MS-Sen-B: Former Rep. Ronnie Shows (D) Gets Into the Race

From the Clarion Ledger:

Former U.S. Rep. Ronnie Shows told The Associated Press on Saturday that he will run for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Trent Lott.

Shows, a Democrat who was ousted from Congress by Republican Rep. Chip Pickering in 2002 after Mississippi lost a House seat, joins former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and U.S. Rep. Roger Wicker in the race.

Shows said Pickering’s decision not to run for the Senate seat pushed him into re-entering political life.

“It just opened the door for me that I didn’t think was there before,” Shows said. “I think this opportunity doesn’t come by very often – to have an open Senate seat – and it’s something I feel ready to do. And I think I can win.”

As you might know, Shows lost his seat due to redistricting. I have to say that I wish he’d seek his old seat again, given that Pickering is now retiring.

Of greater concern, though, is the fact that the MS-Sen-B special will be a Louisiana-style jungle election (ie, all candidates run together in a single race, with, I believe, the top two vote-getters going into a runoff if a certain threshold is not met by the first-place finisher). With two Dems vs. one Republican, it seems like this race just got a lot harder to pull off. At the very least, we now certainly can’t win in the first round. We need to hope that either a bunch more Republicans get in, or that Shows or Musgrove changes his mind.

9 thoughts on “MS-Sen-B: Former Rep. Ronnie Shows (D) Gets Into the Race”

  1. he’ll only make it that much more difficult to take this seat.  Maybe some kind of petition drive to get him to consider the house race is in order.  Getting Shows to run for the house would definetly improve the chances for Democrats in this state come November.  

  2. God I hate this when it happens.

    Since no Republican is going to challenge Wicker, having 2 well known Democrats and a Republican means the Dem vote will split, meaning Wicker will probably win without the need for a runoff.

    I don’t understand why Dems do this, we saw in LA in 2004, in the race to succeed Sen. John Breaux, John Kennedy (now a Rethuglican), Chris John and other Dems all got in that monster of a jungle primary and enabled Vitter to win with more than 50% of the vote, being the ONLY Republican in the race.

    And another thing, even though we probably weren’t going to win the seat anyway, in the special election last year to succeed Charlie Norwood (R-GA), loads of Republicans filed, only about 3 Democrats filed, but because of the strongly Republican demographics, Paul Broun (the eventual winner) was ahead of the top Dem by 400 votes.

    We should just unite behind one candidate which will reduce all the losses. So, let Musgrove contend the seat and make Shows run for MS-03, to succeed Pickering, whether he loses or not.

  3. Ronnie Shows’ former district was in the southwest corner of Mississippi.  Outside of there, hardly anyone knows who he is.  In Roger Wicker’s 1st District, I’d be willing to bed that no one knows who Ronnie Shows is – save for all the political junkies out there.  Perhaps the state Democratic chairman can convince Shows to get into the 3rd District race and let Musgrove do all he can to win the Senate seat.  Better yet, Shows can wait to see the financial reports that show all of Chuck Schumer’s money starting to pour into Musgrove’s coffers.  I know it’d scare me off if I were Shows.

  4. Shows could do two important things here

    a) He can keep Democratic votes in our column in his strongholds

    b) He might win swing votes and reduce Wicker’s margin in the 3rd district

    Now, why is this important?

    Wicker needs a strong showing in the 3rd and 4th districts in order to win a majority in the first election.

    So 3rd district voters who may vote for Republicans federally and Democrats locally might actually vote for Shows. Plus, if they would vote for Shows first, they may be more likely to consider voting for Musgrove.

    Wicker will presumably win a majority in the 1st district and Musgrove is the favorite in the 2nd district.

    But more people vote in the 1st and 3rd than the 2nd and 4th. So if Wicker wins by a strong margin in the 3rd, then he wins a majority statewide.

    Therefore, I welcome a strong candidate who can win more votes in the 3rd district. Anyways, Ronnie Shows is more likely to go to a runoff for the Senate than to get within 10 points of winning his old seat. (A seat he lost by 28 points in 2002).

    Having the Twin Ronnies running is better than John Arthur Eaves. 😉

  5. Monbro, your only right to a point.  Having multiple candidates in the race which Broun eventually one did hurt us.  While I certainly agree that Denise Freeman and Evita Paschall prevented Marlow from getting into the runoff, multiple Democrats did not cause Vitter’s 50% win.  You can split 50% of something as many times as you want, it doesn’t make the other 50%, which Vitter got, any smaller.  Had there been one Dem, Vitter would have won anyway.  If Wicker beats both Shows and Musgrove with more than 50%, than it doesn’t matter if we split the Dem vote, Wicker was going to win anyway.  It just would have been by a smaller margin.  My worry in this race, is that it is Musgrove who will be able to break 50% in a special election and that Shows will keep him below that mark.  Albeit, while I’m not sure that a bad thing, as it would cause a longer more drawnout process that would cause Republicans to spend even more money they don’t have, it would definetly prevent Shows from running in his old district, which I’d like to see.  Cause we need to at least attempt to contest that seat and short of Shows, we don’t have much left there.  

  6. If it’s 50%, that would not be too bad, but if it’s 40%, Wicker could get in because Musgrove and Shows split the vote.

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