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West Virginia Senate Race: Democratic Secretary of State Natalie Tennant takes on GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito
Poll points to close race in Democratic state where Obama is unpopular
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com
CHARLESTON, West Virginia (CFP) — Democrats trying to keep a U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia out of Republican hands finally have a major candidate to rally around, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, with a recent poll showing her giving the presumptive Republican nominee, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, a run for her money in 2014.
Tennant, 45, a former television reporter in her second term as Secretary of State, kicked off her campaign September 17 with a series of events around the state and a slickly produced YouTube video featuring her planted on her family’s farm and running on to the field in buckskin as the Mountaineer mascot during her days at West Virginia University.
Secretary of State Natalie Tennant
In that video, Tennant — an Obama delegate to last year’s Democratic National Convention who criticized fellow Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin for not attending – took a direct swipe at the president for his environmental policies, which are deeply unpopular in West Virginia’s coal country.
“I will do everything in my power to stop (restrictions on coal), including standing up to President Obama,” she said.
The language in her announcement shows the delicate needle Tennant will have to thread in this race. While West Virginia is strongly unionized and Democrats dominate at the state and congressional levels, it has become reliably Republican in presidential politics. Obama lost the state by a whopping 27 points in 2012.
That deep red shade on the Mountaineer State has given the GOP hope that Capito, 59, serving her seventh term in the House, can move up to the Senate and take over the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller.
However, the state hasn’t sent a Republican to the Senate since the 1950s, and a poll taken in August by the Charleston Daily Mail showed Capito leading Tennant only by a margin of 45 percent to 40 percent, within the poll’s margin of error.
In her announcement video, Tennant wrapped herself in the images of Rockefeller and the late Senator Robert Byrd and criticized Capito as a Washington insider. In particular, she assailed the congresswoman for voting for a measure that would increase interest rates on student loans and voting against a mine safety measure named for Byrd.
U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito
For her part, Capito has kept up an anti-Obama drumbeat, voting to defund Obamacare and denouncing as “incredible” and “overbearing” new Environmental Protection Agency rules that would prohibit construction of any new coal-fired electric plants, which she said would result in the loss of thousands of jobs in the state.
While the Charleston Daily Mail poll points to a close race, Tennant only managed a third place finish in the 2011 gubernatorial primary, running weakly in the southern coal counties. She entered the race after several Democrats perceived as stronger decided not to run, including former governors Bob Wise and Gaston Caperton and U.S. Rep. Rick Rahall.
To get at Tennant, Capito must first fight off a Tea Party challenge from former State Delegate Pat McGeehan, who has criticized her from being a Washington insider who is not sufficiently conservative.
Two major conservative groups that have backed Tea Party insurgents in previous Republican primaries – the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund – have offered similar criticism of the congresswoman, although they have so far stopped short of endorsing McGeehan.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham’s critics line up to take him on in GOP primary
A crowded primary field, with three candidates in the race so far, could help the veteran Republican senator survive by dividing the anti-Graham vote
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
COLUMBIA, S.C. (CFP) — U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s maverick ways have already drawn him not one, not two, but three challengers in the 2014 Republican primary — a crowded field that could help the senator survive by dividing the anti-Graham vote.
Senate challenger Lee Bright
The latest challenger, State Senator Lee Bright of Roebuck, valuted into the GOP primary on August 13 by calling Graham “a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood” — a rather opaque reference to Graham’s recent high-profile trip to Egypt with his close friend, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
McCain and Graham went to Egypt at the behest of President Barack Obama to meet with Egyptian officials after the miliatary’s recent overthrow of the elected government of President Mohammed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Also in the race is Nancy Mace, a Charleston businesswoman who has been having to answer questions about her role as part ownner of FITSNews, a irreverant Web site mixing South Carolina news with pop culture.
The site is run by Will Folks, who in 2010 claimed to have had an affair with Republican Governor Nikki Haley, which Haley vehemently denied.
Mace, who was the first female graduate of The Citadel, also claims Tea Party support, including a recent endorsement by the Tea Party Leadership Fund, a national group.
The third candidate in the race — so far — is Richard Cash, from Anderson County, an evangelical Christian missionary who owns a used car business and a fleet of ice cream trucks. On his Web site, he says “the origins and foundation of American greatness lies in Christianity, Capitalism, and the Constitution.”
Cash ran for the 3rd District U.S. House seat in 2010, winning the first round of the primary before losing the runoff to the eventual winner, Rep. Jeff Duncan.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham
Graham, 58, who is seeking this third term in the Senate, has run afoul of some Tea Party groups for his efforts to reach bi-partisan compromises with Democrats, most recently for his support of an immigration reform bill that was opposed by most Republican senators.
His close political and personal friendship with McCain has also drawn fire, particularly over their blistering criticism of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky for his filibuster over Obama’s drone strike policy. Tea Party groups tried, and failed, to oust McCain during his 2010 re-election bid.
However, over the past year, Graham has been highly critical of the Obama administration for its handling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and for the IRS’s targeting of tax exempt groups.
Graham has said that he expects a vigorous primary challenge and has already raised more than $6 million for his 2014 campaign. A colonel in the Air Force Reserve, his staunchly pro-military stands could also serve him well among an important constituency in his native state.
A crowded GOP primary field would seem to help Graham by dividing the opposition arrayed against him. However, South Carolina has a runoff system for its primaries, which means that if the anti-Graham field can keep him under 50 percent, he would have to face the second place finisher in a runoff.
On the Democratic side, the only announced candidate so far is Jay Stamper, 41, of Columbia, the managing director of a non-profit business development group.
Given South Carolina’s staunch Republican tendencies, the winner of the GOP primary will be considered a prohibitive favorite in November.
Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor takes direct aim at GOP challenger Rep. Tom Cotton
Freshman Republican’s entry into Senate race draws rebuke from veteran Democratic lawmaker
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LITTLE ROCK (CNN) — U.S. Senator Mark Pryor and his new Republican challenger, Rep. Tom Cotton, are already aggressively going after each other 15 months before Arkansas voters go to the polls.
Announcing his candidacy August 6, Cotton repeatedly tied Pryor to President Barack Obama, who is deeply unpopular in the Natural State.
U.S. Represenative Tom Cotton
“Mark’s been running for office for almost 25 years. Every time, he says Arkansas comes first,” Cotton told a crowd of supporters at a kickoff barbecue in his hometown of Dardanelle in the Arkansas River Valley west of Little Rock. “It’s not so. Over the last 4 ½ years, for Mark Pryor, Barack Obama comes first.”
“Do you agree with Barack Obama 90 percent of the time? If so, Mark Pryor is your man. If not, stand with me.”
But on the same day Cotton announced, Pryor went up with a new TV ad painting Cotton as an extreme right winger, rather than a mainstream Arkansas conservative.
“Tom Cotton should be running — not for higher office but from his own record,” a soothing female voice intones after ripping Cotton for his votes against the farm bill, reduced interest rates on student loans and the Violence Against Women Act.
Pryor’s ad also accuses Cotton of “blind ambition” — a not-so-subtle reference to the congressman’s decision to seek higher office just seven months after his election to the House.
Cotton alluded to his political ambitions in his announcement statement, noting that “some people say I’m a young man in a hurry.”
“Guess what? They’re right. We’ve got urgent problems, and I am in a hurry to solve them.”
A graduate of Harvard Law School who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a captain in the U.S. Army, Cotton, 36, returned to Arkansas in 2012 to seek the 4th District congressional seat, which takes in rural areas south, west and northwest of metro Little Rock.
With funding from the Club for Growth and other national conservative groups, he easily won the seat, taking almost 60 percent of the vote in the general election.
U.S. Senator Mark Pryor
Pryor, 50, is scion of a prominent Arkansas political family. His father, David Pryor, served as governor and spent 18 years in the Senate before retiring in 1979.
Six years ago, Republicans didn’t even field a candidate against Pryor. But this time around, the GOP smells blood in the water, particularly because of Pryor’s deciding vote in favor of Obamacare in 2009.
However, Pryor has broken with Obama and the left wing of his party on a number of issues that are likely to help his re-election effort back home. His is just one of four Senate Democrats who still oppose same-sex marriage and also voted against a bill that would have expanded background checks for gun purchases.
In 2012, Obama lost Arkansas to Mitt Romney by nearly 24 points. In addition to Arkansas, Senate races in two other Southern states, Louisiana and North Carolina, feature Senate races in 2014 where Democratic incumbents are running in states Obama lost.
In a sign of how contentious the Arkansas Senate race will be, outside groups have already dumped more than $1 million into ads.
U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton expected to announce challenge to U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor
First-term GOP congressman has scheduled a hometown event on August 6 to address his plans to challenge Pryor, the Democratic incumbent
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LITTLE ROCK (CFP) — After just a single term in the U.S. House, Republican Tom Cotton is expected to announce his plans to challenge Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Pryor next week.
Cotton, 36, is hosting a barbecue in his hometown of Dardanelle on August 6. While his campaign is not officially saying the congressman will kick off his Senate bid at the event, local Arkansas media are citing sources saying Cotton has decided to challenge Pryor, who is seeking a third term.
Not waiting for Cotton formally announce, the Pryor camp came out guns blazing, saying Cotton “has put his own political career ahead of the people of Arkansas and sided with Washington insiders and special interests.”
“When the people of our state review Tom Cotton’s record, they won’t like what they see,” the campaign said in a statement.
U.S. Represenative Tom Cotton
Cotton has been widely expected to run against Pryor, who is seem as one of the most vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbents facing the voters in 2014. The race is considered pivotal for Republican hopes of wresting a Senate majority away from Democrats.
A graduate of Harvard Law School who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a captain in the U.S. Army, Cotton returned to Arkansas in 2012 to seek the 4th District congressional seat, which takes in rural areas south, west and northwest of metro Little Rock.
With funding from the Club for Growth and other national conservative groups, he easily won the seat, taking almost 60 percent of the vote in the general election.
In a sign of how contentious his battle with Pryor is likely to be, outside groups have poured more than $1 million in advertising into the race a full 15 months before voters go to the polls. Pryor has already been up on television, and Cotton has more than $1 million banked for the race.
U.S. Senator Mark Pryor
Pryor, 50, is scion of a prominent Arkansas political family. His father, David Pryor, served as governor and spent 18 years in the Senate before retiring in 1979.
Six years ago, Republicans didn’t even field a candidate against Pryor. But this time around, the GOP smells blood in the water, particularly because of Pryor’s deciding vote in favor of Obamacare in 2009.
President Obama had a miserable showing in the Natural State in 2012, losing to Mitt Romney by nearly 24 points. In addition to Arkansas, Senate races in two other Southern states, Louisiana and North Carolina, feature Senate races in 2014 where Democratic incumbents are running in states Obama lost.
However, Pryor has broken with Obama and the left wing of his party on a number of issues that are likely to help his re-election effort back home. His is just one of four Senate Democrats who still oppose same-sex marriage and also voted against a bill that would have expanded background checks for gun purchases.
One issue Pryor is likely to raise in the race is Cotton’s vote against the farm bll in House, which was defeated in June after a rebellion by GOP backbenchers. He was the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation to oppose the measure, which was supported by many Arkansas farm groups.
Cotton, who grew up on a farm in Yell County that his family still owns, has said he opposed the bill because it contained too little aid for farmers and too much funding for federal nutrition programs. He voted for a revised farm bill after the nutrition funding was stripped out.
Cotton’s decision to jump into the Senate race will open up the 4th District House seat, which is expected to draw a large number of candidates. On the Republican side, Lieutenant Gov. Mark Darr and State House Majority Leader Bruce Westerman have expressed interest. Among Democrats, State Senator Bruch Maloch and State Represenative Jeff Wardlaw have been looking at the race.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell draws Tea Party-backed challenger in Kentucky GOP primary
Matt Bevin, a Louisville investment advisor, hopes to duplicate Rand Paul’s feat by knocking off Senate leader with Tea Party support.
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
FRANKFORT, Ky. (CFP) — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has drawn a Tea Party-backed rival in the 2014 Republican primary, dashing hopes that he might sail into the general election unopposed.
Kentucky Senate challenger Matt Bevin
Matt Bevin, 46, who is a partner in a Louisville investment firm, is expected to announce his candidacy July 24 at the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort before kicking off a three-day tour of the commonwealth.
McConnell’s campaign was quick to strike back at news of Bevin’s impending Senate run. Campaign manager Jesse Benton dismissed his candidacy as a “nuisance,” despite recent public polling showing large numbers of Republican voters in Kentucky open to a candidate other than McConnell.
Tea Party activists unhappy with Republican incumbents have been searching for potential challengers in a number of Southern states, including South Carolina, Texas and Tennessee. But McConnell is the first sitting GOP senator in the region to actually draw a serious primary challenger.
In 2010, Rand Paul, backed by Tea Party groups, shocked the GOP establishment in Kentucky by beating Secretary of State Trey Grayson in the Senate primary. He went on to win the seat in November.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
McConnell backed Grayson in that race. But once Paul got to the Senate, McConnell conspiciously cultivated Paul and his supporters. Among his moves was hiring Benton, who was not only Paul’s campaign manager but is married to his niece.
Paul has since endorsed McConnell for re-election, dashing the hopes of Tea Partiers who want to get rid of the top Republican in the Senate.
A group of 15 Kentucky Tea Party groups released a letter July 22 blasting what they called McConnell’s “progressive liberal voting record, his absolute iron fisted rule over the Republican Party in Kentucky and his willingness to roll over and cede power to President Obama and the liberals in Washington.”
If McConnell makes it through the primary, he will face Democratic Secretarty of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who, at just 34, is nearly 40 years younger than the 71-year-old McConnell.
Grimes won her post in 2011 with 60 percent of the vote, the best performance by a Democrat in any statewide race. However, McConnell’s campaign has already started a drumbeat tying Grimes to President Obama, who lost Kentucky by 23 points in 2012.
McConnell has already raised more than $9 million for the race, giving him a substantial advantage over both Bevin and Grimes.
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