Ex-baseball star Schilling: ‘I’m going to run’ for Senate
Former Boston Red Sox star pitcher Curt Schilling is throwing a curveball at popular Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — he’s nearing a bid to unseat her.
{mosads}Schilling all-but-announced he would run for Senate in 2018 during a Tuesday morning interview on Rhode Island’s WPRO, according to CBS reporter Ted Nesi.
“I’ve made my decision, I’m going to run,” Schilling said.
“But I haven’t talked to Shonda, my wife. And ultimately it’s going to come down to how her and I feel this would affect our marriage and our kids.”
Schilling is an ardent Donald Trump supporter who has created controversy as he publicly floated his own potential bid for office. Last week, he defended the Republican presidential nominee after a newly unearthed tape showed Trump saying he’d be dating a young girl he just met when she grew up, with Schilling telling a Fox Business Network host that kind of talk is normal.
Any bid against Warren is considered a long shot. After edging out Republican Sen. Scott Brown in 2012, she’s grown into one of the more popular voices on the progressive left and is a very successful fundraiser.
She had been floated as a possible presidential candidate early in the 2016 cycle, but swore off a run.
Schilling has never been involved in public office, and a September poll from WBZ and the University of Massachusetts found Warren with a 19-point lead over Schilling, 47 to 28 percent.
And despite rising to hero status in the state by pitching through an injured ankle to help lead the Red Sox to break their 100-year World Series drought in 2004, he could also face difficulties in a primary thanks to a recent major business flop.
Schilling moved his video game company from Massachusetts to Rhode Island in 2010, lured by a $75 million loan from the state. But the company went bankrupt, and the state only recouped a small portion of that investment.
The aftermath of the incident left Schilling with a single-digit favorable rating by GOP voters in a 2013 survey by Public Policy Polling.
Schilling has stood firm on the deal and refused to apologize, blaming then-Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee (D) in a recent opinion piece.