Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning. Sign up here. Leading Off: ' WV-Sen, WV-02: Republicans have landed their biggest fish in West Virginia on Monday, where 2nd District Rep. Shelley Moore Capito announced a challenge to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents up for re-election in 2014, thanks to his state's sharp movement toward the GOP in recent years. The 75-year-old Rockefeller has yet to announce whether he will, in fact, seek a sixth term in the Senate, and a surprisingly anti-coal speech he delivered earlier this year hinted that he might be ready to retire. (Coal is king in the Mountain State and not easily crossed.)
Capito, the daughter of former Gov. Arch Moore, has generally cultivated a profile that has placed her in the left-most quadrant of the congressional GOP, and she's not the type of Republican pol who's likely to embarrass herself or her party. It's easy to imagine she's making such an early announcement in order to push Rockefeller into retirement, but I could also believe she's trying to ward off a tea party-fueled assault from the right in her own primary.
Indeed, the Club for Growth is already out with a statement banging Capito, accusing her of having "a long record of support of bailouts, pork, and bigger government." The Senate Conservatives Fund has also joined the circular firing squad in aiming their weapons at Capito (and themselves). SCF, the brainchild of wingnut South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, says they can't support Capito because "her spending record in the House is too liberal."
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