Mass. Senator-elect Scott Brown's win has impact in Kentucky
By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2010-02-01 15:57:17 | Word Count: 390
Last Tuesday's filing deadline for this year's Kentucky elections came amid a momentous week and a day in American politics. The events influenced the filings and will certainly influence the election, almost surely to Republicans' benefit. But there will be exceptions, and at least one could be in Kentucky. The big event was Massachusetts' election of a Republican to the Senate, eliminating Democrats' filibuster-proof supermajority and stoking them with so much fear of what could happen in November that the prospects for passage of health-insurance reform seemed to diminish by the day. Eight days later, in his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama pleaded with Democrats to not “run for the hills,” but without a fresh map to health care success from him, most kept running.
Republican Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts added to GOP interest in running for office in Kentucky. In the five days of filings after Brown's victory, state legislative seats drew filings from 44 non-incumbent Republicans and only 21 non-incumbent Democrats, a disparity that is only partly explained by the fact that Democrats hold more seats. Massachusetts made a difference, state Republican Chairman Steve Robertson told me.
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“It certainly had an impact because we noticed more interest, more inquires, and ultimately those turned into filings,” Robertson said. And that will probably mean more Republican seats in the General Assembly in January 2011. “Just by the law of averages, we're going to pick some up,” he said.
In House races, Republicans actually have more candidates (92) than Democrats (91) and are contesting virtually two-thirds of the seats held by Democrats (42 of 64) while Democrats are seeking fewer than a third of the seats held by Republicans (11 of 35).
Many late GOP filers were motivated by unhappiness with Washington, not just Frankfort. “They were fed up and felt like it was their time, and instead of complaining about it they needed to stand up and do something about it,” Robertson said.
