Sam Clovis Joins The Senate Primary: Info & Analysis
The field of Republican candidates seeking a seat in the U.S. Senate from Iowa has expanded to three. At an event held Monday in Sioux City, Morningside professor and talk radio host Sam Clovis announced he is joining Matt Whitaker and David Young in the Republican primary.
The field is expected to become more crowded in coming weeks as Politico recently reported that State Senator Joni Ernst has hired a Texas-based political strategist. Additionally word is spreading that a Libertarian candidate will also declare soon—later this week we will be discussing this in more detail.
Background and Bio
Though many in central and eastern Iowa are likely unfamiliar with him, Sam Clovis is fairly well known in the very Conservative north-western region of Iowa. While currently serving as the Chair of the Department of Business Administration and Economics at Morningside College and hosting a political radio show on KSJC 1360, he has a long military and business background to tout.
After graduating from the United States Air Force Academy, he attended universities in San Francisco and Alabama and has worked for several private companies–including defense industry giant Booz Allen Hamilton (ironically the same company that employed last week’s NSA leaker). There is a ton of stuff in his background and I won’t list it all here—for a longer and itemized account of Clovis’ history click here and you can view his campaign website iowans4samclovis.com here.
The Race: A Quick Analysis
Besides adding one more candidate and all the dynamics that go along with it, Clovis has already indicated he will be staking out a position that any non-libertarian candidate likely won’t get to the right of. It’s way too early to tell how much of a statewide network he will be able to build or if he will be able to raise the money necessary to introduce himself statewide–but he will have an impact regardless.
Aside from making the 35% number to avoid a convention harder to get to for any one of them—a candidate willing to run far-right will most likely end up giving the “establishment” contenders hoping to run middle-right some severe heartburn—a condition that otherwise might not have befallen them. Even if his campaign never fully takes off, and if he chooses to, Clovis will be able to use the media and, more importantly, the debate stages to put heat on the more moderate Republicans in the field and their positions.
Needless to say…the temperature has been raised and this thing is going to get interesting.