Tweet
Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE)
In a surprise move, Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns (R) announced that he will not run again in 2014. Despite having served only one term and being relatively youthful by the geriatric standards of the Senate (age 62), Johanns plans to retire from the chamber. Johanns previously served as Governor and Secretary of Agriculture under George W. Bush.
His unexpected retirement gives Democrats one of the best chances to pick up a senate seat next year, which tells you something about how horrible Democratic prospects are in 2014. Nebraska is a deep red state and Republicans are still heavily favored to win it.
Johanns’ retirement could easily set off a nasty primary and that just might give a Democrat an opening. Democrats’ chances of winning Nebraska went from nearly impossible to simply very unlikely, but that is better than almost anywhere else in 2014. Of the 14 Republican held seats that are up in 2014, all but one are from states that were won easily by Mitt Romney.
Photo by U.S. Department of Agriculture under Public Domain
5 Comments
It continually amazes me how the Demo’s chances are so bad, given the unbelievable stupidity of the Repubs!
One reason is that the Democrats don’t call out the GOP as extreme. Instead, they try to “reach across the aisle” in search of a “Grand Bargain.” All that does is encourage Republicans to move even farther to the right.
I swear, if the Tea Party called for repeal of the Bill of Rights, some centrist Democrat would propose a compromise: get rid of the odd-numbered amendments and keep the rest.
I hope either Jane or Scott Kleeb runs: both are great.
Scott ran once for US Senate, got badly clobbered (maybe even by Johanns? it was a while ago) but since then it’s seemed like his wife Jane is the activist.
Nebraska will be tough, but at this time in the last cycle, both Missouri and Indiana looked impossible for Democrats too.
Democrats would do that only if they already secretly wanted to get rid of the odd numbered amendments, but did not want to take the blame for so doing.
Thanks for informing us about various states.