Democrats: Competitive Senate Primaries Are Okay

First Lady Tammy Murphy (D-NJ)

I have been a Democrat since literally before I can remember.  Truly-my parents remember me campaigning for Mike Dukakis in 1988, before I could read and just shortly after finishing potty-training.  So as a Democrat, I can tell you there are a lot of great things about my party.  We believe in equality, democracy, fairness, & respecting every American.  We also have some problems, and one of them is we are way too anxious.  I remember heading into Election Night 2008, which was undoubtedly the biggest blowout victory the Democrats have gotten in my lifetime, and still all day that day every Democrat I talked to started with "don't jinx us!" as if a giant curse was going to elect Sarah Palin as Vice President if even one person was braggadocios.  Democrats are an anxious, under-confident breed, and while that can be harmless, it can sometimes be a problem.

This is the case in recent years when it comes to primaries.  Democrats tend to make safe choices, especially in Senate primaries.  This can be important, and it can translate into victories.  Jeff Merkley barely won the Senate primary in 2008 despite being the establishment choice against Steve Novick; given the closeness of the election that year, it's probable the Republicans hang on and we don't pass the ACA if Novick takes that primary.  Democrats have a history of getting behind the most electable option, and regularly that means the first option in the race.  Generally this has been a good thing, mind you...but I think we're starting to get into a position where we might have lost a little bit of our backbone.

I started to notice this in 2020 when we were recruiting candidates for the US Senate race in Colorado.  The Republicans had their candidate, incumbent Sen. Cory Gardner, running, but the Democratic Primary wasn't fully-formed.  As late as August 2019, there was a lot of openings, including US Ambassador Dan Baer, State Sen. Mike Johnston, and House Majority Leader Alice Madden running in an open primary...there were even rumors that one of the states young stars like Rep. Joe Neguse or Secretary of State Jena Griswold would get into the race as a late entry.  It was an exciting, open race to take on one of the most important contests in November.  But the DSCC (and DC Democrats) got nervous, and so they called in a ringer: former Gov. John Hickenlooper, who had just finished an unsuccessful presidential candidacy.  Hickenlooper got into the race, and shut down the competition.  Neguse & Griswold never ran, Johnston, Baer, & Madden all dropped out.

This isn't a problem in some respects-Hickenlooper beat Gardner, and the Democrats won a Senate majority a few weeks later in Georgia.  But here's the dirty secret-any Democrat would've beaten Gardner.  Joe Biden won the state by 14-points, Hickenlooper took his race by 9-points.  Colorado is a blue-trending state that the Democrats were going to take no matter what, and Hickenlooper was a 68-year-old moderate who had just proven he was yesterday's news by being an asterisk in the presidential race.  There was no reason to go with a ringer rather than one of the plethora of exciting young options that, yes, would've meant a few of them would've had their careers cut short, but in the process, Colorado could've found us the next Barack Obama, the next Kamala Harris, the next Gretchen Whitmer.  Stars aren't made when we keep the bench full or when we commit too early.

I was reminded of that this week on social media when the gut reaction to New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy's likely entry into the US Senate race in the Garden State next year was "no-we don't need her."  Now, if this was based on Murphy's politics (her history with Goldman Sachs is probably a nonstarter in some Democratic circles), I'd have no problem with it, but it seemed more to be a bit of nerves about her splitting the vote or with them already saying "it's Andy Kim's turn."  Which to that I say-why?

Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ)

I like Andy Kim, and I think that it's possible (or even probable) that he'd get my vote if I live in New Jersey.  But there's no risk of Kim splitting the vote with Bob Menendez given Menendez's polling numbers are currently absolute garbage, so why not have an actual primary where the people of the state get to vote?  After all, we might've saved ourselves decades of heartache with Menendez if it had been an open primary for the blue seat, given Menendez's ethics troubles extended to then, and the Democrats had better, less problematic options (specifically Rush Holt & Frank Pallone) sitting in the House.  We need to stop falling in love with the first candidate to say yes, and we need to consider that competitive primaries might produce better candidates.

I'm frequently struck by the North Carolina US Senate race in 2020.  That year, State Sen. Jeff Jackson was considering an atypical approach in a run against Sen. Thom Tillis-doing 100 town halls in 100 days to kick off his race.  It was very against-the-grain, but in-the-mold of the recent run by Beto O'Rourke in Texas that had nearly succeeded.  But (according to Jackson) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer talked him out of the strategy, and in the process out of the race, by saying the only way to win was to make fundraising phone calls nonstop for a year.  It turned out that this was terrible advice.  The grassroots campaign mechanism that cycle would've meant that whomever the Democrats nominated would've been able to compete (every Senate Democrat in a competitive race outspent their Republican opponent, in some cases 2:1), and Jackson was a better option than Cunningham.  His tenure in the House has shown real, rare political skills, the kind that can allow you to outrun an incumbent even as your party loses the White House (see also Jason Kander), and Cunningham ended up being a lousy candidate who got involved in the dullest sex scandal known to man.  Jackson may well have been how we won, and possibly gotten the Build Back Better Act to have passed intact rather than just the Inflation Reduction Act.

That won't happen in New Jersey-the state is so blue that either Murphy or Kim will win the state no matter what.  But we need to stop needing the answer immediately, and Democrats need to be okay with the occasional competitive primary so we can sort of out the good-on-paper candidates from the potential game-changers.  We're getting them in California & Maryland, but New Jersey, a state that has largely been a series of coronations from the Democratic Party for decades (where the party establishment has way too much power to begin with) would be a perfect spot for a competitive primary.  Murphy, Kim...I have no horse here, but I do think it would behoove us to be fine with two progressive, scandal-free options and actually allow the state to pick their next nominee.