Arkansas Senate race awash in money 15 months out
Senator Mark Pryor and his expected challenger, Congressman Tom Cotton, are raising millions, while outside groups pour money with abandon into Arkansas.
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LITTLE ROCK (CFP) — More than 15 months before a single vote is cast for the U.S. Senate — indeed, before Arkansans even know for sure who will be running — outside groups from both sides of the political aisle have already dumped more than $1 million in ads onto TV viewers across the Natural State.
This spending wave is even more striking considering that Arkansas is the second-smallest Southern state, with fewer than 3 million people, and has only two major television markets.
Senator Mark Pryor
Incumbent Senator Mark Pryor, considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the 2014 election cycle, raised $1.2 million in the second quarter of 2013, with nearly $4 million in the bank, according to figures filed with the Federal Election Commission.
However, Pryor has already had to go up on TV to counter a negative ad from New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which poured $350,000 into Arkansas earlier this year.
Bloomberg’s spots lambasted Pryor for his vote against President Obama’s call for expanded background checks for gun purchases. In his reponse, Pryor said he was defending the Second Amendment against a proposal that wouldn’t have prevented any of the recent mass shootings.
All told, Pryor spent $700,000 in the second quarter, or nearly 60 percent of what he managed to raise during that period.
Representative Tom Cotton
Meanwhile, the man considered to Pryor’s likely GOP opponent, Representative Tom Cotton of Dardanelle, raised $611,000 during the second quarter and now has slightly more than $1 million in the bank.
Cotton, an Iraq war veteran in just his first term in the House, has been playing coy about whether he’ll give up his safe 4th District seat to challenge Pryor. He says he won’t make an annoucement on his plans until after the August congressional recess.
But national Democratic groups clearly think Cotton will run. In a pre-emptive strike, two outside liberal groups, Patriot Majority USA and the Senate Majority PAC, pummeled Cotton with $308,000 worth of TV attacks earlier this summer.
So far, Cotton has not felt the need to rebut those spots with ads of his own.
Another member of the state’s congressional delegation, Representative Steve Womack of Rogers, has said he, too, might run against Pryor. In the second quarter, Womack raised $123,000 with $600,000 on hand, putting him well behind Cotton.
A GOP primary is considered unlikely. Womack, who has been in the House since 2011, is not expected to make the Senate race if Cotton runs.
Pryor, scion of one of Arkansas’ most prominent political families, barely faced opposition when he ran for a second term in 2008. But Republicans are smelling blood in the water this time around, largely because of the senator’s vote in favor of Obamacare in 2009.
Obama is deeply unpopular in Arkansas, losing the state by 23 points in 2012.
Two outside conservative groups, the Club for Growth and Senate Conservatives Action, have already spent more than $500,000 in negative ads against Pryor.
The Club for Growth was one of Cotton’s major financial backers in his successful House race in 2012.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott enters 2014 race for governor
Abbott highlights his fights against Obamacare and gun control but avoids immigration.
(See announcement video below)
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
SAN ANTONIO (CFP) — Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott has officially entered the race to be the next governor of Texas, launching his 2014 campaign by highlighting his fights against what he sees as infringements on constitutional freedoms and the overweening hand of the federal government.
“I didn’t invent the phrase ‘Don’t Mess with Texas,” but I have applied it more than anyone else,” says Abbott, who has sued the federal government 27 times during his three terms as state attorney general. “When it comes to our freedom and our future, I will never, never stop fighting. That why I’m asking you, the people of Texas, to elect me governor.”
Abbott, 55, made his announcement July 14 before a crowd of supporters in San Antonio, 29 years to the day since a freak accident left him paralyzed and in a wheelchair.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott enters 2014 governor’s race
“On a steamy summer day like this, I went out for a jog. While I was jogging, a huge oak tree suddenly crashed down on me,” says Abbott. “Doctors inserted two steel rods up and down my vertebrae … Some politicians talk about having a spine of steel. I actually have one.”
Abbott’s speech touched on familiar conservative themes, such as his legal battles against Obamacare and gun control and his successful defense of a Ten Commandments display at the State Capitol in Austin.
However, in his kickoff speech, Abbott, whose wife is Hispanic, didn’t mention an issue near and dear to the nativist wing of his party – immigration. Noting the blending of Latino and white cultures in the Lone Star State, he said, “Dos casas, pero una fundacion. (“Two houses, but one foundation.)
Abbott’s campaign Web site also steers clear of the issue, although it does note his work to combat human trafficking across the U.S.-Mexican border.
Republicans in Texas — where Latinos make up nearly 40 percent of the population — have steered clear of the more strident anti-immigration sentiment seen in GOP circles in other states.
Current Gov. Rick Perry was assailed as too soft on the immigration issue during his 2012 presidential run, although he has since come out against a compromise immigration bill that recently passed the U.S. Senate. Former President George W. Bush, Perry’s predecessor in Austin, supports the Senate bill.
Abbott is considered the prohibitive front-runner in the governor’s race, having raised Texas-sized campaign stash of more than $22 million. Perry’s decision not to seek a fourth full term as the state’s chief executive cleared away the largest obstacle in Abbott’s path.
Tom Pauken, a former state GOP chairman and state workforce commissioner from Port Aransas, is opposing Abbott. Debra Medina, a Ron Paul acolyte from Wharton who ran a spirited primary campaign against Perry in 2010, had also considered the race but is now running for state comptroller.
Pauken has characterized the race against Abbott as a “battle for the soul of the Republican party,” pitting big-money interests and Austin insiders against what he called the “Reaganesque grassroots.” He has challenged Abbott to a series of Lincoln/Douglas-style debates across the state.
On the Democratic side, State Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, who became the heroine of the abortion movement by successfully filibustering an anti-abortion bill in June 2013, is running. However, both San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and former Houston Mayor Bill White, who lost to Perry in 2010, decided not to run.
A Democrat has not won the Texas governorship since Ann Richards did it in 1990. She lost to Bush four years later, which marked the beginning of a GOP tidal wave in state politics.
All nine executive officials elected statewide in Texas are Republicans, as are all nine elected members of the state Supreme Court.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry bows out, paving way for GOP Attorney General Greg Abbott
Gov. Rick Perry’s departure gives Texas its first open governor’s race since 1990
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
SAN ANTONIO (CFP) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s decision not to seek a fourth full term as the Lone Star State’s chief executive in 2014 has opened up the field, with GOP Attorney General Greg Abbott seen as a prohibitive favorite to succeed the colorful and frequently controversial incumbent.
Perry, the longest serving governor in Texas history, announced July 8 that he would not run to serve another four years in what he called “the greatest job in modern politics.”
Quoting the “time for every season” passage from the Book of Ecclisiasties, Perry said, “The time has come to pass on the mantle of leadership.” He also said he would “pray and reflect” on his future plans but was mum on whether he will seek the presidency in 2016.
Attorney General Greg Abbott frontrunner in Texas governor’s race
Abbott, 55, from Wichita Falls, was appointed as a justice to the Texas Supreme Court by then-Gov. George W. Bush in 1996. He ran for attorney general in 2002 when John Cornyn left that job in a successful bid for the U.S. Senate, and has been re-elected twice.
Abbott, who has used a wheelchair since the age of 26, when he was injured by a falling tree, has raised a staggering, Texas-sized $18 million for the governor’s race, with two years still to go.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who lost a U.S. Senate bid in 2012, has said he plans to run for re-election rather than trying to move up to the top post. If he sticks to that position, it would clear away one possible hurdle for Abbott.
Tom Pauken, a former state GOP chairman and state workforce commissioner from Port Aransas, has announced a bid for governor. Debra Medina, a Ron Paul acolyte from Wharton who challenged Perry in the 2010 GOP primary, has also said she’s considering a bid, and a Facebook page has been set up to draft her into the race.
On the Democratic side, the pickings are slender, which is not surprising given Texas’ strong GOP bent.
Both San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and former Houston Mayor Bill White, who lost to Perry in 2010, have declined to run. State Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, who became the heroine of the abortion movement by successfully filibustering an anti-abortion bill in June 2013, is being mentioned as a possibility.
Also being mentioned is Annise Parker, the openly lesbian mayor of Houston. She easily won re-election as mayor of the state’s largest city in 2011.
The last time Texas didn’t have an incumbent running in the governor’s race was in 1990, when Democrat Ann Richards defeated Republican Clayton Williams. Richards lost four years later to Bush, who won re-election in 1998. Perry became governor when Bush was elected president in 2000 and won re-election in 2002, 2006 and 2010.
Georgia U.S. Senate opening leads to House candidate scramble
Open Senate race in 2014 triggers three openings in Peach State’s House delegation.
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
ATLANTA (CFP) — When the electoral smoke clears in November 2014, Georgia’s congressional delegation will look a whole lot different than it does now, thanks to an open Senate race that has triggered a flurry of House departures.
Three sitting Republican House members – Jack Kingston of Savannah, Phil Gingrey of Marietta and Paul Broun of Athens – have all announced bids for the Senate seat, which opened up with Republican Saxby Chambliss decided to retire.
This has left three of the state’s 14 districts with open races. However, none of those districts are likely pickups for Democrats.
Kingston’s 1st District is along the state’s Atlantic coast. Gingrey’s 11th District includes Atlanta’s northwest suburbs, and Broun’s 10th District cuts across largely rural areas in the eastern part of the state. All of those areas are heavily Republican. Mitt Romney took 67 percent in Gingrey’s district, 63 percent in Broun’s, and 56 percent in Kingston’s.
Handel running for Senate after taking on Planned Parenthood
In addition to Kingston, Gingrey and Broun, the GOP Senate race has also drawn former Secretary of State Karen Handel, who has deep roots in heavily Republican North Fulton County and is a protégé of former Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Handel got into a runoff for the GOP nomination for governor in 2010, shooting to a surprise first-place finish in the first round of the primary after a last-minute endorsement from Sarah Palin. But she could not hold off the runoff charge of then-Rep. Nathan Deal, who went on to win the governorship.
She then became vice president of the Susan B. Komen Foundation and became mired in controversy after the breast cancer-awareness group pulled its grants to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. Handel eventually resigned, but the flap could help her with pro-life groups in her fight for the GOP Senate nomination.
Kingston and Gingrey are both veteran members of the state’s GOP House delegation. Gingrey is from the Atlanta suburbs, which is where GOP races are usually won or lost. However, Kingston’s base on the coast is also a heavily Republican area that could provide enough votes to get him into a runoff in a four-way race.
Broun: Evolution from “pit of hell”
Broun, a medical doctor by trade, is the most controversial figure in the race. A widely circulated YouTube video showed him giving a speech to a fundamentalist Christian group in which he said evolution, embryology and the Big Bang Theory were “lies from the pit of hell.” He has also charged that President Obama is a “socialist who embraces Marxist-Leninist policies.”
No doubt those views will appeal to some elements of the Georgia electorate. The question for Broun, though, is whether those kinds of statements will have much appeal among more mainstream conservative voters in the Atlanta suburbs.
On the Democratic side, Rep. John Barrow opted not to leave his House seat to make a run for the Senate. That has left Democrats to line up behind Michelle Nunn, a political newcomer and the daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn.
In the 1st District, five Republicans are so far seeking the House nomination, including State Sen. Buddy Carter and former Kingston staffer David Schwarz, along with former State Sen. Jeff Chapman, businessman Darwin Carter and Bob Johnson, a surgeon and former Army ranger.
In the 10th District, the crowded field so far includes Republican candidates Jody Hice, Brian Slowinski, Mike Collins, Stephen Simpson and State Rep. Donna Sheldon.
In the 11th District, former Republican Rep. Bob Barr, who defected to the Libertarian Party to become its presidential candidate in 2008, has returned to the GOP fold and is making a bid for the seat, joined by State Rep. Edward Lindsey and State Sen. Barry Loudermilk.
Across the South, anomalous House districts few and far between
Only eight House districts in the South had different presidential and congressional winners in 2012, leaving few targets for either party in 2014.
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
(CFP) — In a few little corners of the South, Democrats sit in congressional seats from districts that Mitt Romney carried in 2012. There are also seats – even fewer in number — where Republicans represent districts Barack Obama won
These anomalous districts – districts that behave one way in the presidential vote but the opposite way when it comes to picking a congressman – are, as you might expect, top targets for both parties in 2014.
But for Democrats hoping to make inroads on Republican hegemony in the South, the bad news is that across the entire region, there are only eight such seats — and five of those are seats Democrats must defend.
First, let’s take a look at the five seats occupied by Democrats that Mitt Romney carried in 2012:
North Carolina 7 – Veteran Democratic Rep. Mike McIntyre held on to this seat by his fingernails in 2012, winning by a mere 650 votes over former Republican State Sen. David Rouzer. In this district, which takes in the southeast corner of the state including areas near Fayetteville and Wilmington, Romney clobbered Obama by 19 percentage points.
McIntyre is at the top of the Republicans’ target list. Not only does McIntyre face a rematch with Rouzer, he is also facing a primary challenger, New Hanover County Commissioner Jonathan Barfield, who thinks McIntyre hasn’t been supportive enough of the president.
McIntyre is white; Barfield is black. Overall, the district is 30 percent black, which means the black vote could tread close to a majority in a Democratic primary.
West Virginia 3 – Another longtime Democratic officer holder, Rep. Nick Rahall, carried 54 percent in here in 2012, at the same time Romney was crushing Obama by 32 percentage points in this district, which takes in the southern third of the state.
Rahall is hoping the power of incumbency can once again turn back a challenge from Republican former State Del. Rick Snuffer, whom he has beaten twice before.
Georgia 12 – Democratic Rep. John Barrow won a healthy 54 percent in this district in 2012, where Romney topped Obama by 11 percentage points. On paper, this should be a solid GOP district. But Georgia Republicans, to their great frustration, have not been able to defeat Barrow in five tries, even after gerrymandering his hometown of Athens out of the district.
Barrow was recruited by national Democrats to run for Georgia’s open U.S. Senate seat, but he opted for another House run instead. On the Republican side, an already contentious primary is shaping up between John Stone, the former chief of staff to Rep. John Carter of Texas, and Augusta businessman Rick Allen. Barrow beat Stone by 30 points in 2008.
Florida 18 – Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy narrowly ousted Tea Party favorite Allen West in 2012 in this district, which takes in parts of Martin and St. Lucie counties on Florida’s Treasure Coast. West went down even though Romney carried the district with 52 percent of the vote.
Perhaps the best news for Murphy, a top GOP target in 2014, is that West declined a rematch. A smorgasbord of Republican officeholders and activists are considering this race, with no clear frontrunner so far on the GOP side.
Texas 23 – In this majority Latino district that sprawls across the desert from El Paso to San Antonio, Democratic Rep. Pete Gallego ousted Republican Rep. Francisco “Quico” Conseco by a narrow margin in 2012.
Republicans hope to get this district back, and Conseco is considering a rematch. However, the former congressman would have to get past a Republican primary opponent, Dr. Robert Lowry, a Ron Paul acolyte.
Now, let’s take a look at the three districts where Republicans hold seats that Obama carried in 2012:
Virginia 2 – Republican Rep. Scott Rigell easily kept this seat in 2012 with 54 percent of the vote, even though Obama narrowly bested Romney here. While Rigell is a top Democratic target in 2014, this is a GOP-leaning district where Obama overperformed in 2012, due to the fact that 22 percent of the electorate in the 2nd District is black.
Earlier this year, Rigell was the target of an ad campaign from the National Association for Gun Rights, which hit the congressman for sponsoring legislation that would increase penalties for people who illegally purchase guns and transport them across state lines. Rigell, a lifetime member of the NRA, called the group’s charges “laughable.”
Despite that salvo, Rigell hasn’t faced any serious trouble from the right, and, so far, Democrats have struggled to come up with a top-tier candidate to take him on.
Florida 13 – When Bill Young came to Congress, bell bottoms were in and Nixon was still The One. After 22 terms, he’s the longest serving Republican in the House, and there has been speculation that the octagenarian might retire instead of seeking re-election in 2014.
If he does, this district, which includes parts of St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Dunedin in the Tampa Bay area, would be a prime opportunity for Democrats. Obama narrowly carried the district in 2012, even as Young was easily swatting away his latest Democratic challenger, St. Petersburg attorney Jessica Ehrlich, who is running again in 2014.
Florida 27 – In 2012, Obama carried this district, which was something of a surprise given that it includes heavily Cuban-American areas of Miami and Hialeah, which are traditionally Republican turf. But Obama clearly overperformed here in what has to be considered a safe district for Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is seeking her 11th term in 2014.
Ros-Lehtinen, the first Latina and the longest serving Republican woman in the House, carried 60 percent of the vote here in 2012.
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