Candidates who SHOULDN'T try again:
Stewart Mills (MN-08)
Joe Garcia (FL-26)
Randy Perkins (FL-18)
Paul Babeau (AZ-01)
Matt Heinz (AZ-02)
Monica Vernon (IA-01)
Emilio Huerta (CA-21)
Danny Tarkanian (NV-03)
What's wrong with Matt Heinz (AZ-02)? He made it close.
AZ-02 2014
Martha Mcsally: 50.0%
Ron Barber: 49.9%
AZ-02 2016
Martha Mcsally: 56.7%
Matt Heinz: 43.3%
Matt Heinz is a bad fit for the district unfortunately. He got blown out. He should return to the state legislature. Maybe he could run for Grijalva's seat when he retires...
But 10 points?
Matt Heinz is pretty liberal, and I got quite a few mailers from the McSally campaign that attacked him pretty effectively(there were probably other things like that that I didn't see as well). I saw nothing from Matt Heinz's campaign. He was easily painted as an out of touch head in the clouds liberal who loved Obamacare and wanted to teach 5 year olds about sex(an attack based on a bill he helped sponsor during his time in the state. Grossly miscontextualized and deceptive, of course, but it probably worked).
His campaign was ineffective, and that really hurt him. I suspect he would be damaged by this run if he chose to run again. AZ-02 seems to be a blue dog seat. I don't think a better nominee would have
won, but it wouldn't have been this bad.
