Smith May Seek Return to U.S. Senate

Written by TONY SCHINELLA, Concord Patch

A former U.S. Senator from New Hampshire may be looking for another opportunity to serve, attempting to get his old seat back.

Smith, who resides in Florida but has a summer home in Tuftonboro, said he was giving another run “serious consideration” and would make a decision sometime in September.

Smith is no stranger to Washington, D.C. He served in the U.S. House from 1984 to 1990 before running for the open Senate seat vacated by then-U.S. Sen. Gordon Humphrey. Smith easily beat Democrat and former U.S. Sen. John Durkin in 1990, by a more than two-to-one margin. In 1996, Smith was re-elected by about 3 percent against then-U.S. Rep. Dick Swett, D-Bow.

In the late 1990s, Smith left the Republican Party and flirted with a potential run for president as an independent or a Constitution Party member but later returned to the Republican fold.  

Smith was ousted by former U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu in a brutal Republican primary in 2002. Sununu went on to beat Shaheen as well as Libertarian Party candidate Ken Blevens that year. 

But six years later, Shaheen ran again and unseated Sununu by about 45,000 votes. Blevens also ran that year, receiving more than 21,000 votes.

Smith considered a run for the Senate in Florida in 2004 but reportedly couldn’t gain traction for a race and abandoned the effort not long after it started. He again considered a run in Florida in 2010 but also quit that effort early in the race. Marco Rubio, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, ended up winning the seat.

Smith backed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich during the 2012 New Hampshire Primary, and spent time re-connecting with activists in an effort to help the Georgia Republican, who ended up coming in fourth, with more than 9 percent of the vote.

Other potential Republican candidates for the Senate nomination include Karen Testerman, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate, and former state Sen. Jim Ruebens, an anti-casino gambling advocate. Former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-MA, has also been mentioned as a possible candidate although over the weekend, he said he might run for president in 2016.