» Not much bang for the buck: Tons of money is needed to get a political campaign off the ground, but that doesn’t mean being rich out of the gate is a sure-fire win for wannabe politicians. In 2010, wrestling magnate Linda McMahon spent $50 million on her own Senate campaign only to be crushed by Richard Blumenthal, who’d raised a (relatively) modest $8.7 million. More recently, Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst lost the GOP primary after giving $24 million to his own war chest—the most so far of any candidate this cycle. But this doesn’t seem to be discouraging wealthy candidates: McMahon is running for the Senate again this year, and her $8.8 million contribution constitutes 90% of what she’s raised so far.
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» Why not? Basically, the Texas Senator is afraid of falling victim to a Tea Party challenge. She has good reason, too: In a September poll, only 25% of Republicans said they’d support her for renomination. Granted, she does have a not-so-bad approval rating of 58%, but, as Public Policy Polling points out, both Lisa Murkowski and Mike Castle had even higher numbers prior to their primaries, and both lost to Tea Party challengers. In an entirely unrelated development, Texas Democrats were seen licking their chops shortly after Hutchison’s announcement.
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