I will be honest-I didn't think that last night's elections would be worthy of an article. While we frequently do morning after discussions of the primaries all throughout the season, the primaries in Florida, Oklahoma, & New York didn't have a lot of potential for upsets, but that was before a shocking victory for the Democrats in a special election they had no business winning during a midterm environment gave them a lot of hope for November. So we're going to dive into last night's elections, and to the special that pretty much every politician in DC is going to be discussing.
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| Rep-Elect Pat Ryan (D-NY) |
Last night, in the race to succeed Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, County Executive Pat Ryan defeated County Executive Marc Molinaro in a district that Joe Biden won by 1.5 points in 2020. This was, to say the least, unexpected. While there was some debate over the margin of Molinaro's victory, pretty much everyone (including yours truly) had assumed he'd win the seat. Ryan was badly outspent, even internal Democratic polling showed that Molinaro was going to win, and Molinaro was a genuinely good candidate (conservative but not MAGA, a prominent local officeholder who was a proven winner in blue territory). Ryan's win is shocking not because he couldn't have won in an environment like 2018 or 2020 (Biden won the district, Democrats can win here), but because 2022 isn't supposed to be an environment like 2018 or 2020. In a world where there's a Red Wave, hell, in a world where the Republicans are winning the House, they need seats like this one. Lest we forget, there are more Biden districts on the map right now than there are Trump districts-Republicans will need to carry at least a couple of Biden districts in November to take the House majority.
This sets up a fascinating situation in November, since this district doesn't exist anymore. Ryan is now running in the 18th district, which is a tossup seat that Biden won by 8.5-points; with the advantages of incumbency, this is now a probable hold for Ryan. Molinaro faces a much less impressive challenger than Ryan, but in a district that went for Biden by 4.7-points, which is a tougher margin than he faced last night. Molinaro was heavily-favored after last night to win this seat thanks to incumbency & a favorable environment-it appears he'll have neither of those, which makes this race a tossup.
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| Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) |
New York redistricting was upended by the State Supreme Court, and as a result what was once a very favorable map for the Democrats (which, if Ryan is winning, might still be pretty nice for them) was turned upside down, and that left two Manhattan political titans (Reps. Jerry Nadler & Carolyn Maloney) in one of the nastier primaries of the year. In the end, Nadler handily beat Maloney and will win a hyper blue election this fall, but one could seriously make the argument that Maloney defeated herself. The congresswoman came across as super out-of-touch, and honestly I've rarely seen such a seasoned politician fall over themselves like she did, attacking Nadler's mental acuity (both of these incumbents are getting older, but this felt like a pretty baseless attack) and more potently she kept insisting that Joe Biden wasn't going to run for reelection, despite all evidence to the contrary. This ended up being a way to differentiate herself poorly in a race where the two incumbents were struggling to stand apart from one another, and cost her her seat in the next Congress. Maloney is the chair of the House Oversight committee, and if the Democrats manage to retain their majority, there will be a jousting over who will succeed her.
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| Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) |
No one last night had a better night than Sean Patrick Maloney, even if that might have more to do with luck than skill. Maloney, who is the current DCCC Chair, was heavily criticized for district-shopping to try and get an easier reelection (despite the DCCC Chair being someone whose sole job is to maximize Democratic wins across the country, and thus he should've run in a tougher seat). No one criticized him more for district-shopping than Rep. Mondaire Jones, particularly since Maloney went after NY-17, Jones' current district. It ended up turning out well though for Maloney. Jones decided to seek election in the 10th district rather than face the incumbent, and Maloney defeated State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who challenged him from his left and was endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Jones, on the other hand, lost to House impeachment attorney Dan Goldman in the 10th, so Maloney's biggest critic will not be in the next Congress. And, with Pat Ryan winning in NY-18 (the district many said Maloney should've run in), it appears that the Democrats have a strong shot of holding that seat anyway...even after the DCCC barely spent any money to take Ryan's special election. So in one night, Maloney won a safer seat for himself, got rid of his biggest House critic, and likely made it easier for the DCCC to hold another seat in November. A pretty solid evening.
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| Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL) |
Most of the Florida races were preordained and unlike New York, stayed that way. The biggest news is the governor's race, where Rep. (and former governor) Charlie Crist won the Democratic nomination for governor against Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried in a landslide. This wasn't always assumed to be a close race-Fried is the only statewide Democrat to win in Florida post-2012, and many initially thought she'd have a decent chance to be the new face of the party. But Fried ran a terrible primary (arguably the worst of any Democrat this cycle), frequently indulging in needlessly vicious attacks that came across badly to a base that just wanted to beat Ron DeSantis, not destroy Crist. As a result, we'll get two former governors facing off, though Crist will be a big underdog here. Despite DeSantis being nationally reviled by Democrats, in Florida he remains relatively popular (and this is a seat that Republicans won). Crist, who was at one point a shining star himself in Republican politics in Florida, is making his third bid for governor and likely his last unless he can pull off a miracle in November.
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| Laura Loomer (R-FL) |
While there were no shocks last night in Florida, there nearly was in the 11th district. Most had taken for granted that Rep. Dan Webster, who served for nearly 30 years the Florida State Legislature before defeating Rep. Alan Grayson in one of the bigger losses for an incumbent in 2010 (Grayson, for the record, lost another comeback bid to succeed Val Demings last night) would win last night. But while he did, he barely cracked 50% of the vote against far-right extremist Laura Loomer, who would stand firmly in the Marjorie Taylor Greene caucus, possibly on her right. Loomer is banned from virtually every major social media platform, and has publicly espoused disgusting anti-Muslim rhetoric & bizarre conspiracy theories (she was a Covid denier who ended up suffering a dangerously bad case of Covid last year). Loomer getting close to 45% of the vote (she's already alleging voter fraud, true to form) is just another indication of how radicalized a House Republican caucus could be if they have a majority, and a sign that it is the GOP base, not Democratic ads like so many have claimed in races like MI-3 (no Democrat got remotely involved in this race) that are causing conservatives like Loomer, Kari Lake & Doug Mastriano to over-perform in primaries across the country.
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