The dust is still settling from our 2009 City Council election, but candidates are already preparing themselves for next year’s midterm election.
In 2008, we had the seven-way super-slam in Legislative 29, where seven Democrats jumped into a primary for two House seats.
Something similar may be brewing for next year in midtown Tucson, where District 28 Rep. Dave Bradley is hitting his four-term limit.
Bradley’s seatmate, Rep. Steve Farley, will be seeking reelection, although he tells us he may not be using Clean Elections this time out because the publicly financed election program is facing a constitutional challenge that may eliminate matching funds, which would leave candidates who use the system in a bind should another candidate or an independent expenditure committee decide to spend a lot of campaign cash.
At least five other Democrats are looking at the race:
• Local Ted Prezelski, who made a run for the seat in 2006, has gotten a much earlier start on his campaign. Prezelski’s brother, Tom Prezelski, lost a House seat in the aforementioned seven-way super-slam.
• Democrat Tim Sultan, who lost a 2004 congressional primary to Eva Bacal back in the Age of Jim Kolbe, has lowered his sights to the state Legislature.
• Mohur Sidhwa, a former Democratic chair of LD28 and a current vice chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, is making her first run for a major office.
• Former LD28 House member Ted Downing is making noises about running, although he has not formally filed for the race. Downing now has an exploratory committee for an unnamed office.
• Bruce Wheeler, a former Tucson city councilman and a one-term lawmaker waaay back in the 1970s, is talking about making a political comeback.
