Rep. Jeff Flake To Announce Senate Run

The Arizona Republic is reporting that five-term Congressman Jeff Flake is throwing his hat in the ring to replace Jon Kyl in the Senate:

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., will announce Monday that he will run for the U.S. Senate being vacated by Sen. Jon Kyl, a source has told The Arizona Republic.

Flake, who was first elected to Congress in 2000, has long expressed interest in running for the Senate. He will make it official at an 8 a.m. news conference at the same Phoenix hotel where Kyl on Thursday announced that he will retire when his current term ends in January 2013.

Flake is a strong fiscal conservative and his addition to a Senate that already include the likes of Tom Coburn and Rand Paul would be interesting. Of course, there’s a primary to get through first:

Republicans could include Flake, Franks, former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth, former state Attorney General Grant Woods, former Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, former state Treasurer Dean Martin, Maricopa County Supervisor Andy Kunasek and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu. Former U.S. Rep. John Shadegg was considered an early GOP front-runner but announced Friday that he had concluded the timing was wrong for a Senate campaign. Freshman U.S. Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., also says he has no plans to run for Kyl’s seat.

On the Democratic side, the names being mentioned include Gabrielle Giffords, and Secretary Of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

On both sides of the aisle, the Arizona Senate race is already shaping up to be very interesting.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Ernieyeball says:

    This guy is just going to have to change his name.
    Jeff just won’t cut it.
    Maybe Snow or Dandruff would get him more votes.

  2. Ernieyeball says:

    Frosted? Bran…if he was from Iowa, Corn would get him the election!

  3. MarkedMan says:

    I object to calling anyone a fiscal conservative that votes for deficit spending because they believe it is more important not to raise taxes than to pay for what you buy. If people had to pay for the services they got, maybe they might question their utility more. But with Republicans and Democrats both voting to keep getting services but push the bills onto our kids – well, how is that “fiscally conservative”.