Why Michele Bachmann's Democratic challenger quit, too

(Image credit: Facebook.com/JimGravesforCongress)

last updated 8 January 2015

Jim Graves nearly unseated Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) when he challenged her in the 2012 election, and the Democratic underdog was determined to try again next year. But now that Bachmann has announced she won't run for a fifth term after all, Graves — a St. Cloud hotelier — is dropping out, too. Why did he change his mind?

Graves says he was only in it to get rid of Bachmann, who is a favorite target of Democrats nationwide. Once she was out, there was no reason for him to stay in. Here's how he put it to MinnPost:

Basically, after all that's gone on, and with Michele Bachmann now stepping down, I've been talking to my friends and family and frankly, the feeling is, "Mission Accomplished." She wasn't representing the people of the 6th District appropriately, and now she won't be representing them. There's no way anyone could run and win who would be worse than Michele Bachmann. So we accomplished that task...

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.

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