West Virginia (Open; Goodwin, D) — Add as Democrat Favored Senator Robert Byrd’s death has created a special election to fill the remaining two years of his term. Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin is likely to win his party’s nomination in the August 28 primary, while businessman/former state GOP chairman John Raese and attorney Mac Warner […]
Third in a series of profiles of committee independent expenditure directors. “If it wasn’t for Mike DuHaime, I wouldn’t be a Senator today,” New Jersey state Sen. Anthony Bucco (R) recalled recently about a campaign that took place almost 13 years ago. After this year’s elections, more than a dozen GOP Senate candidates might be […]
If reporters wanted to know whether Kentucky GOP Senate nominee Rand Paul graduated from Baylor University, they probably should have asked his campaign. That’s what I did, and I got the answer, ten months ago. Wednesday’s story in the Lexington Herald-Leader “Contrary to some media reports, Rand Paul has no bachelor’s degree” has created quite […]
Reps. Chet Edwards (D-Texas), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) and John Spratt (D-S.C.) need to keep in mind the fate of former Reps. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) and Sue Kelly (R-N.Y.). Kelly, first elected in 1994, had only one tough race (in 1996) before she was upset in 2006. In the two elections before her defeat, she […]
Second in a series of profiles of committee independent expenditure directors. Democratic operative Robby Mook’s entry into politics was a little dirty. “I remember standing in front of the dump for hours,” Mook recalled. “Everyone takes their trash to the dump in Vermont, so that’s where you campaign.” From a dump in Vermont to high-stakes […]
Sometimes, you can almost hear the conventional wisdom and expectations shift, even when they are based on faulty premises. I’ve heard dozens of times over the past few months that large Democratic losses in the House were inevitable this year because of sweeping Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008. Indeed, on Monday’s edition of MSNBC’s […]
The story of Florida gubernatorial hopeful Rick Scott (R) surely is one of the weirder stories in what is already an unusual political year. Scott began his bid for the state’s top office as a political unknown who had run a company, Columbia/HCA, which was accused of defrauding Medicare and settled the case by paying […]
Republican insiders are quietly skeptical that the grandson of the late President Richard M. Nixon, attorney/businessman Chris Cox, will make it out of the Republican primary in New York’s 1st Congressional District. Cox, 31, made a splash when he entered the race. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger held a fund raiser for him, and […]