July 13, 2007
Senate Retirement Watch
2ndQ FEC reports have been filed today for 3 GOP senators widely rumored to be considering retirement in 2008: John Warner, Chuck Hagel, and Larry Craig.
Warner had nowhere to go but up, considering he only raised $500 in the 1stQ, and indeed, his campaign brought in $71K in the 2ndQ ($60K of it from PACs), raising his CoH to $734K. Still, that's nowhere near the amount that an active re-election campaign would have raised at this point, so don't expect those retirement rumors to settle down anytime soon. Craig's fundraising was slightly more active in the 2ndQ ($201K), as was Hagel's ($388K), giving them CoH totals of $549K and $483K respectively. For Hagel, this is an uptick from the $144K that he raised in the 1stQ. (Craig raised $125K in the 1stQ, so he was a bit more active too). As reported earlier, Thad Cochran (also a retirement possibility) raised $312K for the 2ndQ.
Based on these numbers, it seems that most of these senators are merely keeping their options open. With the arguable exception of Warner, they haven't completely shut down their fundraising apparatuses, but they obviously don't feel the need to raise money in earnest yet (i.e. the $1M-$1.6M range that targeted incumbents are raising). Some may simply feel safe enough that they don't believe they need to build sizable war chests to win re-election, while others may indeed be leaning towards retirement [QUINN McCORD]
Posted at 04:48 PM
Comments
Post a comment
The Watergate · 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20037
202-739-8400 · fax 202-833-8069
NationalJournal.com is an Atlantic Media publication.
