The Hill News

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said she accepted a position as Senate Democrats' next campaign chief "because it's the right thing to do."

Murray, the next chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), said she's begun working to canvass the 23 Democratic senators up for reelection in 2012 ahead of what's expected to be a challenging cycle for the party.

"I am working my way through, talking to every one of our senators who are up," Murray said on MSNBC. "I feel confident that moving forward I will have a very good class of senators that I can represent."

Murray was elected as the leader of the DSCC after no other senator stepped forward to helm the committee. The party lost six seats in the 2010 elections, and, of the nearly two dozen Democrats up in 2012, many are from competitive states. 

One of the biggest challenges she'll face will be to stave off a wave of retirements by Democrats, leaving a series of seats! open to new candidates and risking Republican takeovers. Some incumbents, like Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), who's gotten off to a slow fundraising start, are thought to be at risk of retirement in 2012.

The Washington state Democrat, who fended off her own reelection challenge this fall, said she stepped forward because she thought it was her responsibility to do so.

"I have never taken on a challenge because it's easy," she said. "I've accepted this challenge because it's the right thing to do."