Last night was one of (if not the) biggest nights of the year for political primaries. While the presidential debate and Donald Trump's VP announcement (both potentially this week...though I'll only believe both are happening when they actually start) will quickly upstage these results, last night was huge, watching an incumbent House member lose a major race, as well as see a number of candidates emerge in key races in the House. I was ambitious last night, and already talked about Rep. Jamaal Bowman's loss to George Latimer in NY-16, so if you want to hear more about that, please click this article (it's worth a read-I think this is an important race, and one that feels crucial to understanding some of the dynamics that Joe Biden is wrestling with in the party right now). But otherwise, we're going to dive into our traditional "5 Thoughts" article this morning about the rest of last night!
 |
| Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) |
Had it not been for Jamaal Bowman's loss, the big headline this morning would've been around Rep. Lauren Boebert's congressional district switch paying off in a big way. Boebert, the controversial (but well-known) Republican congresswoman has had a tough second term in Congress. She became a national laughingstock when she was caught in an indelicate position with a man during a play and was asked to leave a Denver performance of the musical Beetlejuice. Given the marginal nature of her district (she was the closest election in 2022), running for reelection in Colorado's 3rd congressional district felt like a political death sentence.
But Boebert smartly saw the writing on the wall, and moved to CO-4 after the retirement of Rep. Ken Buck. Some assumed that she'd lose this race as a result, given the carpetbagging allegations, but I was never taken in by it. Boebert clearly wanted to stay in the national spotlight, and assumed (correctly) that a splintered field would help her do that. She won with less than 50% of the vote, not impressive but enough to stay in office, and given the red nature of the district, even if she under-runs former President Trump (and she will), she's still winning. Whether or not she'll be in the majority is an open question mark, but Democrats hoping to not hear her name for the next two years (or hoping that turning her into a punchline would make her go away) are going to be disappointed. She'll be in the next Congress.
 |
| Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) |
In Utah, Rep. John Curtis cruised to nomination in the open Senate seat race caused by the retirement of Mitt Romney. Curtis was considered to be the most moderate contender in the race (Romney declined to endorse, but it's not a stretch-of-the-imagination to assume he was hoping Curtis would win given he is in a similar mold), but was challenged from the right by Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs. Staggs had endorsements from former President Donald Trump, as well as Sens. Tommy Tuberville & Rand Paul, but Curtis had more institutional support (including most of the House delegation from the Beehive State), and Utah is still a state that values moderation in its Republicans. Curtis is on a glide path now to the Senate, and will be an interesting member of the upper chamber. He is a pretty much guaranteed vote on most Republican causes, but he has some nuances in his voting record that have me wondering if he might be a proper successor to Romney. He voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, and has been an unusually loud advocate for climate change activism, trying to push the Republican Party to accept climate change science as real. If the Democrats hold their Senate majority next cycle, I would look for him to occasionally break from the Republicans on some legislation, which would not have been the case for Staggs.
 |
| Former President Donald Trump (R-FL) |
You'll notice that Curtis wasn't Donald Trump's choice last night, and that was a recurring theme. Just 48 hours before the former president will take the debate stage, his party largely abandoned his favorites in a number of key primaries. Utah Senate was arguably the biggest, particularly given Trump's adversarial relationship with Sen. Romney, but it wasn't the only one. In South Carolina, with a third district runoff between nurse practitioner Sheri Biggs and televangelist Mark Burns, Trump endorsed Burns (about as far-right of an extremist as you can find-he's called for the arrest of parents of transgendered children), but it was Biggs who ultimately won the nomination. Across the country in Colorado, Trump bet big on controversial State Party Chair Dave Williams in the 5th district, but Williams also lost, here to talk radio host Jeff Crank. This is a bad look for Trump, and it could get worse. The one major race from last night that is not yet called is a battle between incumbent Rep. Celeste Maloy and telecommunications executive Colby Jenkins in Utah. Maloy is the incumbent, and so Trump got behind her, but she's in a tight battle that we'll have to wait into today to see how it turns out. Either way, it's embarrassing. Counting an incumbent winning as your sole "victory" for your endorsements is pathetic, but if she loses, it's a fourth major strike against the power of Trump's endorsements in Republican primaries.
I would also just like to note here that Crank's win was one of a few major victories for the Republicans in Colorado last night. While Democrats largely had a quiet night, Republicans (save for Boebert) went with the more palatable general election option not just in the 5th (taking it off the map as a theoretical pickup), but also in the competitive 3rd and 8th districts. They also performed well in the special election to finish Buck's term (Rep-Elect Greg Lopez matched Donald Trump's numbers from 2020, not an easy thing to do for the GOP lately). Republicans may not win the 3rd or 8th in November (that will depend on the top-of-the-ticket...Democrats also have good candidates there), but they definitely came to play.
 |
| State Sen. Katrina Shealy (R-SC) |
We talked last week about how many gains Democratic women would see in November in the House, and one of the wild cards was how they would do in competitive primaries. Last night, we got the answer in two key seats, and in both cases the Democratic woman lost. The biggest loss for those hoping to expand Democratic numbers was in the 22nd district. Currently held by Rep. Brandon Williams, after redistricting this is a seat that went for Joe Biden by more than 11-points, and the Democrats are favored to take the contest regardless of who won last night's election (i.e. a good place to grow the numbers if Democratic women got involved). But Sarah Klee Hood, an air force veteran, wasn't able to win against State Sen. John Mannion, who easily dispatched her and will be the favorite against Williams later this year. A similar story occurred in the 1st district, a Long Island seat that went to President Trump by less than 2-points. There, journalist John Avlon bested Professor Nancy Goroff in the primary, despite Goroff's endorsement from Emily's List. Side note here, but this one pisses me off as a Democrat given Avlon's involvement in the No Labels organization (which at one point this year was a potential threat to the Biden campaign)...I don't normally get partisan in these "5 Thoughts" articles, but I will not lie-I was hoping Goroff would win here as I don't like Avlon. Either way-two potential spots for Democratic women to make gains in the House did not materialize last night.
That said, it wasn't nearly as depressing for women as what happened in South Carolina. State Sen. Katrina Shealy lost the Republican Primary runoff to hold her seat. Shealy lost for her support of abortion rights. In 2023, Shealy, along with State Sens. Penry Gustafson & Sandy Senn (all Republican women), staged a filibuster alongside Democrats to preserve abortion rights in South Carolina. Both Gustafson & Senn had lost their seats in the initial primaries, and with Shealy gone, all three of these women who defied their party to protect women's reproductive rights in the Palmetto State have lost reelection. This means that the South Carolina State Senate will have no Republican women in 2025, a damning and really gruesome look for the state given that these three women all lost their reelection trying to protect their own rights.
 |
| Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) |
As I stated above, the next big political events will be in the presidential election, a series of key moments including the first debate, the GOP VP announcement, the political conventions (held weirdly far apart), and Donald Trump's felony sentencing. But that doesn't mean we don't have some important primaries left on the calendar, and two stand out on August 6th. The big buzz this morning was around Rep. Cori Bush. I talked about this in our Bowman article, but the parallels between Bush and Bowman are intriguing. Both are Squad members who have taken a robust Pro-Palestine stance (and as a result, have attracted heavy involvement in their races from AIPAC), and both have taken on scandals (including legal issues). They also both voted against President Biden's signature legislative achievement (the infrastructure bill), which in Bowman's case was used heavily against him in the primary, and I suspect Bush might be regretting that vote at this point as it's hard not to see it haunting her as well. There are two key differences between the two, though, that should give people pause before assuming Bush is DOA. First, Bush is in a much different district. Unlike NY-16, the electorate of MO-1's Democratic primary will be majority African-American. If Bush can win Black voters, she'll win reelection. Secondly, it'll be easier for Bush to go after her opponent Wesley Bell from his left than Bowman. George Latimer is an institution in NY-16, a Democratic office-holder for decades who is known by pretty much everyone in the seat...calling him a secret Republican was not going to work. But Bell has less Democratic bonafides. Despite being a Democrat and St. Louis prosecutor, he's got a pretty checkered background for such a blue seat, having managed a Republican House campaign in 2006 and given money to Republican candidates in 2006 & 2010. I'll be honest-as someone who has been leery personally of both Bowman/Bush's politics, I would've been an easy sell to go for Latimer...I'd need more information on Bell given I don't want to risk endorsing a Jeff van Drew-style candidate by accident. If Bush is smart, this will be a key focus of her campaign over the next few weeks to lean in on voters like me (but not actually me-I don't live in the district) who aren't necessarily fans of hers, but think Bell might be too risky to abandon her this year.
The other race I'm watching is in Washington's 4th congressional district. This is a solidly red seat, but it features one of just two Republican House incumbents who voted to impeach Donald Trump in 2021 that still sit in the House: Dan Newhouse. The issue here is that the primary (a blanket primary where all candidates, regardless of party, compete and the top two advance) is a mess. Newhouse is running (and it should be noted, with AIPAC support), but Donald Trump has endorsed former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler. The problem for Sessler (and Trump by proxy) is that Tiffany Smiley, who was the Republican nominee for the Senate in 2022, was a late entry into the race, and is also running to Newhouse's right. It's hard to tell which Democrat is the leader here, but given that Joe Biden got 39% of the vote here in the 4th in 2020, I would assume at least one Democrat (if they don't split the vote) gets to the general. With this many candidates, arguably Newhouse is in a position where a splintered field might get him to the general election, but against whom? And if it's against Sessler or Smiley in the general, how does he run given he'll likely have to win largely with Democratic voters in a red district? We'll find out at least some of these answers in a few weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment