Neil Abercrombie, 10-term Reprsentative from Honululu, has announced that he will resign before his term is up to run for the governor seat to be vacated by the term-limited Linda Lingle.
CQ Politics has the race rated as "Likely Democratic."
More below the fold.
From CQ Politics:
Rep. Neil Abercrombie announced to his supporters Friday that he will leave Congress before his term ends to focus on his bid for governor of Hawaii.
In his announcement on his campaign Web site, Abercrombie said he would make a more formal announcement on Sunday.
He did not provide an intended departure date.
"My immediate priority is to fulfill those remaining duties that require my participation and pave the way for our next representative," the 10-term Democrat said on the Web site.
Two Democrats have announced their candidacies for Abercrombie’s seat: State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa (D) and former Rep. Ed Case, who formerly represented Hawaii’s other congressional district. Case immediately declared himself a candidate for the special election that would be required to fill out the rest of Abercrombie’s term.
Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou is running for the Republican nomination, and national Republicans have so far appeared to be supportive of his candidacy.
The special election will not have a primary and it will require a plurality to win. Therefore, at some point or another, one of the Democratic candidates ought to step out in order to help the other one win.
Some in the MSM will paint this further Democratic resignation as a potential blowback to 1994, but that is immensely unlikely. At this point, GOP Representative resignations are still slightly ahead of Democratic Representative resignations 12-11. Also, in 1994, many of those resignations happened in reddening districts. Finally, the odds of Democrats holding on to this seat are pretty high.
What do you all think of this? Would Neil Abercrombie make a good governor?