Quayle to confront Schweikert in Arizona GOP primary

Two Arizona Republicans are headed for an intra-party primary battle to determine which will have a shot at holding his seat in the House.

Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) announced Monday that he will run for reelection in the 6th congressional district, where Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) had already announced his plans to run.

The final version of Arizona's new congressional map drew Schweikert just inside the lines of the 6th district, while Quayle was drawn into a newly created district granted to Arizona due to population growth over the past decade. But the new district is competitive for both Republicans and Democrats, and most expected Quayle would choose to run in the neighboring 6th instead.

"The work of Arizona’s redistricting commission has placed many people in difficult positions, but at the end of the day my choice is to continue representing the people I represent today. The large majority of them are in District 6, and their values are my values," Quayle wrote on his website.

That decision pits the two colleagues against each other in what is expected to be a bloody primary.

"Like most family disputes, I'm pretty confident it will end up in the middle of the street somewhere," said Chuck Coughlin, a Republican strategist in Arizona.

Schweikert's campaign said he would do what was necessary to win the primary, adding that internal polling suggested he was making gains among voters in the part of the district he didn't previously represent.

"We're disappointed, as I'm sure most Republicans are, that he decided to carpetbag over to our district," said Schweikert spokesman Chris Baker. "My sense is that Quayle's going to have to go negative to have a chance of winning. I don't think at this point that we do."

Quayle has proven himself a formidable primary candidate, though, defeating five other Republicans in a hard-fought primary in 2010.

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