Establishment strategists that engaged in primary fights this past cycle acknowledged with a wide-open, high-stakes presidential primary splitting attention and resources away from House and Senate primaries, conditions are ripe for an underfunded, insurgent challenger to slip through to the general.
Austin Barbour, an adviser to a Mississippi-based super PAC that helped Sen. Thad Cochran fend off an unexpectedly tough challenge from the right, said incumbents this cycle should see Cochran’s race as a cautionary tale. Fundraising “has to be a concern,” he said.
“You have to raise a ton of money and make sure you have a strong political organization in your state,” he said. “They’re all going to require human capital, as well as financial capital, to win those races” in 2016.
CNN
12/29/14
Magnolia Tribune
