Congressman Steve King has flown to Massachusetts where he intends to be an “election watcher” in the U.S. senate race there.
Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts will fill the senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy. Recent polls have shown Scott Brown, the Republican candidate, in a dead-heat with the Democrat’s candidate.
“I want to make sure that this is a legitimate election,” King said during a telephone interview with Radio Iowa. “Watching the polls and the way the momentum has shifted and ever single polling indicator says Brown is positioned well to win this tomorrow and I want to make sure this is a legitimate election and that poll watchers are deployed and we’re focused on this.”
King, a Republican from western Iowa, sent a text message via Twitter this morning, suggesting “the worse the weather, the better for the side with momentum.” In King’s opinion, that means the Republican candidate will benefit, as the Election Day forecast for Boston is for rain in the morning and snow in the afternoon. King spoke by phone with Radio Iowa as he drove outside of Boston.
“I’ll be stopping in at some rallies and touching bases there and helping to coordinate some poll watchers and helping to call in resources,” King said. “It’s one of those things that a member of congress can get done a little more quickly than someone else.”
King is working with what he called a “band of constitutionalists” who have driven or flown into Massachusetts for the final push before tomorrow’s special election.
“There are about 12 different locations for the Brown campaign working across the state. There are phone-callers there; get-out-the-vote people; there are people who are poll watchers; there are people that are looking for something to do. A lot of Massachusetts people mobilized, too,” King said. “And I’m coming to the conclusion that there are more conservatives in Massachusetts than there are in Iowa.”
According to a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Republican Party, King has “no formal role” in the Brown campaign. ”We weren’t even aware he was in Massachusetts,” spokeswoman Tarah Donoghue said in an email to The Politico.
According to King, Massachusetts today is a bit like Iowa before the Caucuses — it’s the “epicenter” of national politics.
“I’ve gone around the country and helped other candidates but not in the middle of a special election and certainly not something that’s this intense,” King said. “This is a game-changer for the entire destiny of America and if Scott Brown (the Republican candidate) wins tomorrow, I think it turns back President Obama’s national health care act agenda.”
On Sunday, President Obama campaigned in Massachusetts with the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general. Obama’s featured in Coakley’s closing television commercial saying “every vote matters.”
