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GOPer Mike Castle To Run For Joe Biden's Senate Seat
Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE)
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In a very positive development for national Republicans, Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) will be running for Senate in 2010, in the November special election for Vice President Joe Biden's former Senate seat, and he will make his announcement at noon.
A GOP source has confirmed the news to TPM.
Castle has never lost a race during his political career of more than 40 years, serving in the state legislature, as Lt. governor, governor, and as the state's lone member of the House. A recent Rasmussen poll had him leading a likely appointment, state Attorney General Beau Biden (son of Joe Biden), by 47%-42%.
It's way too early to make any firm predictions about this race, as both candidates have their pluses and minuses. But this should definitely be a competitive race, and a potential pick-up for the GOP as they seek to bring the Democrats below 60 seats again.
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ejg3
October 6, 2009 12:39 PM
The flip side of the Senate race is the vacant house seat which could be a pickup for the Democrats without Castle as an incumbent. Castle's lead is way down from earlier in the year polls.
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fbacon2
October 6, 2009 12:59 PM in reply to ejg3
The House doesn't have the filibuster. Not sure how to sugarcoat this news. The only way out is to beat them, but now we have another fight on defense to go along with Connecticut, Nevada, and Colorado. That will be four top-tier GOP pickups.
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miguel
October 6, 2009 12:43 PM
Good and I hope he wins! The way Joe Biden is trying to just hand the seat to his son is disgusting, we're supposed to be a democracy!
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_jonny_5_
October 6, 2009 12:50 PM
Perhaps Beau should go for House Seat(& pick it up easily) and wait until 2016 for the senate run. Castle is like 70 now, so Beau could do quite well in the House and take his Dad's old seat in 2016 w/o it looking like nepotism. He is farly young after all.
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pppwww
October 6, 2009 1:01 PM
not for nothing, but the delaware a.g. is elected by the fine people of delaware, not unlike the senate spot. how is running for senate "disgusting" or "nepotism"?
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_jonny_5_
October 6, 2009 1:10 PM in reply to pppwww
It's in fact neither.
But since when does a democrate being duly elected convey any legitamacy as far as the GOP is concerned.
I was simply saying that Castle is OLD and Biden is young. An "At-Large" congressmen is nothing to shake a stick at so it's not an unreasonable path for Biden.
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johnpseudo
October 6, 2009 1:14 PM
Oh man, what a disaster! Can you imagine having a Republican represent a state with a Cook index of +7! for the next 12+ years? Nepotism concerns me, but not nearly as much as the possibility of losing the seat to the Republican party. When will independent voters realize that there is no such thing as an independent Republican in the Senate?
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_jonny_5_
October 6, 2009 1:29 PM in reply to johnpseudo
Castle is pretty old to assume 12 years...
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holyhandgrenaid
October 6, 2009 2:06 PM in reply to _jonny_5_
Yeah, Castle isn't so much a top tier candidate as he is the GOP not having anyone else to run. You know full well they'd prefer someone much more conservative and actually likely to serve more than one term.
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pppwww
October 6, 2009 2:08 PM in reply to johnpseudo
"When will independent voters realize that there is no such thing as an independent Republican in the Senate?"
hopefully if/when club for growth gets involved.
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theone718
October 6, 2009 5:24 PM
FUCK! He is immediately the front runner. 2010 is going to be alot harder than previously believed.
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