Robert C. Smith - After Congress

After Congress

Smith considered running for the US Senate seat from Florida in 2004 against Mel Martinez, but dropped out after raising little money and receiving less than 1% support in Republican polls. Martinez would go on to win the election.

Less than a month before the November 2004 election, Smith wrote an op-ed for the Concord Monitor in which he denounced the lack of Republican outrage over phone jamming on Election Day 2002, in which Republican operatives had jammed phone banks used by the Democrats to contact Democratic voters and get them to the polls. Smith implied that this action may have made the difference in Shaheen's narrow loss to Sununu.

In December 2007, Smith endorsed Congressman Duncan Hunter of California for the Republican presidential nomination.

In January 2008, Smith began writing editorials on the web page of the Constitution Party (formerly called the U.S. Taxpayers' Party), which fueled speculation that Smith intended to seek the party's presidential nomination. The nomination went to Chuck Baldwin, a Baptist pastor.

In February 2009, with Martinez having announced that he would retire from the Senate in January 2011, Smith was again considering running for the seat, though it has also been reported that he is considering a return to New Hampshire to run for the Senate seat there, especially if his old nemesis John E. Sununu (who was defeated for re-election in 2008) seeks the seat. On April 9, 2009, Politico reported that Smith will seek the Republican nomination for Florida's 2010 Senate election. He dropped out of the race in March 2010, after faring poorly in the polls against Governor Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio.