Rep. George Radanovich (R-Calif.) will be announcing this afternoon today that he won’t be seeking re-election, according to a senior GOP source.
His chief of staff, Ted Maness, told POLITICO the congressman would be releasing a statement at 2:00 EST, but declined to confirm that he’ll be retiring. […]
Republicans comprise 44 percent of registered voters, while Democrats make up 37 percent, and 14 percent decline to affiliate themselves with a party.
Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson, a political ally of Radanovich, is expected to run for the Republican nomination in the district.
This is the first Republican retirement of the 2010 cycle — which is kind of amazing after the mass exodus of Republicans from Congress to the retirement manors of Florida over the past two cycles. I suppose we took care of most of the low-hanging fruit.
Radanovich’s seat isn’t prime territory for a pick-up. However, although its PVI is R+9, Barack Obama dramatically improved upon the old Democratic baseline in the district, losing the CD by only 52-46 to John McCain. Compare that to John Kerry’s flattening here by a 61-38 margin four years earlier. A good deal of that shift can be attributed to the demographic changes occurring within the district, which has seen a marked increase in its minority population since 2000. Those demographic gains haven’t reached the tipping point here yet, but this district could be susceptible to a bit of nipping and tucking in the next round of redistricting in order to hasten that process.
UPDATE: Check out who Reid Wilson flags as a potential GOP contender here:
One source said Radanovich will back state Sen. Jeff Denham (R) as his replacement. CA Senate districts are actually larger than congressional districts, though Denham’s is more closely related to Rep. Dennis Cardoza’s (D) neighboring 18th district. Top GOPers had tried to convince Denham to run against Cardoza, though Radanovich’s district has a stronger GOP lean.
But Denham is unlikely to get a clean shot at the seat. Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson (R) is also likely to run, and one source suggested to ex-Rep. Richard Pombo (R), who lost his neighboring 11th district to Rep. Jerry McNerney (D) in ’06, may be a potential contender as well.
Needless to say, a comebacker for “Dirty Dick” Pombo would be very fun to watch.
RaceTracker Wiki: CA-19
Radanovich has already endorsed state senator Jeff Denham to replace him. Some ex-Fresno mayor is already running trying to primary Radanovich.
DO we have any possible candidates to run for this seat? Assemblyman, county officials, etc?
Isn’t his district a fairly good pickup opportunity for Democrats? Let’s hope he runs!
that would be a serious dream come true…..Pombo would be the easiest target of that bunch
Wasn’t the local GOP pissed at Radanovich for some reason?
a 10% chance of holding this seat. I am not planning to back this up with any actual data or reasoning. I say so because this seat is in a region of the country where the GOP has not been doing well recently, and we all know that it is impossible for candidates to win in regions where their parties have not been doing well.
Also, the GOP is DDDDOOOMMMMEEED, such as. You betcha. THE RATS ARE ESCAPING THE SINKING SHIP!!!!
On a serious note though, considering Obama’s vast improvement over Kerry, would it be reasonable to assume the district could flip by 2012 if Obama stays fairly popular?
If this district is trending, it’s trending quite fast, so it should only be a few more cycles, right?
I wonder why more of them aren’t retiring.
I expected he would be older when the headline said he’s retiring.
found this little tid-bit while browsing google:
http://www.kcba.com/Global/sto…