The Democratic congressman has been pressured by national party officials to challenge Republican Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee.

09:25 AM EST on Wednesday, March 23, 2005

BY SCOTT MacKAY
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Democratic U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin of Warwick has decided against running for U.S. Senate in 2006, and Rhode Island Democratic Party sources said yesterday that he will announce today that he will run for reelection to his congressional seat.

Langevin had been pressured by national Democratic Party officials to run for Senate and take on incumbent Republican Lincoln Chafee. Two recent surveys showed that Chafee would lose if he ran against Langevin.

Langevin contacted top Democratic leaders, including Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, Sen. Jack Reed, former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse and Mark Weiner, a top Democratic fundraiser, yesterday to tell them of his decision.

"I'm not disappointed and I'm not all that surprised," said Rhode Island Democratic Party Chairman William Lynch. "I always knew that it was going to be a tough decision for him. He's doing a great job in Congress and there is no way anyone beats him for reelection. Running for the Senate was always going to be a gamble."

Langevin declined to comment yesterday. His spokesman, Michael Guilfoyle, said only that Langevin would have a public announcement on his 2006 campaign plans "within the next 48 hours."

The decision shifts the spotlight to Kennedy, who will be under intense pressure by national Democratic leaders to run against Chafee.

Kennedy had opted out of the Senate contest and supported a bid by Langevin.

"Congressman Kennedy is being encouraged by a lot of people he respects to take another look at this race, if Congressman Langevin decides not to do it," said Sean Richardson, Kennedy's top Washington aide.

Kennedy, who has won easy reelections from the 1st District seat he first won in 1994, has obvious advantages over any other Rhode Island Democrat in a Senate race. Son of Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a Patrick Kennedy candidacy in Rhode Island would tap into the family's huge reservoir of fundraisers and party activists.

Rhode Island, a steadfastly "blue" Democratic state in national politics, is coveted by Democratic leaders, who have been stung in recent Senate races in the "red" states of the South. Chafee, from the dwindling moderate wing of the GOP, is a rare Republican senator from a state that went for John Kerry over President Bush by a huge margin in the 2004 election.

National Democrats had been targeting Rhode Island and Pennsylvania as top priorities in their quest to switch Senate seats from Republican to Democrat. Langevin's decision leaves Secretary of State Matthew Brown as the only announced Democratic candidate for the Senate nomination. Some party leaders are not pleased by the prospect that the energetic but inexperienced Brown -- who has served just over two years in elected office -- would be the nominee.

A public opinion survey done in January for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee showed Langevin with a 20-point lead over Chafee, with Langevin at 52 percent, Chafee at 32, and 17 percent undecided. That poll had an error margin of 4 percent. A Brown University poll done in February put Langevin's support at 41 percent, Chafee's at 27 percent, and 32 percent undecided. That survey carried an error margin of 5 percent.

Both surveys showed Brown trailing Chafee by double-digit margins.

Another Democrat who reportedly will take a new look at the Senate race is Whitehouse, who lost a contest for governor in 2002. Whitehouse had endorsed Langevin. Whitehouse declined comment when contacted yesterday. "I'm not going to say anything until Jim [Langevin] has a formal announcement out."

One of Brown's top issues against Langevin has been his support for abortion rights, which Langevin opposes. That issue would dissolve if either Kennedy or Whitehouse, both of whom support abortion rights, became a candidate.

Chafee, 51, has carved a reputation as a maverick. He has often upset state and national GOP leaders with his opposition to such Bush administration initiatives as the U.S. military intervention in Iraq and such domestic policies as the president's tax cuts and deficit budgets. In the 2004 election, Chafee was so chagrined by Mr. Bush's policies that he announced that he would not vote to reelect the president. Instead. Chafee wrote in the name of Mr. Bush's father -- former President George H.W. Bush.

Chafee is the son of the late Sen. John H. Chafee. Sen. Chafee and his father are the only two Republicans to represent Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate since Franklin Roosevelt's second administration in the 1930s.

Langevin's decision will ripple through the state's political hierarchy, affecting the plans of other Democrats and perhaps some Republicans. For example, Democratic Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty, and Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, a Republican, had both been considering running for the 2nd District House seat if Langevin was not a candidate. Now, neither can be expected to take on Langevin, who easily won reelection in 2004.

"This is the shoe everybody has been waiting to drop," said Lynch, the state Democratic chairman. "Now that is has happened, everybody has to make up their minds."