Neal Tapio still looking strongly at Congressional run in 2018; “When” is more likely than “if”

While it has been quiet for several weeks as Dusty Johnson and Shantel Krebs have been campaigning across the state, the candidacy of Neal Tapio for Congress had slipped from the political conversation, and been fairly quiet.  Was he actually thinking about it? Had Neal abandoned considering running?

From a conversation I had with Neal Tapio recently, the answer is unequivocally that yes, the 2018 Republican nomination for Congress is very much on his radar. But don’t expect an answer anytime soon.

Neal indicated to me that running for Congress is more of a certainty than it isn’t, as he’s leaning towards pulling the trigger for a campaign, and isn’t afraid to tell people.  However, he’s also in no great hurry, despite those of us who are political prognosticators and in the business of mapping these things out.

Tapio indicates that frankly, he thinks it’s too early to get into a race. Neal told me he “enjoyed this past legislative session, and learned how much he didn’t know,” as he noted he learned an “incredible amount” serving in the State Senate, he’s looking forward to next session, and serving is good preparation for thinking about a run.

But, as far as announcing now, Neal indicated that “He’d like to shorten the campaign, because people are tired” of long campaign seasons. One of the big pressures on candidates is to raise the funds necessary in preceding months to run the race is not one he faces, as he indicated an ability to self-fund a congressional race, eliminating any need to get in early to spend his time fundraising.

Neal noted to me that he’s “met with the media people, and campaign managers,” and is doing the initial legwork to prepare to jump into a statewide contest such as Congress.  However, he takes his timeline to make a decision from our Current Congresswoman as opposed to what his potential opponents Johnson or Krebs are doing.

“My goal is to try to make a decision whether to enter the race in January or February like Noem did,” Tapio noted. “As opposed to spending the next few months out there campaigning, I’d rather spend my time talking about issues.”

The issue that rises to the top for Tapio is right along the lines of his appearance at the recent Freedom Rally help be Republicans at the end of April – He’s concerned about freedom in the United States, and in particular, the freedoms guaranteed by the first amendment, and how we make sure those freedoms are preserved.  And we’re going to be hearing more of this from him on this topic over the remainder of the year.

While he hasn’t made a final decision yet, the message from my conversation with Senator Tapio was very clear – Don’t count him out of the 2018 Congressional contest. He might not be in a hurry, but if – and more likely when – he does pull the trigger for the race, it will be for a race he’s ready to run.