Texas senator to resign for governor run
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WASHINGTON — Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) will resign her seat this fall to focus on challenging Texas’ incumbent Republican governor, Rick Perry.
“The actual leaving of the Senate will be sometime -- October, November -- in that time frame,” Hutchison told Mark Davis, a conservative talk radio host in Dallas, on Wednesday morning. The gubernatorial primary will be in March 2010.
When Hutchison makes her resignation official, Perry will be able to appoint her successor, who would face reelection next year.
Hutchison, 66, is one of 40 Republicans in the Senate. She was first elected in 1993.
Perry, 59, succeeded former President George W. Bush as governor in December 2000.
Texas is reliably Republican territory. John McCain carried the Lone Star State with 55% of the presidential vote in 2008. The last time Democrats won a major statewide race there was in 1990, when Ann Richards was elected governor.
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