LATEST COVERAGE
GENIUS OR GIMMICK? GEORGIA REPUBLICANS PUT U.S. SENATE HOPES ON HERSCHEL WALKER
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
Herschel Walker
Are Georgia Republicans ready to hand their U.S. Senate nomination to a man who has never run for political office, hasn’t lived in the Peach State for decades, and has a personal history that includes mental health struggles and an ex-wife with a restraining order? With Donald Trump’s enthusiastic endorsement, Hall of Fame football hero Herschel Walker enters the race as the clear front-runner for the Republican nomination to take on Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock next year. But with control of the Senate on the line, nominating Walker is certainly not the safest path, given the questions he will face about his politics and his past. (Posted August 25)
IS DEMOGRAPHY DESTINY? NEW CENSUS DATA SHOWS CHALLENGES AHEAD FOR SOUTHERN GOP
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
Take a map showing population shifts across the South over the last 10 years and put it over a map of where Joe Biden performed best in 2020, and the connection will appear obvious. The counties in the South that have gained population — large cities and surrounding suburbs — are the same places where Biden did well; the counties that shrank — rural areas and small towns — were places where Donald Trump rolled. New, detailed, local-level data released August 12 by the U.S. Census Bureau show that when Republicans across the South redraw lines for congressional and legislative districts to equalize population, maximizing their partisan advantage will be much trickier than it was a decade ago due to larger populations of black and brown voters and surges in suburban areas where Democrats have made gains. (Posted August 16)
BIG RISK: DESANTIS AND ABBOTT DOUBLE DOWN ON MANDATES DESPITE COVID’S UNPREDICABILITY
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott
A number of Southern Republican political leaders — most notably, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott — have decided to take a huge gamble; namely, to lead the charge against new COVID-19 restrictions, despite the Delta variant ripping across their states, filling up hospitals and stretching front-line workers to their breaking point. It’s an experiment — literally — that is particularly risky given that one of the populations being experimented are hundreds of thousands of school children, whose parents cannot get them COVID-19 vaccinations even if they want to.
If DeSantis and Abbott are right — that all of the doomsaying and caterwauling by public health officials is an overblown overreaction — their gamble is likely to delight their base and pay dividends when they come up for re-election next year. But if they are wrong — if busloads of children start getting sick or dying — these current prohibitive favorites could find themselves in electoral trouble. Which begs the question, is it worth the risk? (Posted August 8)
TEXAS GOP STATE REP. JAKE ELLZEY WINS U.S. HOUSE RUNOFF OVER TRUMP-BACKED RIVAL
Jake Ellzey
Ellzey claimed Texas’s 6th U.S. House District seat in Tuesday’s all-Republican runoff, defeating Susan Wright, who was trying to keep the seat of her late husband, U.S. Rep. Ron Wright. The result was a blow to former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Wright and publicly supported her candidacy in the final stretch. His super PAC also dropped $100,000 in a last minute advertising buy. Ellzey took 53% in the runoff to 47% for Wright to win a district that includes Arlington and parts of Tarrant County, along with Ellis and Navarro counties to the south. The all-party special election was called after Ron Wright’s death from COVID-19, while undergoing cancer treatment in February. (Posted July 28)
SECOND TIME’S A CHARM? CHARLES BOOKER MAKES 2ND TRY FOR KENTUCKY U.S. SENATE SEAT
Charles Booker
When he launched his first run for the U.S. Senate in 2020, few observers gave Charles Booker a snowball’s chance in a Kentucky August. He was just 32, had served in the legislature for just one year, and was trying to wrestle the Democratic nomination away from Amy McGrath, a fundraising powerhouse backed by Democratic leaders. But then, Booker’s leading role in protests in Louisville after the shooting death of Breonna Taylor caught the imagination of Democratic left, and he nearly upset McGrath. A year later, he’s now trying the impossible again, this time with a run for the state’s other U.S. Senate seat, held by Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul. (Posted July 4)
MURDER PLOT? SECRET RECORDING ROILS GOP RACE IN FLORIDA’S 13TH U.S. HOUSE DISTRICT
Anna Paulina Luna
Florida Republican congressional candidate Anna Paulina Luna’s claim that her political rivals were plotting to murder her raised skeptical eyebrows when she made the charge in a court application asking for stalking protection. But then, Politico obtained a recording in which a man identified as her political rival, William Braddock, is heard bragging that he has access to a “hit squad” of “Ukrainians and Russians” prepared to make Luna “disappear” if she closes in on the Republican nomination in the 13th U.S. House District in Pinellas County, roiling the race for one of the GOP’s best 2022 pick-up opportunities. (Posted June 18)
TERRY MCAULIFFE WINS DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION IN BID TO RECLAIM VIRGINIA GOVERNORSHIP
Terry McAuliffe
McAuliffe, who served as governor from 2014 to 2018, easily won the June 8 Democratic primary to set up what is likely to be a bruising general election campaign against Republican newcomer Glenn Youngkin. Attorney General Mark Herring also saw off a challenge from the left in his quest to win a third term, and State Delegate Hala Ayala made history by winning the Democratic nod for lieutenant governor, becoming first Hispanic woman to win nomination to statewide office. Her win also insures that Virginia will have its first female lieutenant governor, as Republicans chose Winsome Sears, an African-American woman, in a nominating convention in May. (Posted June 9)
BUSH SCION GEORGE P. BUSH LAUNCHES PRIMARY CHALLENGE FOR TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL
George P Bush
Bush, who serves as Texas land commissioner, will seek the Republican nomination attorney general in 2022, in a bid to oust incumbent Ken Paxton, who is facing a criminal trial and an FBI investigation. In his kickoff rally, Bush — the grandson and nephew of U.S. presidents with the most famous family name in Texas politics — warned conservatives that Paxton was a “weak link” who would lose the office to Democrats if he were nominated again. Paxton, serving his second term as attorney general, is facing trial on securities fraud charges stemming from before his time as attorney general, and the FBI launched a criminal investigation in 2020 after several of his top aides publicly accused him of misusing his office to help a wealthy campaign contributor. (Posted June 3)
FLORIDA AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER NIKKI FRIED LAUNCHES DEMOCRATIC RUN FOR GOVERNOR
Nikki Fried
Fried, the only Democrat holding statewide office, launched her campaign on Twitter with a call for her fellow Floridians to help her “break the system” and end what she calls two decades of Republican corruption of state government. A former public defender and lobbyist for the marijuana industry, she won a narrow, surprise victory for agriculture commissioner in 2018 as a urban Democrat, a position usually associated with rural and farming interests, and has since become a fierce critic of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. But before Fried can get to him, she’ll have to win a competitive primary over U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist from St. Petersburg, who served as governor from 2007 to 2011 as a Republican, and possibly State Senator Annette Taddeo, an Hispanic lawmaker from Miami-Dade. (Posted June 2)
VIDEO: PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN ADDRESSES CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION OF TULSA RACE MASSACRE
LOUISIANA U.S. SENATOR BILL CASSIDY ONLY SOUTHERN REPUBLICAN TO SUPPORT JAN. 6 COMMISSION
U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana
Cassidy stood alone among his Southern Republican colleagues in supporting formation of an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, which died after supporters fell six votes short of the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who said the panel would add an “extraneous layer” of investigation. All five Southern Senate Democrats — Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia — voted in favor . Eighteen Southern Republicans voted no, while four did not vote, including Richard Burr of North Carolina, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, and Richard Shelby of Alabama. (Posted May 29)
TAKING VIRGINIA BACK: HOW REPUBLICANS HOPE TO RIDE LIBERAL BACKLASH BACK INTO POWER
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
After Democrats took control of all of the levers of power in Richmond 2020, they got to work on a host of liberal priorities — gun control, LGBTQ rights, removing abortion restrictions, climate change, capital punishment, marijuana legalization — that left Republicans across the Old Dominion angry and reeling. Now, the GOP hopes to ride a backlash to Democratic rule in Richmond to reclaim power in this year’s off-year election, with most of the focus on the battle for control of the House of Delegates and the governor’s race between Republican newcomer Glenn Youngkin and his likely Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe. What happens in Virginia this year could provide a template for Republicans nationally hoping to benefit from a similar backlash to the Biden administration. (Posted May 20)
BOLD MOVE OR FOOL’S ERRAND? DEMINGS TAKES ON RUBIO IN FLORIDA U.S. SENATE RACE
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
Val Demings
Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings burst onto the national political scene in early 2020 when she was picked as a House impeachment manager to make the case against Donald Trump — so much so that she soon found herself on Joe Biden’s vice presidential short list and was chattered about as a possible Cabinet secretary. Now, Demings had decided to give up her safe House seat in Orlando after just three terms to run against Republican U.S. Senator Marco Rubio next year, as Democrats fight to hang on to their slim Senate majority. While her run will no doubt excite the Democratic base, she faces a daunting uphill climb in trying to unseat Rubio, given his deep roots in Miami’s Cuban-American community and his deftness in navigating the Trump headwinds in his party. (Posted May 18)
Chicken Fried Politics 
We need Ed help when smarter people see what’s happening if you want to work it’s out there now.So Let’s help American Are better than All The people who don’t like MR Trump have not looked around.
Love this site! Thank-you!
Thanks for much for your feedback. Glad you’ve enjoyed ChickenFriedPolitics.com!
On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 12:23 PM Chicken Fried Politics wrote:
>