Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), who recently lost a Republican primary for governor of Texas, is expected to announce today that she will serve out her full Senate term through 2012.
For the past year and more, Hutchison had challenged incumbent Gov. Rick Perry in the Republican primary. She had previously planned to resign her office during the primary campaign itself, but had reversed her decision in November, though she kept the door open to resigning after the March 2 primary. Had Hutchison resigned, the seat would have been filled with a temporary appointment by Perry, along with an expedited special election.
Hutchison said at the time that she was staying in office in order to focus on opposing the Democrats’ health care proposals — though it should also be noted that polling at the time showed that primary voters disagreed with the idea of her resigning.
Although Hutchison had led in the early polls of the primary last year, Perry ultimately won the race by mobilizing conservative anger and tying Hutchison to Washington. Since then, Hutchison has kept quiet on whether she will resign from office or not — with the answer apparently being that she will stay.
