Top Senate candidates prove elusive

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are stinging from high-profile failures to recruit candidates who could help reclaim the majority, including Stacey Abrams’ announcement Tuesday that she would pass up a U.S. Senate run in Georgia.

That decision was a blow to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who had tapped Abrams earlier this year to deliver the Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.

Abrams follows former Texas Rep. Beto O’rourke and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper in spurning Senate Democratic leaders’ entreaties to run for Senate seats. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is likely to follow suit. And Joaquin Castro, the Texas Democrat and twin brother of presidential candidate Julián Castro, said Wednesday he is passing up a Senate run.

Also, a spokeswoman for Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne said the freshman would seek re-election next year for her southeast Iowa House seat. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senate Democrats’ campaign organization, had tried persuading Axne to run for U.S. Senate against GOP incumbent Joni Ernst.

“Today’s embarrassing recruitment failure is another devastating blow to Chuck Schumer’s dream of a Democratic Senate,” said Jack Pandol, communications director for the Senate Leadership Fund.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, who chairs Senate Democrats’ 2020 campaign arm, lauded the “phenomenal” quality of her party’s recruits and noted that “we have plenty of time” to lock in candidates.

“Just because we don’t get somebody that you’re aware of doesn’t mean we’re not going to find or have somebody that can beat those Republican incumbents in a state on the kitchen-table issues that matter to voters,” Cortez Masto told reporters.