Tina Smith has been involved in Minnesota politics for a long time. She came to Minnesota from Arizona to take a marketing job at General Mills. She later worked on her own as a marketing consultant. She also worked for the Planned Parenthood office serving Minnesota and the Dakotas. She worked as chief of staff for mayors and governors, ran political campaigns for governors. Now she is running for the US Senate, seeking to get elected on her own.
Bob Menendez is back. He originally entered politics fighting corruption in Union, New Jersey. He has returned to his position as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. is vulnerable. Federal prosecutors have just dropped plans for a second corruption trial after the first one ended with a hung jury. Dropping the second corruption trial does not guarantee that Bob Menendezwill have an easy time being reelected. Some people claim there is fire where there is smoke.
Phil Bredesen was a popular two term governor of Tennessee. Before that, he was a successful mayor of Nashville. Before that, he became a millionaire selling the insurance company he created. Before the insurance company, he had a career that included some mysterious classified work and work in London for an international pharmaceutical company. He brings a lot to the Senate race.
Jane Raybould is a businesswoman. She's religious. She does local politics in an old fashioned and pretty conservative way. Her family businesses -- a chain of grocery stores and related retail stores have been operating in Nebraska for over 50 years. She sees her public service as a kind of religious calling. She is now on the Lincoln City Council. She touts success reducing property taxes by cutting waste and making government more efficient.
Tim Kaine is an incumbent Virginia US Senator. His running for reelection is sad because he is not the Vice President. In the 2016 campaign, we learned a lot about him. Midwestern nice (born in Minnesota, Bachelor’s Degree from Mizzou, he came to Virginia by way of Harvard Law School and a Jesuit mission to Honduras. He joined a Richmond law firm, taught at the University of Richmond, represented clients subject to housing discrimination. He had developed an interest in politics through his wife's family. His father-in-law was a former Republican governor of Virginia. Elected to the Richmond city council for his first term by a 97 vote majority; the council elected Tim Kaine mayor in his third term. Tim Kaine had real successes as mayor. While serving as mayor, Tim Kaine ran for Lt. Governor. With a one-term limitation on Virginia governors, Tim Kaine, like many Virginia Lt. Governors, ran for Governor four years after being elected. After he completed his one term limit, he ran for US Senator successfully.
Joe Manchin is a US Senator from a state that Trump won in 2016 by 42 points. Joe Manchin is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate at a time when the parties have become polarized. He is a Democrat. He is not a conservative. The American Conservative Union gives him a lifetime rating of 28.17%. Way too low to be a conservative. CrowdPac rates politicians based on a combination of their donations, their statements, and their votes with a 20 point scoring system from 10C to 10L. They rate Joe Manchinas slightly liberal at 1.7L. The Americans for Democratic Action rate him 60% liberal. He votes for a Democrat to be the Senate Majority Leader. He is a Democrat.
Bill Nelson went to the University of Florida where he became a member of Blue Key. He left for Yale and the University of Virginia Law School. In 1965 he came back to Florida and joined the US Army Reserve. After his widowed mother died, he went on active duty as a pilot. Notwithstanding his political successes, being elected to Congress and the Senate, there was nothing he loved more than flying. His greatest political commitment was to the US space program.
Krysten Sinema has come a long way from living in an abandoned gas station. She has been described as exotic. A centrist, but not a moderate, she started out supporting the greens, was elected to Congress as a centrist Democrat. As someone who could describe herself as bipartisan and have people accept that.
First Pennsylvania Auditor General; then State Treasurer, Bob Casey, Jr got a couple of phone calls. Senator Harry Reid called. Senator Chuck Schumer called. Each urged him to run for the Senate. HIs father, Bob Casey Sr. had been governor. That was the office he coveted. In the Senate, he was a moderate Democrat. Recently, though, he created a new signature issue. He is creating an identity that is not so moderate. He is just plain angry at Donald Trump. He showed up at the airport to greet refugees who Trump banned. When James Comey was fired, Bob Casey Jr called Trump's behavior Nixonian. In a state that was part of Hillary's failed firewall, he is vying to be a leader of the resistance.
Sherrod Brown is not an upper class liberal. Notwithstanding his upbringing as the son of a doctor, he is a blue collar figure in the US Senate. He had been a state Representative in Ohio and then Secretary of State. After losing the Secretary of State post to Robert Taft, he moved to blue collar Lorain. He ran for the open Congressional seat there and was elected. After seven terms in the House, in 2006, he ran for the Senate and won. He made his mark as an opponent of trade agreements -- leading the unsuccessful effort (by a single vote) against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in 2005. He was not a conservative on cultural issues. One of the few to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act, he also opposed an Ohio constitutional amendment to prohibit same sex marriage.