National Democrats are urging former West Virginia Democratic Party Chairman Nick Casey to take another stab at a congressional seat he narrowly lost to freshman GOP Rep. Alex Mooney,
Roll Call reported.
Mooney, who earned support from conservatives nationally, narrowly won his seat in Congress after then-Rep. Shelley Moore Capito made a successful U.S. Senate bid, leaving her District 2 seat open, Roll Call said.
Casey demurred on his interest in another race: "Oh, you never say never," he told CQ Roll Call of his plans.
Turnout is expected to be high in 2016 and Casey could ride the coattails of a strong Democratic candidate for governor, Roll Call noted of his future.
Mooney said he hadn't heard much scuttle about Casey making another stab at his seat. "He certainly ran a strong campaign last time," Mooney told Roll Call. "But it's not an open seat anymore, so the dynamics are different."
The
Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report called the 2nd District seat safe for Republicans.
Mooney, of Cuban descent and a longtime Maryland resident who served for 12 years as a state lawmaker there, became West Virginia's first Latino representative,
Fox News reported. West Virginia, added Fox, is the state with the smallest Hispanic population.
Casey's camp said during that race that Mooney was a carpetbagger who moved into the Mountain State solely to mount a congressional campaign, Fox noted. Mooney defended that he moved his family there because the state shared their values.
"Mooney has yet to identify himself as a former member of the Maryland State Senate in his advertising, a tactic that's clearly designed to mislead voters into thinking he's a West Virginian," Casey campaign manager Derek Scarbro said last year.
Mooney is likely to see a GOP primary challenger,
the Charleston Daily Mail noted as pharmacist Ken Reed opened a "pre-candidacy account" in advance of announcing his run. He came in second to Mooney in the 2014 House Republican primary.
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