Randy Evans – The Evans Report: Why Johnny Isakson Announced His Re-election Bid Early

Your Georgia Desk

Why Johnny Isakson announced his re-election bid early

Less than two weeks after the 2014 General Election, Georgia’s soon to be “senior” senator, Johnny Isakson, announced on Nov. 17 that he would seek reelection to the U.S. Senate. His goal: get out early and leave no doubt that he will seek re-election in 2016.

Republican Senator Isakson will be seeking his third term in the U.S. Senate. He was first elected to the Senate in 2004 (winning the seat left open by the retirement of Zell Miller). In a legislative body that places a hefty premium on seniority, he will become Georgia’s senior senator when the 114th Congress convenes in January 2015.

Notably, Georgia’s current senior senator, Saxby Chambliss, also initially announced at the beginning of the last election cycle that he would be seeking re-election. But, after rumblings of a GOP primary challenge by some formidable opponents, combined with the anticipated targeting of Georgia’s Senate seat by national Democrats, Chambliss decided to retire. Republican Senator-elect David Perdue won his seat.

Yet, the political landscape is much different today than it was in 2012 when Chambliss was making his decisions. As a start, Isakson is assured of serving in a GOP majority in the Senate. With his tenure, this change in control means that Isakson will likely chair the Committee on Veterans Affairs in the 114th Congress.

More significantly, virtually all of the potential challengers to Isakson have either just lost in the bid for the open Senate seat created by Chambliss’s departure, or will be promoted in the new leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives. For example, Sixth District Congressman Tom Price is slated to become the chairman of the powerful Budget Committee in the U.S. House.

The recent drubbing of Georgia Democrats has to certainly dampen the interest of would-be Democratic challengers to Isakson. Convinced that Michelle Nunn (daughter of former

Democratic Georgia Senator Sam Nunn) was an excellent candidate, Democrats went “all in” in 2014 in their attempt to win the seat left open by the retirement of Chambliss. Yet, when the votes were counted, Perdue handily won the race, seemingly putting to bed suggestions that Georgia had moved from solid red to purple.

By most accounts, national Democrats have concluded that Georgia is still a few years away from the kind of demographic changes that Democrats believe necessary to return to competitiveness. Georgia Democrats are scrambling to try to figure out what it will take to win in a red state when the Democratic Party of Georgia has all kinds of internal leadership challenges that extend even into the leadership in the Georgia General Assembly.

Of course, Isakson wants to avoid the same kind of challenges that plagued Republican Senator Thad Cochran in Mississippi. Like Georgia, Mississippi is a solid red state. And, like Mississippi, the “establishment” overwhelmingly supports the re-election of Georgia’s incumbent Republican senator. But, in Mississippi, that was not enough.

A Tea Party challenge forced Cochran into a primary election run-off which some thought Cochran would lose. He did not and he handily won the general election. Yet, the Mississippi experience is something that has to be on the mind of Isakson and Georgia Republicans.

Finally, there is one other notable change from the political landscape of the 2014 election cycle. Isakson will be on the ballot during a presidential election year. If he wins, and the Republicans retake the White House, then he will serve four years with a Republican president. This is a much different scenario than Chambliss faced. If re-elected, Chambliss was looking at serving in the Senate with two more years of a Democratic administration led by President Barack Obama.

Although Georgia may be at play in the 2016 presidential election, most pundits will consider Georgia’s Senate seat a safe Republican hold. On the other hand, if the 2014 election proved anything, it is that there are no safe Senate seats in the United States. Indeed, with Republicans winning governorships in Illinois, Maryland, and Massachusetts, there are no safe seats at all. With the right candidate and the right dynamics, any challenger can win and any incumbent can lose.

And so, Isakson is taking no chances. Instead, he is moving his campaign operation right out of the box. Do not look for it to stop there. Both Georgia Republicans and national Republicans want to put this race away early and the best way to do that is to deter potential challengers, lock down influential partisans, and build a campaign organization that puts the race out of reach, leaving at issue only the presidential election in 2016.

Of course, presidential elections carry with them all kinds of unintended consequences. Elections become nationalized, including Senate elections. That is why it is never too early for an incumbent to start his re-election bid. Others will soon follow.