Huge news in Pennsylvania in the US Senate race for 2016. Josh Shapiro, Montgomery County Commissioner (who won renomination for another 4 year term just last week), the candidate that Washington, DC and some PA Democratic party big-wigs have been attempting to recruit to run for US Senate, announced Friday that he would not run for the Senate. Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, DSCC head Jon Tester, former Gov Ed Rendell and others had been encouraging Shapiro to run.
He declined to comment on whether he might run for PA Attorney General in 2016, either in the primary against mortally wounded and soon-to-be-indicted incumbent Dem Kathleen Kane or for the open seat should Kane resign after her expected criminal indictment later this year (for illegally leaking of secret grand jury information embarrassing to a political rival and other matters).
2010 nominee Joe Sestak and Allentown mayor Ed Pawlowski are the current announced candidates for the Dem nomination for Senator.
One wonders if the party big-wigs will now turn their recruiting attention to Katie McGinty, a potentially stronger threat to Sestak in the April 2016 Senate primary than Shapiro would have been and a potentially stronger general election threat to incumbent GOP Senator Toomey (stronger than either Sestak or Shapiro IMO). McGinty ran for the Dem nomination for PA Gov in 2014, losing in the primary but getting almost universally positive reviews for the strong campaign she ran.
Katie McGinty, running on a ticket with Hillary Clinton, could be a huge threat to Toomey's reelection and an exciting addition to the get-out-the-vote strategy of Pennsylvania Democrats to win up and down the ticket in 2016.