 |
| Amy McGrath (D-KY) |
Amy McGrath nearly had the rug pulled from under what was thought to be a foregone conclusion campaign last week. McGrath was endorsed by the DSCC, had raised over $40 million, and was seen as the de facto nominee for the Democrats. Her campaign had stumbled multiple times (particularly out-the-gate with her bungled response on whether she would have voted for Brett Kavanaugh), so it perhaps shouldn't have been a surprise when State Rep. Charles Booker challenged her from the left and gained traction. McGrath is a centrist Democrat in Kentucky, the kind that fits in the mold of the winning Beshears, but more people were focusing on how she was similar to Jack Conway and Alison Lundergan Grimes, two other high-profile figures who lost recent Senate contests. Booker was championed by the left, and came out of nowhere to challenge McGrath's perch with endorsements from figures like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The surge seemed to have happened too late though-Booker won in-person voting, but McGrath had already banked enough votes via absentee to advance to the general.
 |
| Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) |
McGrath's narrow win underlines what I've been saying for months, though-she is not a particularly compelling candidate (this isn't Beto 2018), and as a result I don't think she can beat McConnell. Her presence, and gigantic war chest, ensure that she's going to be on the airwaves a lot, but McGrath clearly isn't well-liked by her base, and goes into the general election looking electorally weak. McConnell can't afford to let her own the airwaves (he is also unpopular), but she has way more to prove than he does.
It's worth noting that the maxim "Republicans will have to spend in Kentucky now, money they can't spend anywhere else" has been thrown around a lot in light of McGrath's wins, but I don't know if that's a good thing yet for the left. This is the case, say, if Donald Trump has to spend to keep Ohio. There's a finite amount of money, and money spent in a state he can't afford to lose (there's no victory for Trump if he doesn't win Ohio) is money he isn't spending in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, money that Joe Biden is more reliant upon for a victory (but likely where Trump needs to win at least one of those two states). This isn't yet the case with Kentucky, though. The Democrats have not locked up seats in North Carolina & Iowa, and so it might behoove the Democrats to actually be spending the $40 million that McGrath has in those states, ensuring their majority, rather than tracking down a quixotic win in Kentucky. This has been a problem for Democrats this cycle, where they are wasting money on races (Kentucky and South Carolina, specifically) where they have only a fool's chance of winning, rather than trying to lock down their majority with investments in places like North Carolina, Iowa, or Georgia. If the Democrats in these states aren't leading by Labor Day, Kentucky is not only going to look like a bad bet, but a dangerous one.
 |
| Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) |
While Kentucky has been called by the AP, two major races still sit in the balance in New York: the primaries to longtime Democratic incumbents Eliot Engel and Carolyn Maloney. I've learned on this blog that calling a race early is a bad idea, so I'm not going to say whether or not I think Engel or Maloney will win, but I'll at least say what I'm seeing right now: of the two, Engel is in the most trouble. Engel has refused to concede but his progressive challenger Jaamal Bowman has declared victory over Engel, who botched the final weeks of his campaign (particularly in a hot mic moment where he said he wouldn't want to be speaking at a protest were it not for his primary). Even if Engel wins mail-in votes, it'll be a very uphill climb for him to win being down by over 20-points against Bowman with in-person voting.
Maloney is in much better shape (comparatively). She leads by a few hundred votes against liberal challenger Suraj Patel, but she's expected to win the mail-in votes, which should skew older and toward parts of her district she won on Election Day. Maloney-Patel's race has been nasty and personal, but the Democrats will win this seat regardless of who wins in a district Hillary Clinton won by 70-points.
These challenges against longtime incumbents do raise some eyebrows. I'm particularly looking at the contest in New Jersey next week, where Rep. Albio Sires is getting a challenge from his left to see if we're seeing more of a movement to throw out longtime incumbents in safe districts, or if this was merely isolated to uniquely vulnerable incumbents in New York.
 |
| Mondaire Jones (D-NY) |
In races that are called from New York, we have two new congressmen who will make history. Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones are the first openly gay men of color to serve in the United States House of Representatives, a cool moment of progress during Pride Month. They also both won very blue seats against plausible conservative challengers in the Democratic Primary. Torres bested Ruben Diaz Sr., a member of the New York City Council who has frequently made headlines for homophobic statements. Jones beat State Sen. David Carlucci, a Democrat who was a member of the IDC, a coalition of conservative Democrats and Republicans who formed together to ensure that the Republicans maintained their majority in the State Senate. Most members of the IDC lost in primary challenges in 2018, but Carlucci was not one of them and there was a worry that he would win a very blue seat here. Jones' win is another deathblow to the IDC, and proof that the 39-year-old Carlucci is going to struggle to shed this label in the future.
 |
| Add caption |
You'll notice that none of these races are expected to be competitive in November, and that's because really we weren't seeing a lot of competitive races in the contests that are expected to decide the House and Senate majorities this fall. Kentucky doesn't really have any races, but Virginia & New York host a few. In Virginia, the three most competitive races (the 2nd, 5th, and 7th) didn't see too much surprise. The 2nd will be a rematch between Rep. Elaine Luria (D) and former Rep. Scott Taylor (R), who briefly ran for Senate but has a much better shot at this contest (though at this point I'd favor Luria). The 7th district is selecting their nominee via a convention, which could be a risky affair, so we won't know the nominee for a while, but thanks to the 5th district convention giving the Republicans a questionable nominee, the Democratic Primary there was important, and the Democrats did well picking physician Cameron Webb, who is a quality candidate who quickly gained support from his primary challengers (something that Republican Bob Good cannot claim).
In New York, the Democrats have two pickup opportunities. In the 2nd, the Democrats backed Babylon Councilwoman Jackie Gordon, while the Republicans went with State Rep. Andrew Garbarino. This is one of many Obama-Trump districts, so it'll be a question if Biden can win back a number of the voters that he carried in 2012, or if they're gone to see if Gordon can win here. The 24th district will be a rematch of 2018, with Rep. John Katko (R) facing off against Syracuse Professor Dana Balter. Katko is very popular, but only won by 5-points in 2018, and there's a reason for that-he's one of three Republicans who won seats that Hillary Clinton took. Balter is likely not going to be able to beat Katko on her own, and thus is going to need to ride Joe Biden's coattails hard. I'm betting on Katko, but Obama won this district by 16-points in 2012; if Biden can come anywhere close to that, it'll be difficult for Katko to outrun Trump by double digits.
The Republicans have three pickup opportunities in the Empire State (the three seats the Democrats picked up in 2018), though they come with varying degrees of success for the party. The 11th, arguably their best shot at a pickup, will pit State Rep. Nicole Malliotakis against incumbent-Rep. Max Rose. Like the 2nd, this is a district that went for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016, and so again-the question is how much can Biden win back from what Clinton lost in 2016, and will that be enough to carry a first-termer like Rose? The 19th is also an Obama-Trump district, but the Republicans didn't recruit well here and most consider this to be, at most charitably to the GOP, a "Likely D" seat. The 22nd is a Romney-Trump district, one of the few that the Democrats picked up in 2020, but the Republicans are taking a serious risk here by backing controversial former Rep. Claudia Tenney, perhaps the only Republican who would start out an underdog in this district, as their nominee again. It's worth remembering that Obama lost this district by less than a point in both 2008 or 2012, so while Trump clobbered here in 2016 it has been competitive in the past.
No comments:
Post a Comment