greg Abbott increases lead over Wendy Davis in Texas governor’s race
New poll shows Abbott, the presumptive Republican nominee, with an 11-point gap over Davis, the only major Democrat in the race
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
AUSTIN, Texas (CFP) — Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott has opened up a double-digit lead over his Democratic challenger, State Senator Wendy Davis, which is nearly double the lead he held in October.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
The University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll put Abbott’s support at 47 percent to 36 percent for Davis in a head-to-head match-up. Seventeen percent were undecided or had no opinion.
The latest poll comes on the heels of two controversies that have ensnared to Davis, who rocketed to national fame last summer after filibustering a bill that would have outlawed abortions in Texase after 20 weeks.
First, the Dallas Morning news raised questions about her rags-to-riches campaign biography. Then, Davis gave an interview in which she said she would have supported the anti-abortion bill if it had been worded differently.
Texas State Senator Wendy Davis
The poll found that the percentage of voters who viewed Davis unfavorably rose from 31 percent in October to 36 percent in February, while the number of voters who viewed her favorably stayed steady at 37 percent.
At the same time, Abbott made strong gains in the number of voters who viewed him favorably, which rose from 36 percent to 45 percent. Just 25 percent of voters viewed him unfavorably.
Abbott also continues to hold a staggering advantage in fundraising over Davis. Reports to the Texas Ethics Commission show he has raised $29.4 million for the race, compared to $3.9 million for Davis.
The University of Texas/Texas Tribune internet survey of 1,200 registered voters was conducted February 7-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.83 percentage points.
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