Former Air Force pilot Martha McSally is edging closer to a rematch against Congressman Ron Barber.
While she hasn’t made a formal announcement, McSally filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission for a 2014 congressional campaign on Monday, July 1.
McSally was virtually a political unknown when she announced last year that she wanted to run in a special election for the seat vacated by Gabby Giffords. She came in second in an April four-way GOP primary in the special election to Republican Jesse Kelly, who would go on to lose to Barber in the June special general election.
McSally won the August GOP primary for the regular election cycle in Southern Arizona’s newly redrawn Congressional District 2 and nearly defeated Barber in a race that saw the lead move back and forth for 11 days before Barber could declare victory. When all the ballot were counted, Barber won the race by fewer than 2,500 votes.
McSally spokeswoman Kristen Douglas said McSally had not yet decided whether to run but was filing paperwork to remain compliant with FEC rules and regulations.
In other congressional news: State Rep. Adam Kwasman, who is halfway through his first term representing Oro Valley, announced today that he was forming an exploratory committee to challenge Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick.
Kirkpatrick narrowly won her district last year against former state lawmaker Jonathan Paton in the sprawling Congressional District 1, which stretches from northern Pima County all the way to Flagstaff and includes most of the rural eastern half of the state.
Before his election to the legislature last year, Kwasman managed Jesse Kelly’s 2010 campaign against Gabby Giffords.
Kwasman will have to decide whether to remain in the Legislature or resign to concentrate on his campaign.
Among the other rumored candidates in CD1: Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, who dropped out of his congressional campaign in 2012, and Gaither Martin, who lost in the GOP primary to Paton last year.
Kwasman did not return a phone call from the Weekly.
This article appears in Jul 4-10, 2013.
As long as she doesn’t kowtow to the lunacy of the Teabag crowd, she might have a chance.
Great. And someone involved with Jesse Kelly’s campaign wants to run. In Oro Valley he might just have a shot.
She is just a carpetbagger that could not find somewhere else they wanted her to run from…so now we get to go through her uniformed nonsense once again. I am not particularly a Barber fan, but she will never get a vote from me!
Considering how obstructionist Republicans in Congress behave, people should think very seriously about voting to send ANY Republican to Washington. We don’t need more ideologues who refuse to move legislation forward.
I have listened to McSally speak in person (before she was a candidate for any office) and she does lean very heavily into the ultra conservative Christian direction. If you want another person legislating from their Bible then she is for you.
Typical.
If you’re concerned with ending the mindless rush toward war and the huge waste of scarce resources on the machinery of war or a proactive, substantive approach to the Long Emergency of Resource Depletion, Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Climate Destabilization caused by Global Warming or creating a relocalized, sustainable, steady state economy to replace the dying Ponzi-Scheme of industrial growth capitalism…
You’re NOT going to get a candidate to vote for…AGAIN!
None of the Above for me…
And so…will Barber run further to the right to combat this threat…or will he start voting with the Democrats to show that he is different from McSally? I’m guessing he will keep going to the Right.