Remember back when Marion Berry’s retirement in the R+8, trending-the-wrong-direction AR-01 was going to hand one more vulnerable southern seat to the Republicans? Turns out… eh, not so much:
Arkansas’ filing deadline passed Monday afternoon and while Republicans made a lot of noise about their chances in the 1st district in the days after Rep. Marion Berry (D) announced his retirement, all the sound and fury may have actually signified nothing….
In the end, the only Republican to join the contest after Berry announced his retirement was Princella Smith, a former congressional aide to freshman Louisiana Republican Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao.
Smith will face off against the equally unknown and untested Rick Crawford, an Army veteran, farm broadcaster and businessman who entered the race in May 2009.
Republicans had sought to get one of several state legislators into the race — state Sens. Davy Carter or Johnny Key. However, both said no, leaving the GOP without a backup plan. Meanwhile, top-tier Democrats piled into the race in this historically-Democratic district, including state Sen. Steve Bryles, former state Sen. Tim Wooldridge, state Rep. David Cook, and Berry’s former CoS, Chad Causey. Like PA-12, here’s a district where the Democratic tradition and the disparity between the two parties’ benches may just save our bacon despite an ominous trend at the presidential level.
Filing information about the rest of the Arkansas races is here. AR-02 is still a very vulnerable seat to Republican takeover, with former US Attorney Tim Griffin armed with lots of money and Beltway connections. Dems still have a top-tier recruit here, though, state House speaker Robbie Wills, so even here we’re in Tossup territory. Mike Ross in AR-04 seems to have emerged with only bottom-rung opposition, so hopefully he can contribute some time and money to shoring up the other races in the state. Democratic State Sen. Shane Broadway also seems poised to hold onto the Lt. Governor seat being vacated by Bill Halter; he faces off against only a pastor and a pizza restaurant owner.
RaceTracker Wiki: AR-01
I wonder if Berry regrets his decision for not running for re-election.
Wasn’t he “big” in the 70’s?
and with the new ground rules for third party spending, corporations could swamp a field without it being obvious from a candidate’s report.
That, and this is not a good year for elected officials and insiders. This post might be looking really badly predicted in 8 months.
Arkansas Democrats still have a huge advantage in local races. Republicans have a much weaker bench. In time, that will change (possibly starting with their pickup of a US Senate seat), but in the meantime, if something opens up, top-tier Democrats pile in, and the Republicans struggle to find a good candidate.
They couldn’t even come up with a decent candidate for Lt. Gov. Wipe open race, could have picked anyone from around the whole state. Nothing.
Has changed this seat from a rating of “Lean R” to “Tossup”, which I guess is good news for us although still seems a bit excessive. CQ Politics has moved it from “Tossup” to “Leans Democratic”. One less race to worry about, I doubt we can lose this seat unless there’s a scandal or really nasty primary election.
I looks like statewide AR Republicans filed some dude for Gov, and Lt. Gov, a state Rep for SOS, and left Attorney General, Auditor, Treasurer and land Commissioner uncontested. Is this accurate?
Recruitment fail in AR-1
AR-SEN will be it’s own mess, but with the statewide field uncontested why do I suddenly feel optimistic in AR-2. already the most democratic district in the state as the powerhouse that is going to propel the other statewides over the top?
*See Gov. Bebe next to Dem candidate in AR-2 in ads over and over, and over again. Especially if it’s the Speaker guy.
those Republican state senators declined to run for this seat?
On the other hand, isn’t this rather a recruitment failure for us? Sure, Boozman’s seat is conservative, but the three others are, too. We have one candidate, the GOP has 7, so is attorney David Whitaker somebody who can take on Cecile Bledsoe, Steve Womack or Kurt Maddox (the only three that have a shot, in my opinion)?
Just taking a look at the state’s senate map, I guess that 7 of the 8 Republican senators are from this district (the 8th being Gilbert Baker, who is unfortunately not giving up his seat). We still at least had the option of courting Randy Laverty better than we did, and Sue Madison never ruled out a run.
And another check: maybe I’m just being stupid. 19 of the 28 Rs in the state house are from this district, which would leave us with only about 6.
Any chance of a race here?