Sam Brownback (Getty)
Kansas Secretary of State
Ron Thornburgh has ended his bid in the state's 2010 contest for governor, giving retiring Sen.
Sam Brownback a clear path to the GOP nomination.
The development also solidifies Brownback's status as the front-runner in the race for the seat -- currently held by interim Democratic Gov. Mark Parkinson -- as he will be spared a primary contest with a well-known and longtime statewide officeholder. Thornburgh has been secretary of state since he was first elected in 1994.
Nonetheless, Thornburgh would have needed a major come-from-behind push to overcome Brownback, who first won his Senate seat in a 1996 special election, won landslide re-election victories in 1998 and 2004, and ran a short-lived campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. A recent poll conducted by SurveyUSA showed Brownback trouncing Thornburgh by a margin of 47 percentage points.
"The decision to run centered on our strongly held conviction that core Republican principles of lower taxes, less government, individual responsibility and accountability return to the governor's office," Thornburgh said in a statement released Monday afternoon. "It is more important for the ideas and ideals that I believe in to win in November than for me to run. Our priority is the next generation of Kansans - not the next election."
Thornburgh said, though, that there were pragmatic as well as philosophical reasons why he stood down. "Internal research shows that we do not have the ability to do what needs to be done in order to win," Thornburgh said in his letter to supporters. "As much as I want to be your next governor -- the reality is the facts are not with us this time."
Brownback is vying for the seat inherited by Parkinson, who stepped up from lieutenant governor in late April after Democrat Kathleen Sebelius was confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services in President Obama's administration. Parkinson has stated that he will not run for a full term in next year's race for governor.
State Sen. Chris Steineger is considering a candidacy for the Democratic nomination, though the state party organization has expressed openness to other candidates who might want to enter the race.
-- Susannah Clark
Correction: Steineger has not officially entered the race for governor, as reported in the original version of the story.
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Comments
Move this race to Likely (if not Safe) Republican.
Posted by: NObama
| June 16, 2009 11:59 AM
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