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Englund quietly securing spot in SD1 race

Saint Louis, Mo. — Former Democratic House member Vicki Englund is quietly moving to secure a spot in the race for state senate as she heads toward a likely general election fight against Republican Rep. Marsha Haefner.

Englund’s candidacy will likely be more formidable than some are expecting, given her name ID in her local House district. In 2012, Englund carried her House district by 1,000 more votes than her fellow Democrat, Scott Sifton, earned as a senate candidate in the same area.

Now Sifton is poised to run for attorney general, a move that has some Democrats shuddering at the prospect of losing yet another Senate seat to Republicans, who built a lopsided 25-9 supermajority over the past few election cycles. Sifton’s district is far from a stronghold seat for either party and Sifton himself barely won the seat from former state senator Jim Lembke.

In that 2012 matchup, Haefner took roughly 1,000 less votes than Lembke in her district, an ominous sign for a House Rep. plowing straight toward what may become the most expensive non-statewide race of 2016.

Englund, a former Lindbergh graduate and school board member since 2011, has strong local name ID as the result of multiple close races, and she’s been quietly assembling a strategy and the staff to execute it since the spring.