Frustrated by a lack of action from other Republicans, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch has personally raised more than $6.5 million for the National Republican Senatorial Committee through an elite donor group dubbed “Orrin’s Army.” He also presided over the President’s Dinner, a feast that raised $13.5 million for Senate Republicans. The money will be used to fund hundreds of TV ads that will run through election day in an attempt to protect “the firewall” — enough GOP senators to keep Democrats from achieving a 60-vote majority.
“If we don’t have the right to utilize that filibuster rule and force the Democrats to have to get 60 votes, you’re going to get some of the worst legislation in the history of the country,” Hatch declared in a Fox News interview last week — just one of many TV appearances the senator has made on behalf of his colleagues.
Eleven seats once held by Republicans are vulnerable, and at least eight states will likely go to Dems: Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon in the West, along with Minnesota, North Carolina, Virginia, Alaska and New Hampshire.
Hatch has served in the Senate since 1977. In 2006, he won his own seat for the 6th time, beating challenger Pete Ashdown 62 to 31 percent. In his first year as senator, Hatch led an unprecedented six-vote filibuster, killing the Labor Law Reform Act.
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