I had written about Senate spoiler Kurt Evans’ cryptic comments on twitter last week about dropping out, and this morning, the Pierre newspaper confirms it. Albeit, in what seems to be the whiniest withdrawal ever:
In an email exchange, Evans told the Capital Journal he made the decision to end his campaign on Wednesday after considering it for approximately two weeks. One of the driving reasons was the financial costs, including money that had to be spent on gathering signatures for a nominating petition.
“The campaign had already cost me as much as I could reasonably afford. The petition drive would have required me to abandon the kids at school and spend thousands of dollars more,” his email said.
And…
Evans also said to have a chance of wining he would need the support of a Libertarian super-PAC by September of next year. To attract that type of backing his campaign would need to raise at least $20,000, he said.
Also, without that support the political media in the state would not have taken his campaign seriously, Evans said.
“When all people hear from the so-called political experts is that I’m a spoiler, it’s almost impossible to raise money from anyone except family and close friends,” he said.
And…
While he plans to continue teaching for now, voters have not seen the last of Evans’ name on a ballot. He will run for the U.S. Senate in 2016 as a Libertarian, he said.
“Spending thousands?” On what? He had to gather 250 signatures to get on the ballot. It’s called campaigning. That’s what these people, called candidates, do.
“I would have had to do this, it was costing me that, they keep calling me spoiler, complain, complain, complain..” On behalf of the people of South Dakota, “what did you expect Mr. Evans?” If you say you’re going to run for office, you have to go out and earn it. It’s actually work.
According to the article, this marks the third time Evans has dropped out of a race for US Senate; against Thune in 2002, when he acted as spoiler in the race against Tim Johnson, dropping out 3 weeks before the election, but too late to remove his name from the ballot. The next time against Thune as an independent in 2010, when he dropped out in April of that year. And now he has a third dropping out to add to his resume.
But, he’s running again for US Senate in 2016. Really.
Just don’t call him a spoiler. And I suppose we’ll have to add ‘drop-out’ to Evans’ “do-not-call-him-that” list too. Otherwise, he might find it almost impossible to raise money from anyone except family and close friends.