WASHINGTON (AP) A pizza deliveryman in North Carolina, a "libertarian cop" in Kentucky and an Alaska candidate but not the one who was expected hope to do what a Kansas businessman did this week: shake up Senate races as third-party candidates, an often-dismissed lot.
Greg Orman isn't a household name, but he's getting attention now. The independent Senate candidate in Kansas fared so well in his third-party bid to unseat three-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts that the Democrat in the race, Chad Taylor, abruptly canceled his candidacy on Wednesday. With that, conservative Kansas landed on the list of conceivable, if improbable, Democratic gains in the national battle for Senate control.
Republicans must pick up six seats in November to win the majority, and the new uncertainty over Roberts' fate complicates their drive.
Kansas Republicans, worried about Orman possibly consolidating anti-Roberts sentiment, challenged the legality of Taylor's withdrawal. The Kansas secretary of state said Thursday that Taylor's name must remain on the ballot.
Orman's case is unusual. Most third-party candidates have no chance of being elected themselves. But in a handful of extremely tight races, including North Carolina, Alaska, Georgia and Kentucky, third-party candidates could help decide who wins and which party controls the Senate in the final two years of Barack Obama's presidency.
Third-party candidates are chiefly a worry for Republicans. Many of these long-shot hopefuls are libertarians who tend to appeal to conservative voters, who otherwise might lean GOP.
The biggest impact by a third-party Senate candidate thus far came in Kansas. As Roberts was fighting a bitter GOP primary against Milton Wolf, Orman aired ads that declared "something has to change." In one, he looked over at a muddy tug of war between Republicans and Democrats and asks: "You guys accomplishing anything? Didn't think so."
Orman briefly ran for the Senate as a Democrat in 2008, when he says he voted for Obama. And he says he might caucus with Democrats in Washington if elected this fall. These details could help Roberts in a state that has elected only Republicans to the Senate since 1932.
Established Republicans are quick to note that most third-party candidates become nonfactors, winning minuscule portions of the vote.
The notion that Libertarian candidate Sean Haugh could cost Republican nominee Thom Tillis the Senate seat in North Carolina, for instance, "is a story line being created by the media," said Paul Shumaker, a top Tillis adviser. He said Haugh, a pizza deliveryman, doesn't have enough campaign money to identify and turn out his potential supporters on Nov. 4.
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Third-party Senate Candidates Worry GOP