Noriega Announces Exploratory Committee for U.S. Senate

It's official — we now have three candidates in the race for the Democratic nomination for Senate in 2008. Well, sort of.

State Representative Rick Noriega released a statement on July 4 announcing his forming an exploratory committee for the Senate race. Martha Griffin, subbing for an ailing Kuff, had the news and a reproduction of Noriega's official statement.

Of course, the Internet movement to draft Rick Noriega has been going on for some time, so fortunately for both he and Mikal Watts, the other Democratic candidate, we've all already seen some good discussion as to each of the candidates and what they bring to the table.

So does that bring us up to three candidates in the race (or nearly so), or two? I don't think any of us have heard or seen much of Emil Reichstadt lately, and despite earlier claims that he had already filed for his candidacy, the FEC shows no record of him having filed. So it looks like, at least for the near future, we have two candidates to discuss, not three.

You can read more about Rep. Noriega at the draft site, and Mikal Watts at his campaign web site.