Late Primaries Can Equal Big Headaches in Targeted Races
Roll Call Contributing Writer
As House Republicans are drawing up their list of top Democratic targets in 2010, a familiar enemy awaits: the primary election calendar.
A handful of the GOP’s best takeover opportunities are in states such as Arizona, Maryland, Florida and New Hampshire, where late and crowded primaries have the potential to put the party’s nominee at a distinct disadvantage heading into the general election.
In addition to often leaving the party’s base fractured, late primaries can produce battered nominees with depleted bank accounts and only a few weeks to recover.
Last cycle, in what one GOP operative described as a “train wreck,” Maricopa County Treasurer David Schweikert won the Republican nomination with 29 percent in a six-way primary in early September in Arizona’s 5th district.
While Schweikert began to reload for the general election, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee unloaded television ads attacking him the same week. Schweikert was never really able to regain strong footing, and Rep. Harry Mitchell (D) — who was then a top target after knocking off a Republican incumbent in 2006 — easily won re-election, 53 percent to 44 percent.
Schweikert “never got out of the box,” one Democratic strategist said.
Mitchell is once again a top target in 2010, but Republicans face yet another late primary. Schweikert is running again, and this time he faces a primary against former LucasArts President Jim Ward.
Along with the financial ramifications of a late primary, the increasing emphasis on early voting is a challenge because it narrows the window between when the primary ends and the general election begins. In Arizona, next year’s primary will be Aug. 24 while early voting begins Oct. 7.
Republicans also have their sights set on freshman Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-Md.), who won in the heavily Republican 1st district last year with 49 percent of the vote. Kratovil benefited greatly from a bloody GOP primary fight between moderate Rep. Wayne Gilchrest and state Sen. Andy Harris. Harris won, but the fight left the party heavily fractured, both ideologically and geographically, with Harris burning many bridges in the Eastern Shore-based district. Gilchrest went on to endorse Kratovil, and Harris couldn’t match the Democrats’ spending on Baltimore television.
Harris is running again, but he may face state Sen. E.J. Pipkin (who came in third in the 2008 primary) or former state Del. Al Redmer in the primary. More importantly, last year’s primary was held Feb. 12 in conjunction with the presidential primary, but next year it will be Sept. 14.
Last cycle, the National Republican Congressional Committee in particular took heat for not getting more involved in primaries in order to get the strongest general election candidate. But in an age when candidates are eager to run against the establishment, there isn’t a lot the national parties can do to clear primary fields.
“The NRCC’s policy on primaries is that there is no policy,” one committee official said. At times in the past, the committee’s intervention has created exactly the opposite effect of what was intended.
One thing the campaign committees can do is grease the fundraising gears. Earlier this decade, the NRCC created special funds to raise money for its eventual nominees in competitive races with contested primaries. The accounts were a repository for money from other Members and for money that the White House helped raise to be transferred to the Congressional nominee after the primary.
For example, in 2004, then-Washington state Rep. Cathy McMorris inherited $200,000 after she won the GOP nomination on Sept. 14 in a three-way primary. The infusion of money helped her gain the 5th district seat over a self-funding Democratic opponent.
“Late primaries have to be managed,”one GOP operative said. Aside from setting up special accounts, Republicans try to prepare by making sure potential nominees have their general election media and mail plans in places, including research on potential opponents.
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