5 Thoughts on Tuesday's Elections

I have been a total lazy bones this week (I have no excuse other than laziness and mild depression, which is likely the cause of said laziness), and I have gotten a bit behind in my articles (and really all aspects of my life).  So we're going to play a catchup today with at least one article (with an eye on 2-3 this weekend), and do an article we normally do on a Wednesday-talking about this week's primaries.  The flurry of excitement for the Harris/Walz ticket meant I missed some key contests on Tuesday, and didn't want to leave you without my thoughts on one of the final election days before November.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO)

1. Cori Bush Becomes Second House Democrat to Lose Reelection

Roughly six weeks after her colleague and fellow Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman lost reelection in New York, Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri lost to St. Louis County Attorney Wesley Bell in the 1st congressional district primary, encompassing the metro area of St. Louis.  The primary here is tantamount to a general election (Joe Biden won this seat in 2020 by 62-points), so Bell is guaranteed a seat in the next Congress.  Bush, similar to Bowman, was heavily critical of Israel's role in Gaza, and drew controversy for refusing to refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization.  However, similar to Bowman, while Bush's defenders are certainly claiming that AIPAC and spending on Bell's behalf cost her her seat, I think the bigger problem might've been Bush not taking care of her district.  She was deeply criticized for having poor constituent services and being one of the most absent members of the US House (she missed 241 votes from January 2023 to July 2024, which puts her as one of the worst records in Congress).  She also voted against the Joe Biden's Infrastructure bill, which was a huge focus in the campaign.  Bush did this symbolically (she knew it would pass, and also was trying to point out gaps from the left on it), but given both she and Bowman voted against the bill...you have to wonder if this was a really foolish move as it gave other Democrats ads pointing out how they were against President Biden's most popular legislative achievement.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)

2. Ilhan Omar Comes to Bat

There is one more member of the Squad that is still facing a tough challenge, and we will see her next week.  After Bush & Bowman, Rep. Ilhan Omar (first elected in 2018) is the third member of the Squad getting a headline-grabbing primary, this time from Minneapolis City Councilman Don Samuels.  However, I think Omar is likely to survive, and may even do so by a wide margin.  There are a few reasons for this.  First, she's already beaten Samuels (she beat him in 2022 when he ran his first primary challenge against her).  Second, she doesn't have as much outside money going against her-AIPAC and other Israel-aligned PAC's are not spending much here like they did against Bowman & Bush.  This might be because (third) Omar is more popular than the other two.  Polling shows she's in a good position to beat Samuels, whereas polling showed both Bush & Bowman were in deep trouble heading into election night.  And finally, Omar has learned from her mistakes.  Omar spent her first couple of years getting criticized for prioritizing her newfound fame (she was featured in a Maroon 5 music video and did Twitch streams with internet celebrities) over her constituents (she missed 40 votes in her first year in office).  But since then, she took the "you need to pay attention to your district" criticism to heart.  She rarely misses House votes now (she's missed 12 this year, which is still not as stellar as some, but hardly noteworthy in the way it was for Bush), and she has made a point of improving constituent outreach and doing local events (I live in the Twin Cities...she is always at local events in her district, and not just in Minneapolis which was also an initial criticism).  She also was an early endorser of both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (unlike other members of the Squad who made Biden work for his support, and in the case of Rashida Tlaib, have yet to endorse Kamala Harris).  In a lot of ways she's modeled another Squad member (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), and I think will be rewarded for it with a fourth term, even if her voting record on Israel (and the Biden Infrastructure Bill) match that of Bowman & Bush.

State Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI)

3. Michigan Sets the Stage for Control of Congress

In Michigan, we saw several swing races shift into general election mode for November.  Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D) and former Rep. Mike Rogers (R) went from being the frontrunners to the actual nominees in the race for control of the Senate seat in Michigan currently held by Debbie Stabenow (D).  Polling shows a tight race, but one where Slotkin generally has a mild lead; her very warm embrace of the Harris-Walz ticket in Detroit yesterday underlined what many suspected-Slotkin didn't want to have to share a ticket with Joe Biden.  It will be crucial for Democrats to get her a victory in November if they have any chance of winning the Senate.

In the House, Michigan has a handful of competitive races that are now settled.  The 7th district was pro forma (they faced no opposition), as State Sen. Curtis Hertel, Jr. (D) will face State Sen. Tom Barrett (R); polling had showed, before Joe Biden had left the race, Barrett gaining a lead on Hertel.  We'll see if that changes with Harris & Slotkin (this is her old district) at the top of the ticket, but this is a must-win seat for Democrats.  The same can be said for Dan Kildee's swingy, open 8th district, where a competitive primary chose State Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet to face Trump-endorsed news anchor Paul Junge.  Like the 7th, this is a district that Biden won by a small margin in 2020, and will be one to monitor in November.  Emily's List, which didn't get behind McDonald Rivet in the primary, will certainly help her in the general.

Commissioner Hilary Franz D-WA) 

4. Dan Newhouse Survives, Hilary Franz Falls

Most of the fall has been pretty decent news for Trump-endorsed candidates (though it's cheating when he's endorsing 2-3 people in races, which has become the case recently).  But that won't be the case in the general election in November for Washington's 4th congressional district.  Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of only two Republicans to have voted to impeach Donald Trump for his involvement in the January 6th terrorist attacks, will advance to the general election against a fellow Republican, Navy veteran Jerrod Sessler (Washington has a jungle primary system where the top two advance regardless of party).  Given that Newhouse stood against Trump (even if he's otherwise conservative), he's going to get virtually every Democratic vote in November, and combined with moderate Republicans, he will be the favorite for reelection as Trump will not have much time to campaign in Washington, which is not a swing state, even if he clearly wants Newhouse out-of-office.  How long Newhouse, who is 69, wants to keep up this dance is anyone's guess, but he looks like he'll be back in Congress in January based on Tuesday's results.

Elsewhere in Washington, the big tale wasn't the rematch in the one competitive partisan House race of 2024 (pitting Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D) against far-right Army Officer Joe Kent (R) in one of the most important races for control of the House), but what was happening with State Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz.  Franz had left her seat to run for Congress (the open seat currently held by Rep. Derek Kilmer), but lost to State Sen. Emily Randall (who, given the blueness of this district, will be headed to DC as the first lesbian Latina in Congress).  Franz leaving the Public Lands Commissioner role open has caused intense problems for the Democrats, though.  Former Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R) will advance to the Top 2 in the seat, but due to a large number of Democrats running, it is a race between utility manager Sue Kuehl Pederson (R) and King County Councilman Dave Upthegrove (D) for the second spot.  Upthegrove is behind by less than 200 votes as I write this, but is expected to close the gap and likely ends up advancing to the general (where he'll be the heavy favorite), but this was needlessly competitive, and given Franz's failure to beat Randall, pointlessly so.

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D-MN)

5. Peggy Flanagan Takes Center Stage

This is not related to the elections, but is related to Tuesday.  With Gov. Tim Walz running for vice president, his office is essentially on the ballot in November.  Were Walz to win, his LG Peggy Flanagan (D) would assume the governorship.  Flanagan ran as a ticket with Walz, and they are longtime friends & allies, and has taken on an increasingly public role in recent years, likely setting up her own run in 2026 even before Walz joined the ticket.  Flanagan would be the first woman to serve as Governor of Minnesota, and the first Native American woman to serve as governor of any state.

Flanagan's assumption of this office also heads off a potentially combative fight for the position.  Walz is constitutionally allowed to run for a third term, but no Minnesota governor has ever successfully pulled this off, and quite frankly (it sounds like from the VP interviews) he was ready to retire if he didn't get the VP spot.  Flanagan becoming the governor would basically end any chance of a Democratic primary.  She would've been a strong probability to run, but other major names in the state (Secretary of State Steve Simon, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey) would've been in contention.  This is a sigh-of-relief for mainstream DFL-ers (i.e. me) who were worried that Ellison or Frey would be formidable in a Democratic Primary but would not be able to win a general election (a worry I don't have about Flanagan), though it does make Simon's (the Democrat in 2022 who had the best electoral performance and arguably the best chance the DFL has of getting a fifth consecutive term as governor) decision to not run for Congress this year look kind of foolish, since now he has no obvious openings for the remainder of the decade to get a promotion.