Campaign Diaries

Rep. Joe Sestak is pulling the trigger. Defying the wishes of the White House and of Governor Ed Rendell, the representative just declared in no uncertain terms that he would challenge Senator Arlen Specter’s claim to the Democratic nomination. “I am going to get into the race against Arlen Specter … for senator,” said Sestak in an interview with The Wayne Independent. That Sestak is about to embark on a three-week statewide tour that will take him through all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties also confirms that the congressman is serious about a run.

In May, Sestak provoked a media frenzy when he talked about his “intent” to run. While I then sought to tamp that down by arguing that he left himself enough room to eventually decide not to run, his new comments sound far more definite. The Hill reports that the last hurdle might have been his daughter’s go-ahead. As I write below, however, the timing of this interview suggests to me that he was waiting to see his fundraising totals during the second quarter and that he is happy with the results.

Specter is vulnerable

And just like that, the longtime Senator who fled from the Republican Party because he feared Pat Toomey’s primary challenge finds himself locked in another tough intra-party fight. Sure, Specter has a far better chance of winning a contested Democratic primary than he did of surviving the Republican one - that’s the exact reason he switched parties - and he should be considered a slight early favorite. But it won’t be easy for him to get to the general election.

Recent polls show Specter popular among Democrats and enjoying healthy leads against Sestak. But the representative is largely unknown and some of the roughly 20% deficit he faces will close as he improves his name recognition and introduces himself to voters. Specter’s popularity in his new party is also bound to fall once Sestak and liberal groups that are likely to get involved in the race run ads highlighting Bush and Santorum’s past support and Specter’s long record of conservative votes.

On the other hand, Specter will be able to bolster his Democratic credentials with the support of prominent party leaders - especially if Obama agrees to cut an ad for him, which could obviously provide a huge boost. One wild card is the attitude unions will take. They have signaled their willingness to back Specter if he backs EFCA, something he was inching towards in recent months, but they have also been showing great interest in Sestak’s challenge. Labor endorsements could end up being very important.

Sestak is also well equipped to be competitive at a financial level. While Specter has a huge war chest, Sestak had an impressive one himself - $3 of cash-on-hand at the end of the 1st quarter. He’ll be able to transfer all of that to a Senate race and he should have little trouble fundraising given that this will be one of the most ideologically charged primaries of the cycle.

In fact, the timing of Sestak’s announcement looks to me to have an obvious link to money. The 2nd quarter ended yesterday, and his allies were pushing for a bigger haul in recent weeks. That Sestak made such a definite statement just hours after the end of the quarter probably means that he’s very happy with the amount he’ll announce in the next ten days and that he is comfortable with the press covering him as a declared candidate when reporting his fundraising totals.

All in all, what’s surprising is not so much that Specter faces primary opposition than the fact that Sestak is the only Democrat who seemed interested in challenging the Senator. Given that Specter explicitly stated that he was switching parties mostly for electoral reasons, you would have thought other Democrats would have been annoyed enough to want to kick him out of the Senate. But the prospect of going against the entire party establishment - including Obama and Rendell - was probably too much for most Democrats to handle.

One reason that Sestak might have pressed forward when other Democrats bowed to White House pressure is that he is not a career politician and as such cares less about staying in the establishment’s good graces. A former Vice Admiral in the Navy, Sestak did not hold elected office until he was elected to the House in 2006 at the age of 54; that differentiates him from people like Joe Torsella or Steve Israel, who have been involved in politics for decades.

An open race in the 7th District

One reason that Sestak’s announcement will be tough to walk back is that it will immediately kick off the intrigue in the 7th district, which now becomes an open seat. The district’s slight blue lean makes Democrats narrowly favored to keep the district but the general election should be contested in what is a competitive district.

While Gore, Kerry and Obama all prevailed here, the first only did so by 4% and the second by 6%. Furthermore, Republicans held the seat until Sestak’s 2006 pick-up and Delaware County’s representation in the state legislature is decidedly mixed: 2 state Senators for each party, 7 Republican state representatives compared to 5 Democrats. In short, the GOP should be able to field a strong contender, while the early Democratic front-runner is said to be state Rep. Bryan Lentz.

Maloney also moving towards a run

The other major Democratic primary could occur in New York, where Senator Kirsten Gillibrand could face a challenge by Rep. Carolyn Maloney. Just a few hours before The Wayne Independent published Sestak’s comments, The New York Daily News reported that Maloney will run, quoting a senior adviser saying that “she’s definitely decided to run… She’s in it.” The adviser added that she’ll announce in two weeks.

Maloney has certainly given us all the hints we could need to conclude she will jump in, including a flurry of media interviews and increasingly critical statements against Gillibrand. (”Some people run to get elected, I spend my time doing things,” she said last month.) But this recent story isn’t that different from other reports we have seen and the bottom line is that Maloney has not yet pulled the trigger by making a clear public announcement. Given that we are talking about a challenge to an incumbent Senator and that Israel looked just as set as Maloney until the White House called, we’ll wait those few extra weeks before writing down Maloney as a sure candidate.