Campaign Diaries

After delaying his decision for months, Governor Charlie Crist took the plunge and announced he would run in Florida’s Senate race. His decision - one of the most awaited of the cycle - significantly boosts the GOP’s prospects of holding on to Mel Martinez’s Senate seat, sets up an ideologically divisive Republican primary, creates a suddenly competitive gubernatorial race and shuffles the entire landscape of Floridan politics.

Crist’s Senate candidacy had come to be so expected in recent weeks that it is easy to forget how unlikely it seemed at the beginning of the year. A highly popular Governor up for re-election in 2010, Crist looked likely to coast to re-election in a timing that would perfectly set up his national ambitions: Crist would have been able to serve as the chief executive of one of the country’s largest states until 2014 when, barred by state law from seeking a third term, he could have fully devoted himself to the 2016 presidential campaign.

Instead, Crist is choosing to take a risk by jumping in a race in which he is not the incumbent. (While he is favored to win the Senate race, he is certainly more vulnerable than he would be in the gubernatorial race.) Furthermore, senators often do not make the best presidential candidates: governors are generally considered to be more electable. In the current context of anti-Washington sentiment within the GOP electorate, Crist’s distance from the federal capital could have been one of his best argument in the 2012/2016 primary.

Given this context, Crist’s decision to take the jump speaks to the political danger in which governors find themselves because of the financial crisis. As economic conditions deteriorate, Governors are the first to see their numbers collapse - a pattern that we have clearly witnessed in recent months. While Crist’s numbers are still solid, he chose not to risk being mired in the state’s fiscal problems for the next five years - a prospect that would have undoubtedly sent his numbers spiraling downward and would have endangered his presidential ambitions.

Crist: The clear front-runner for the Senate seat

Yet, the choice must not have been an obvious one and credits go to the NRSC for talking the Governor into a Senate run. When we first learned that John Cornyn was working to recruit Crist, it seemed like wishful thinking on the part of the Republican establishment. But 5 months after, Crist entered the race, throwing a major lifeline to still-sinking Senate Republicans.

In recent weeks, a lot has been written about why Crist might not be invincible next year. But make no mistake about it: He starts as the overwhelming favorite. Just look at these two polls taken in January and February that show Crist demolishing all potential opponents by huge margins. The burden will be on his opponents to prove that they can hold him to a competitive race.

Crist’s first test will come in the Republican primary. Former state Speaker Marco Rubio is already in the race, and he has made it clear that he will not bow out for Crist. Given that conservatives are angry at the Governor’s moderate positions on many economic and social issues, this primary could have fireworks; Rubio is likely to be a strong fundraiser and deliver some tough hits.

Yet, Crist’s primary vulnerability should not be overstated: He was already known to be a moderate in 2006, when he easily won a primary that was expected to be competitive, and polls taken over the past few months suggest he remains popular among the GOP electorate. Furthermore, the NRSC has just announced that it is already endorsing Crist, which means that it will help Crist win a Republican primary. That is more meaningful than it might appear: National committees are typically reluctant to get involved that openly in contested primaries.

As for Democrats, Rep. Kendrick Meek and state Senator Dan Gelber are currently in the race. Crist looks so strong that no other Democrat is expected to jump in. As soon as news of his decision started to circulate yesterday, Tampa Bay Mayor Pam Iorio announced that she would not run for Senate. Rep. Ron Klein looked unsure of running even without Crist, so this development probables ensures that he stays out. In fact, we might even have to ask whether Meek will remain in the race: For now, he has proven an unexpectedly strong candidate, but will the ambitious representative decide that the race is too big a risk?

As I explained last week, the biggest threat to Crist’s victory is that Florida’s Republican primary is held in late August; if Rubio manages to put him in a difficult position throughout the summer of 2010, the Governor will suddenly look far less formidable to Democrats. Under such circumstances, Meek or Gelber are strong enough candidates that they would have a shot at winning the general election.

Sure, Crist’s road to the Senate could prove tricky. But given the GOP’s open seat headaches this cycle (as well as in 06 and 08), the comfort of knowing that their Florida fate is in Crist’s hands must fill them with indescribable relief.

On the other hand, it will be lost to no one that Crist is as moderate a Republican as Florida could elect. He might not end up siding with Democrats as much as Olympia Snowe, but he would be far less reliable than Mel Martinez. In fact, his profile is comparable to Arlen Specter’s: He is clearly center-right but he is also bound to infuriate Republicans time and time again.

A wide open gubernatorial race

Crist’s move pushes the competitiveness out of the Senate contest and into the gubernatorial race by creating the 18th open seat of the 2010 cycle. This is a golden opportunity for Democrats to regain their footing in state politics and recapture the Governor’s mansion.

That said, the gubernatorial race sans Crist is unlikely to look as chaotic as the Senate race did before Crist jumped in. His retirement quite dramatically shuffles the Senate race, but it merely moves up the gubernatorial timeline by four years since Florida’s ambitious politicians were preparing for an open race in 2014.

As such, both parties have prominent candidates with transparent gubernatorial ambitions who will start the race as their parties’ front-runners. On the Democratic side, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink passed on the Senate race in January but she is expected to run for Governor; it remains to be seen whether she will face much primary opposition and she should be a formidable general election candidate.

On the Republican side, the field is less clear but all eyes turn towards Attorney General Bill McCollum. This conservative Republican narrowly lost the 2000 Senate race’s general election, and he fell to Martinez in the primary of the 2004 contest. Yet, he managed a political comeback in 2006; as a statewide officer, he is well positioned to attract establishment support. Other potential candidates include state Senate president Jeff Atwater and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson.

(GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan, who was considering a statewide run, announced today that he would run for re-election instead. That is a blow to Democrats, who were hoping that they would have a shot at an open race in red-leaning but nonetheless competitive FL-13. Buchanan is favored to win another House term.)

As this list of potential candidates reveals, Crist’s move is likely to lead to a game of musical chairs up-and-down the ballot: Sink and McCollum were preparing to run for re-election in 2010. If they were to decide to run for Governor,  it would create high-profile statewide open seats that would further shuffle Florida’s political landscape.

Finally, the fact that Crist’s retirement gives Democrats a shot at the Governor’s mansion 4 years earlier than expected could have major repercussions at the federal level:  Who will control the next round of redistricting in Florida in 2011-2012 is now up in the air!

If Crist had run for re-election, Republicans would have been virtually certain to draw the state’s next electoral map; but Democrats now have a shot to regain power in time to have a say in the redistricting process and undo some of the damage of the GOP’s gerrymandering at the beginning of this decade. In short, the gubernatorial race could decide which party controls three to five House seats in the next decade.