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| Home Front: Politix |
| Heitkamp passes on Senate campaign |
| 2010-03-04 |
| Former North Dakota Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp is passing on a bid for the U.S. Senate, leaving Democrats without a strong candidate to oppose Republican Gov. John Hoeven in this fall's open-seat race. Speaking on her brother's radio program in Fargo Wednesday, Heitkamp said her decision to skip the race was a personal one, that came down to concerns about family and where she wanted to live. "I've decided I'm not going to be a candidate for the United States Senate. If this were an easy decision for me, it would've been made a long time ago," she said on the station KFGO. "The toughest thing I had was calling a lot of those supporters and sending e-mails this morning and disappointing them." Though she met with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Heitkamp said she repeatedly signaled to party leaders that she was not likely to launch a campaign for the seat of retiring Democrat Byron Dorgan. "I really impressed upon them that this is something I had never sought out, and my heart and my life is in North Dakota," Heitkamp said, explaining that her husband practices medicine in North Dakota and would not have wanted to leave the state. "My first impulse was this is a job I never sought out, but I owe it to my party and all the people who've supported me to at least consider it." A mid-January poll commissioned by Daily Kos and conducted by Research 2000 showed Heitkamp would have started a campaign trailing Hoeven by 21 points, 34 percent to 55 percent. |
| Posted by:Fred |