Leadership Election Run-down

With House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA-7) resigning his position after losing the primary election on Tuesday – he’ll leave the leadership on July 31st – Republican Conference replacement elections have been quickly scheduled for June 19. This leaves little time for a campaign to develop, but within a closed voting universe where everyone knows all participants an elongated campaign time segment is unnecessary.

Currently, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-23) has announced his intention to run for Cantor’s position with the outgoing Leader’s backing. Meanwhile, House Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA-5) stated that she will remain in her current post. The same is true for House Budget Committee chairman and former vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan (R-WI-1).

The Texas delegation is deciding who, if anyone, to back from their delegation against McCarthy – either Rules Committee and former National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX-32) or Financial Services

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Georgia Senate Race Now Defined

On the heels of representatives John Barrow (D-GA-12) and Tom Price (D-GA-6) both making public their decisions not to run, it appears that a set open-seat field of Georgia Senate race contenders is in place, some 14 months before the 2014 primary election.

Former Secretary of State Karen Handel, who was expected to run for the Senate once Price made clear that he will stay in the House, and businessman David Perdue now join representatives Jack Kingston (R-GA-1), Paul Broun (R-GA-10), and Phil Gingrey (R-GA-11) in vying for the Republican senatorial nomination and the right to succeed retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R).

Handel and Perdue entering the race greatly changes the campaign. Now with five strong candidates, the Georgia Republican senatorial primary will likely be the most interesting nomination battle in the entire country.

Handel began her career in the private sector before landing a position on Marilyn Quayle’s staff when Dan Quayle, was vice president. Handel later became deputy chief of staff to Gov. Sonny Perdue (R-GA). Her first elected position was as Fulton County commission chair. From that office, she launched a successful bid for secretary of state in 2006.

Four years later, Handel joined a similarly crowded field in the open governor’s race. She placed first in the primary, capturing 34.1 percent of the vote, topping her six opponents. Former Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA-9) slipped into the second run-off position, gliding past insurance commissioner John Oxendine, who had been the early front-runner. But things did not go as well for her in the August run-off. She and Deal basically fought to a draw, but the former congressman (Deal had resigned his House seat prior to the primary election) nipped her at the end and claimed a 50.2-49.8 percent win, a margin of just 2,519 votes of just under 580,000 cast.

David Perdue is the former Chief Executive Officer of both the Dollar General and

Senate Questions

Within the last week, no fewer than four major potential senatorial candidates have decided not to run. Three sitting members of the House, representatives John Barrow (D-GA-12), Steve King (R-IA-4), and Tom Price (R-GA-6), and one former congresswoman, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin from South Dakota, each announced that they will be doing something other than running for the United States Senate in 2014. With so many potential candidates content to allow their current opportunity to evaporate, what now is the status of the various Senate races?

Both the Republicans and Democrats have, so far, experienced recruitment failures. Democrats see two seats that they currently hold, Jay Rockefeller’s post in West Virginia and Tim Johnson’s position in South Dakota, going by the wayside. Currently, they have no candidate willing to challenge GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV-2) in the Mountaineer State, and their two strongest South Dakota potential contenders have taken a pass. While they do have a former aide to Sen. Tom Daschle (Rick Weiland) now in the race, it is apparent that he is no match for Republican former Gov. Mike Rounds.

Republicans have yet to field a candidate in Iowa where Sen. Tom Harkin (D) is retiring.

Another Declines a Senate Run

On the heels of representatives John Barrow (D-GA-12), Steve King (R-IA-4), and Tom Price (R-GA-6) all declining to run for the US Senate just within the last week, former South Dakota representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD-AL) followed the trend yesterday by announcing that she, too, will remain on the political sidelines next year.

Though the Democrats are in an underdog position in trying to save retiring Sen. Tim Johnson’s (D) Senate seat, survey research and local political activists and analysts alike projected the former congresswoman to be the party’s strongest open seat candidate.

But the person viewed as the Democrats’ second-best contender, US Attorney Brendan Johnson, the retiring senator’s son, may also decline to run. More information is forthcoming that suggests Johnson, in fact, will not enter the race. Should such conjecture prove true, the Democrats will be without a top-tier candidate to protect a seat they currently possess.

The party’s one announced candidate, Rick Weiland, a former staffer for Sen. Tom Daschle (D), gave further indication that Brendan Johnson will not make the race. Telling reporters that he would not be running if he believed Johnson would become a candidate, Weiland faces a major challenge just to be considered viable.

On the Republican side, former two-term governor Mike Rounds has been running since the 2012 election ended. Rounds quickly made his intention clear, and declared for the seat months before Sen. Johnson made his decision to retire. Now that the senator is out of the race, and Herseth Sandlin and Brendan Johnson are declining to run, Rounds is in an even stronger position.

Clearly the South Dakota seat is one of two Democratic states that the Republicans, in the early going, are becoming prohibitive favorites to convert. The other is the open West Virginia, where Rep. Shelley Moore

Price a No-Go in Georgia

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA-6)

Georgia Rep. Tom Price (R-6), who at one time was viewed to be a sure open seat Senate candidate and even a potential primary challenger to incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss, announced late Friday that he will not run statewide next year.

In retrospect, Price’s decision is not particularly surprising because he delayed so long in making a public pronouncement. Soon after Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA-10) entered the race — the first person to declare for the retiring Sen. Chambliss’ open seat back in February — Rep. Price said that, because of his duties on the Budget Committee, he would postpone any political decision until May. Clearly not committed to the Senate race, he now has officially chosen to remain in the House.

Price, originally elected to Congress in 2004, maintains House leadership desires. A former chairman of the Republican Study Committee and the Republican Policy Committee, he lost a race for conference chairman to Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA-5) at the beginning of the current Congress. During his career in the state legislature, Price became the first Republican Senate majority leader in Georgia history.

Money certainly would not have been an issue for five-term congressman. He raised

First Georgia Senate Polls

Max Cleland

Two different pollsters tested the Georgia electorate about their new open Senate race (Sen. Saxby Chambliss retiring) and came away finding that one party’s strongest candidate is someone who shows no interest in running.

Both Harper Polling (Feb. 11-12; 939 registered Georgia voters; 375 Republican primary voters; 338 Democratic primary voters) and Public Policy Polling (Feb. 15-18; 602 registered Georgia voters; 366 Republican primary voters) found that Democratic former Sen. Max Cleland, who served one term from 1997 to 2003 (he lost his 2002 re-election to Sen. Chambliss 46-53 percent), would defeat all potential Republican nominees if he were to run in 2014. The former senator, now 70 years old, has given no indication that he is contemplating a political comeback, however.

Tested against the four Republican US representatives who have either entered the race or are considering such, Harper projects that Cleland would place ahead of

Broun In, Westmoreland Out in Georgia Senate Race

© 2013 Google

The Georgia Senate picture is becoming clearer as one Republican congressman is prepared to make public his intention to run statewide, while another is saying that he will stay in the House.

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA-10) is expected to announce his Senate candidacy later today, becoming the first official candidate in the open seat race. He should be able to attract strong grassroots and Tea Party support for his effort. Broun was first elected in a July 2007 special election to replace the late Rep. Charlie Norwood (R), defeating the favored establishment Republican primary candidate.

Conversely, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA-3), citing his enhanced position within the House leadership, says he will not enter the campaign to succeed the retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R).

Senate Politics Already Hot

Massachusetts

Considering yesterday’s confirmation of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (D) as Secretary of State, expect Gov. Deval Patrick (D) to name an interim replacement this week. He previously indicated that he intends to appoint a caretaker who will serve only until voters choose a new senator in the June 25 special general election and through the succeeding post-election certification period.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA-5) is the only announced special election candidate from either political party, but Boston Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA-8) is expected to join the race before week’s end. Democratic Party leaders have worked hard to give Markey an unimpeded march to the nomination, but a Lynch candidacy means that there will be a significant Democratic primary to be decided in an April 30th election.

Little definitive action is yet occurring on the Republican side, but the party’s nominee likely will be either former Sen. Scott Brown, ex-Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, or former state senator and 6th District congressional candidate Richard Tisei. Ex-Gov. Bill Weld is unlikely to enter the contest. Should Brown decide to run he will almost assuredly have an unopposed primary, thus providing him an opportunity to build