The Washington Post names Bruce Braley the 'worst candidate' of the 2014 elections
![The Washington Post names Bruce Braley the 'worst candidate' of the 2014 elections](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/rPykDSiBCcQg7Jp5gFLuPk-909-80.png)
It was an ugly, exhausting election season, and several candidates did their best to run their campaigns off the rails. But the award for the worst candidate of this midterm cycle goes to Iowa Senate hopeful Bruce Braley (D), who "not only lost a very winnable open seat race but lost it badly," writes The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza.
Braley lost the Iowa Senate race "through sheer force of personality," Cillizza says. In 2014 alone, Braley achieved a spectacular feat of narcissism while simultaneously insulting farmers during a Texas fundraiser, got into a spiteful dust-up with a next-door neighbor who came bearing fresh eggs, and, oh yeah, wasn't particularly good at his job either, according to a report that he missed 75 percent of House Veterans Affairs Committee meetings.
And so, out of a carefully compiled list of 10 disaster 2014 candidates, Cillizza bestowed the top honor for total failure upon Bruce Braley. Read Cillizza's full reasoning at The Washington Post.
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Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
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