State Senator Janet Petersen has decided against running for governor in 2014, she told Todd Dorman of the Cedar Rapids Gazette yesterday.

Petersen, 43, said family concerns led to her decision. She has children age 6, 9 and 12, and a husband who travels frequently for work. She said trying to balance the demands of a statewide race with her work in the Senate is also a worry. […]

Petersen weighed the prospects of a campaign “struggling with taking on a governor who has been governor forever and doesn’t miss a parade or ribbon cutting,” she said. And, in the end, she decided to stay out of the race.

Last month Petersen ruled out running for Congress in the third district.

An early endorser of Tyler Olson for governor, Petersen had been considered a likely running mate for Olson if he had won the Democratic nomination. Now she’ll go on the list of likely candidates for governor sometime in the future.

State Senator Jack Hatch is now the prohibitive favorite to be Governor Terry Branstad’s Democratic opponent this year. Jonathan Narcisse may enter the Democratic primary, but otherwise Hatch would face only token opposition from Paul Dahl.