Nearly everyone was caught off guard by U.S. Rep. Martha Roby’s (R-Montgomery) announcement last week she would not be seeking reelection in the 2020 election to the seat she had held since the 2010 midterm elections.
Among those was her Alabama Republican House colleague, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville).
Brooks warned Roby’s departure, as well as U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne’s (R-Fairhope) departure to seek the U.S. Senate seat held by U.S. Sen. Doug Jones (D-Mountain Brook), means resources that could have been used elsewhere by Republicans will have to be used to protect those two seats.
“I’m a little bit surprised, a little bit disappointed,” Brooks said. “It means we’re going to have to divert some of our Republican resources to an open seat when we need them to defend our incumbent congressmen on the one hand, or on the other hand beating the Democrats and some of the seats they now control so that hopefully we can recapture the House of Representatives. Anytime you have someone retire and there’s an open seat, that increases your risk of loss. It also increases the amount of money that you have to dedicate keeping that seat, knowing full well that the Democrats are likely to spend enough money in both the Mobile Bay one and the Montgomery area one so that it is not a give-me for us and we have to divert resources.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV and host of “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN in Huntsville.
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