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Portland

Mayor

Rene Gonzalez vs. Mingus Mapps vs. Liv Osthus vs. Carmen Rubio vs. Keith Wilson vs. others

Round 1: Wilson 40.3%, Rubio 26.5%, Gonzalez 21.3%, Mapps 15.3%, Osthus 7.8% | Round 19: Wilson 59.2%, Rubio 40.8% | Wilson wins

This will be the first Portland mayoral election to use ranked-choice voting, which would have been really nice in 2020 when that would’ve elected a progressive mayor. As it is, four candidates have risen to the top of the Portland mayoral field.

Starting on the right, we have Rene Gonzalez, a Portland City Commissioner elected in the city’s right-leaning 2022 election cycle. Gonzalez came into office on crime fearmongering and little else, and that’s what his mayoral campaign has consisted of. The headline most voters will see in the closing days of the election might be this story about how Gonzalez broke the law by using taxpayer money to edit his Wikipedia page, which is not the closing pitch you want.

Also on the right, but slightly less so than Gonzalez, is his colleague Mingus Mapps. Mapps is, make no mistake, part of the same conservative/moderate council majority as Gonzalez, but he’s not as bad as Gonzalez, and he’s consequently lost a lot of the traditional moderate endorsements to Gonzalez–the police and firefighters’ unions and business PACs are backing Gonzalez, not Mapps.

Somewhere in between Mapps and the next candidate is Keith Wilson, a quirky nonprofit founder and trucking industry executive. His policies are mostly progressive and urbanist, with a focus on transit; the one big red flag is his railing against drug decriminalization.

Just for fun, stripper Liv Osthus, aka Viva Las Vegas, is adding a performer’s flair to the race. She’ll probably be eliminated fairly early on in RCV, but, hey, that’s fun, we like when colorful characters run for office.

Finally, progressives have their candidate in Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio. Most of organized labor, the Oregon WFP, and Gov. Tina Kotek have thrown their support to Rubio.

We could see any of these candidates except Osthus winning election as mayor of Portland, honestly, but the frontrunner is probably Gonzalez and the best hope is Rubio.

Council

Believe us, we do take it as a positive that Portland is scrapping its old system of at-large commissioner seats, but did the replacement have to be so complicated? The new council will be elected via four districts, with each district electing three candidate, on the same ballot, using the single transferable vote system from a top 6 ranking by voters. We’re going to say who the moderates (United for Portland) and progressives (Portland for All) want and move on.

District 1

Winners: Avalos, Smith, Jamie Dunphy

United for Portland: Noah Ernst, Terrence Hayes, Loretta Smith

Portland for All: Candace Avalos, Timur Ender, Steph Routh

District 2

Winners: Ryan, Kanal, Pirtle-Guiney

United for Portland: James Armstrong, Mariah Hudson, Tiffani Penson, Dan Ryan, Bob Simril

Portland for All: Michelle DePass, Marnie Glickman, Sameer Kanal, Debbie Kitchin, Nast West

Both: Elana Pirtle-Guiney

District 3

Winners: Novick, Koyama Lane, Morillo

United for Portland: Rex Burkholder, Jesse Cornett, Daniel DeMelo, Steve Novick, Kezia Wanner

Portland for All: Chris Flanary, Tiffany Koyama Lane, Angelita Morillo, Ahlam Osman, Luke Zak

District 4

Winners: Clark, Green, Zimmerman

United for Portland: Eli Arnold, Olivia Clark, Ben Hufford, Tony Morse, Stan Penkin, Eric Zimmerman

Portland for All: Lisa Freeman, Mitch Green, Chad Lykins, Sarah Silkie

Washington

All block quotes are from our August preview unless otherwise indicated.

WA-09 (Seattle and southern suburbs)

Adam Smith (i) vs. Melissa Chaudhry

Round 1: Smith 53.8%, Chaudhry 20.7%

Result (>95% in): Smith 65.5%, Chaudhry 32.1% | Smith wins

Rep. Adam Smith will win another term, but, as in 2018, he was weak enough in the primary for another Democrat, progressive Melissa Chaudhry, to make the November election instead of a Republican. Smith has never faced a progressive with the resources and backing to give him a real challenge, but how well Chaudhry does with her limited budget may still augur the prospects of a future challenge. Chaudhry is a mixture of pro-Palestinian candidate and deficit hawk who has collected the usual lefty endorsement list in the Seattle area, as well as four official Democratic legislative district caucuses, and progressive state Sen. Yasmin Trudeau. The big number to watch is 32.1%. That’s what Sarah Smith, the socialist who ran against Adam Smith in 2018, pulled in the November election that year.

Superintendent of Public Instruction

Chris Reykdal (i) vs. David Olson

Result (>95% in): Reykdal 52.85%, Olson 46.5% | Reykdal wins

Round 1: Reykdal 39.3%, Olson 31.2%

Uncontroversial liberal incumbent Chris Reykdal survived a challenge from well-funded charter school-adjacent tech guy Reid Saaris in August, with Saaris placing third. As his reward, Reykdal gets an easy general election against open right-winger David Olson, a member of the Gig Harbor school board.

Supreme Court, Position 2

Sal Mungia vs. David Larson

Round 1: Mungia 43.4%, Larson 36.5%

Result (>95% in): Mungia 50.1%, Larson 49.4% | Too close to call

It’s important that liberal Sal Mungia defeats conservative David Larson and keeps the state Supreme Court’s liberal majority at full strength. Thankfully, Larson is running openly as a conservative, so the Democratic lean of Washington should kick in and get Mungia over the finish line.

LD-22 (Olympia)

Senate: Jessica Bateman vs. Bob Iyall

Round 1: Bateman 68.3%, Iyall 20.5%

Result (>95% in): Bateman 70.55%, Iyall 27.4% | Bateman wins

State Rep. Jessica Bateman is a lock for Olympia’s state Senate seat. Nisqually tribal elder Bob Iyall made the runoff, but Bateman’s first-round supermajority should hold.

House, Position 2: Lisa Parshley vs. Syd Locke

Round 1: Parshley 63.05%, Locke 33.5%

Result (>95% in): Parshley 62.5%, Locke 34.7% | Parshley wins

Olympia City Councilor Lisa Parshley is likewise a pretty safe bet for Bateman’s open House seat, but socialist state legislative staffer Syd Locke came closer than Iyall did to Bateman; if nothing else, his performance can serve as a gauge of how left-wing Olympia is.

LD-27 (Tacoma)

House, Position 2: Jake Fey (i) vs. Devin Rydel Kelly

Round 1: Fey 70.2%, Kelly 26.95%

Result (>95% in): Fey 76.0%, Kelly 22.2% | Fey wins

This election is another beauty pageant primary—only incumbent Jake Fey and progressive/socialist challenger Devin Rydel Kelly are on the ballot, meaning they will both advance to November, and the only value of the results here will be letting us know how the race is going.

The results in August let us know that centrist Democrat Jake Fey is an overwhelming favorite for another term, as cool as Devin Rydel Kelly may seem.

LD-29 (Tacoma and suburbs)

House, Position 1: Melanie Morgan (i) vs. Richard Miller

Round 1: Morgan 67.5%, Miller 26.9%

Result (>95% in): Morgan 68.7%, Miller 28.2% | Morgan wins

This is also a beauty pageant primary, this time between staff-abusing incumbent Melanie Morgan, and Richard Miller, a realtor who promises to not do that.

Well, those are your choices. An incumbent who collects ethics investigations like trophies and…some realtor. Miller does have endorsements from a number of local politicians, but it’s very hard to see him coming back from that Round 1 performance.

LD-38 (Everett)

House, Position 1: Julio Cortes (i) vs. Annie Fitzgerald

Round 1: Cortes 61.1%, Fitzgerald 20.0%

Result (>95% in): Cortes 71.1%, Fitzgerald 25.5% | Cortes wins

Progressive state Rep. Julio Cortes faces no-budget challengers Annie Fitzgerald and Bryce Nickel, who each also position themselves on the left but lack the resources to pose a threat to Cortes.

Fitzgerald won the runoff spot, and the fundamentals of this race haven’t changed at all since August.

LD-43 (Central Seattle)

House, Position 2: Shaun Scott vs. Andrea Suarez

Round 1: Scott 59.1%, Suarez 20.2%

Result (>95% in): Scott 68.5%, Suarez 30.7% | Scott wins

Five years after narrowly losing a Seattle City Council seat to moderate Alex Pedersen, socialist activist Shaun Scott is back in the electoral arena, and this time he looks like a solid favorite. [...] His main opponent is obvious right-winger Andrea Suarez, who is fundraising well but faces the likely insurmountable obstacle of pretty obviously being a Republican in all but name. 

With a 59-20 blowout for Scott, the first round proved that he’s a solid favorite, but the moderate faction of Seattle isn’t entirely willing to let this one go. Famously left-hating newspaper The Seattle Times has endorsed Juarez, and the building trades unions are working to elect her as well.

LD-45 (Eastern Seattle suburbs)

House, Position 2: Larry Springer (i) vs. Melissa Demyan

Round 1: Springer 49.3%, Demyan 47.9%

Result (>95% in): Springer 55.7%, Demyan 42.1% | Springer wins

This beauty pageant primary pits moderate charter school supporter Larry Springer against Melissa Demyan, who was endorsed by the King County Democrats, likely as a result of them finally having enough of his shit after 20 years.

The primary showed us a dead heat between Springer and Demyan, confirming that this is Washington’s marquee Dem-on-Dem race of 2024. Demyan, a union organizer with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, has amassed a coalition that includes not only Democratic Party organs but also Planned Parenthood’s political arm and most of organized labor, even including the generally conservative building trades. Springer isn’t without important supporters of his own—the Seattle Times, with the headline “the Legislature needs moderates,” endorsed Springer over Demyan; a lot of local officials and some labor unions are sticking by their longtime legislator as well. It’s clear to both sides of this race that the progressive Demyan has a chance at unseating the moderate Springer.

Seattle Council At-Large Pos. 8 (special election)

Tanya Woo (i) vs. Alexis Mercedes Rinck

Round 1: Rinck 50.2%, Woo 38.4%

Result (>95% in): Rinck 58.2%, Woo 41.4% | Rinck wins

Tanya Woo was last seen losing an unexpectedly close race to progressive District 2 councilor Tammy Morales in 2023. The founder of the Chinatown-International District Community Watch impressed Seattle’s dominant moderate faction so much that when progressive at-large city councilor Teresa Mosqueda won a seat on the King County Council, the moderates on the Seattle City Council chose to appoint Woo to the vacant at-large seat. Woo, a business owner, is a moderate through and through, and eventually opted to recuse herself from a vote on rescinding the city’s minimum wage for gig workers after the city’s ethics director advised her that her father-in-law’s ownership of a restaurant which contracted with app-based gig work delivery companies created a conflict of interest. Progressives are still sore over Woo’s appointment and their rough 2023 cycle more generally, and they see Alexis Mercedes Rinck as their best shot at beginning to rebuild the council’s once-powerful progressive bloc. [...] Rinck is the only one who commits to progressive tax hikes to avoid cutting city services, and she’s the only one with widespread support from progressive Seattle politicians and organizations, including a handful of labor unions evidently dissatisfied with Woo.

Well, Alexis Mercedes Rinck did more than just hold the incumbent below 50%—she cleared 50% herself, as the challenger. She’s also kept even with Woo financially, including outside spending—one of Seattle progressives’ own PACs, Progressive People Power PAC, has been spending enough to counter PAC spending from the state realtors’ association and other business interests. And a late poll from Change Research for the Rinck-supporting Northwest Progressive Institute finds the challenger leading Woo 52%-28%. It’s hard to see Woo coming back from all of this—which means Seattle progressives, who have had a rough couple of election cycles, should be able to claw back this council seat.

CA-12 (East Bay, including Oakland)

Lateefah Simon vs. Jennifer Tran

Round 1: Simon 56.0%, Tran 14.7%

After Barbara Lee opted to run for Senate rather than reelection to Congress, a rare moment of unity in East Bay politics was achieved when progressives, leftists, labor, and the Oakland establishment all quickly agreed that her successor should be BART Board member Lateefah Simon—not a hard choice considering she’s also clearly Lee’s chosen successor. Not on the same page as everybody else were the moderates, who ended up stuck with Jennifer Tran after she was the moderate candidate who happened to make it out of the primary. Tran has run a rhetorically right-wing campaign that’s absolutely toast in the left-leaning East Bay, and that’s about all there is to say here. Simon, a down-the-line progressive, will succeed Lee and likely provide the same excellent quality of representation as the outgoing incumbent.

CA-16 (Silicon Valley)

Sam Liccardo vs. Evan Low

Round 1: Liccardo 21.2%, Low 16.6%

Sam Liccardo is the former mayor of San Jose, a pro-business type who built his career on going to war with the public employee unions. Liccardo has since built up an image as a good government urbanist type, but he shouldn’t be trusted with public employee pensions ever, and Congress obviously handles those. Somehow, he’s marginally better on Israel-Palestine than most candidates in this race.

Evan Low is the assemblymember for Silicon Valley, and, predictably, a Big Tech mouthpiece. It makes some of the other good positions he’s taken harder to accept.

Of course Silicon Valley wasn’t going to nominate a progressive, but did both options have to be so uninspiring? The runoff has been marked by the CA Dems and organized labor going to the mat for Low, while Silicon Valley billionaires are trying to push Liccardo over the line. That’s not what we expected the contours of the race to be when the runoff match was finally set. Uber mouthpiece Evan Low somehow not being the candidate friendliest to Silicon Valley interests is surprising…and depressing. Low also surprised us by coming out against tough-on-crime ballot measure Proposition 36. Internal polling from Low ally Equality California has Liccardo ahead 48%-45%, and we guess we hope Low pulls it out.

CA-34 (Downtown Los Angeles)

Jimmy Gomez (i) vs. David Kim

Round 1: Gomez 51.15%, Kim 27.9%

Jimmy Gomez and David Kim are now on their third straight runoff. Gomez, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus but by no means an ideological standout, especially by the standards of downtown Los Angeles, defeated Kim by a 53%-47% margin in 2020 and a 51%-49% margin in 2022, making it the 19th closest general election in the House, and by far the closest same-party contest. Kim is a socialist who has woven together a coalition of young progressives and the large Korean and Chinese communities in the district. 

Kim is, like last cycle, running on a mixture of big lefty policy proposals like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, and ideas that are less associated with the left specifically, like UBI and public campaign financing. As has happened around the country, it's Kim’s progressiveness on two specific areas that have begun shaping the contest in the closing stretch. One is Israel-Palestine, as AIPAC seemingly realized around October that there was a pro-BDS gay leftist with a shot at making it to Congress, and began airing ads against him. The other is cryptocurrency: Gomez is largely pro-crypto, and the industry hasn’t been shy about showering its friends with money. AIPAC’s $2.3 million represents a majority of all money spent in the contest, but even the $511,000 from crypto industry front Protect Progress is more money than Kim has raised this entire cycle. Kim is facing enormous headwinds, but his primarily volunteer operation got him tantalizingly close in 2020 and 2022, so he shouldn't be counted out.

SD-07 (East Bay, including Oakland)

Jesse Arreguín vs. Jovanka Beckles

Round 1: Arreguín 32.5%, Beckles 17.3%

Progressives, a coherent faction with real power in the East Bay, are supporting activist Jovanka Beckles, a socialist who previously ran for state house in 2018, and is endorsed by the DSA this year. The YIMBY/moderate alliance that exists in San Francisco isn’t as well solidified in the East Bay, but both sides of the equation are probably looking at the same candidate: Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín, who is getting YIMBYs because he’s been an actual YIMBY mayor, and moderates because they’re going to want whoever is running against a progressive. 

While Arreguín did finish well above Beckles in the first round, a majority of voters went for another candidate, meaning Beckles has had ample opportunity to make up ground in the runoff. While there have been some promising developments for her, most notably US Senator Bernie Sanders making an endorsement for her, things have been pretty quiet on the trail for most of the year, which isn’t what you want as a candidate when you’re starting down. Also not helpful to Beckles is current SD-07 senator Nancy Skinner endorsing Arreguín. A Beckles win would be fantastic news for the East Bay left, given the total statewide establishment support for Arreguín, including Gavin Newsom, but not enough has broken her way since the primary for us to be particularly hopeful. 

SD-09 (Contra Costa County)

Tim Grayson vs. Marisol Rubio

Round 1: Grayson 60.0%, Rubio 40.0%

Beauty pageant primaries tend to get pretty close to the final result, which is a bad sign for progressive Marisol Rubio. Rubio, who has previously challenged retiring conservative Democratic state Sen. Steve Glazer, is progressives’ pick to succeed him, but moderate, Glazer-backed Assemb. Tim Grayson appears to have a formidable advantage. Progressive independent expenditure groups have largely abandoned Rubio.

SD-35 (Compton and South LA)

Laura Richardson vs. Michelle Chambers

Round 1: Richardson 27.8%, Chambers 24.5%

California is absolutely lousy with retired congressfreaks with nothing better to do than run for lower office. One of those is Laura Richardson (CA-37, 2007-2013). Her endorsements page is conspicuously free of former congressional colleagues, maybe because she left office under an ethical cloud after losing a nasty member-on-member race with Janice Hahn, who is now a LA County Supervisor. [...] And they’re all fighting for the right to lose to Michelle Chambers, the leader in fundraising and endorsements and a former staffer to AG Rob Bonta. Since Chambers is also the only candidate whose bio and platform don’t throw up any obvious red flags, we’re fine with this. (If we had to guess, the runoff will be with Richardson.)

Well, we were right about the final match-up, but we didn’t expect how poorly Chambers was going to show in the first round. Since then, we’ve thankfully gotten more information to ideologically distinguish the two candidates. Chambers has been embraced by the progressive wing of the party, including the Sierra Club and the Working Families Party. That has been perhaps surprising to see, when Chambers supports Gavin Newsom’s plan to criminalize homelessness, but it makes more sense in contrast to how tightly Richardson has been clinging to police unions lately.

The race has turned nasty in the final stretch, with both candidates devoted a page of their website to listing every negative angle they can think of regarding their opponents. Chambers highlights Richardson’s corruption, while Richardson seemingly mostly wants voters to know that Compton sucks and Chambers used to be a city councilmember there, though Richardson does also bring up an old criminal conviction of Chambers’s and an allegation that Chambers used a racial slur in a closed-door city council meeting, which Chambers denies.

Richardson is, unfortunately, no longer an underdog, thanks to LA Mayor Karen Bass and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, who have thrown their support behind Richardson and remain popular in Los Angeles.

AD-14 (Berkeley and Richmond)

Buffy Wicks (i) vs. Margot Smith

Round 1: Wicks 73.6%, Smith 16.7%

Buffy Wicks may not have been the first YIMBY politician in California, but her 2018 victory was the first sign that the Housing Wars had moved beyond San Francisco and were going to be a regular fixture of Bay Area politics for the foreseeable future. The Housing Wars may still be raging, but Wicks has won as far as her own future goes. There’s no other way to interpret her only opposition this year being a 92-year-old activist, who, to be fair, seems cool when she’s not talking about apartments being too tall and not having enough parking.

It’s a question of whether Buffy Wicks can break 80%. This one’s boring.

AD-19 (Western San Francisco)

David Lee vs. Catherine Stefani

Round 1: Stefani 57.0%, Lee 29.0%

This might have been a heated battle for Phil Ting’s Assembly seat–might have been, until the March primary, when moderate San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani stomped Lee’s chosen successor David Lee by nearly thirty points and won a comfortable majority. In all likelihood, November’s election is just going to make it official for Stefani.

(Correction: In the initial version of this issue we switched Lee and Stefani’s vote shares in the first round. Stefani, not Lee, won the first round comfortably.)

AD-23 (Silicon Valley)

Marc Berman vs. Lydia Kou

Round 1: Berman 57.4%, Kou 21.0%

Assemb. Marc Berman is a pretty standard Democratic backbencher, but Palo Alto Mayor (and realtor) Lydia Kou is running quite explicitly on her opposition to her rich enclave ever having to build housing for a single poor person. Her signature issue as a city councilor has been trying to find ways to disobey state laws mandating affordable housing development.

That March result was the ballgame. A single-issue candidate who got a meager 21% isn’t going anywhere, especially not when their opponent got 57% in the same primary.

AD-26 (Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Cupertino)

Patrick Ahrens vs. Tara Sreekrishnan

Round 1: Ahrens 34.4%, Sreekrishnan 26.9%

Three Democrats are facing off in a heavily Democratic district, and only two will make the runoff. Who will be left behind? Will it be longtime staffer to outgoing Assemb. Evan Low, Patrick Ahrens? Sure, Low has endorsed Ahrens, but his campaign is coasting on being the safe choice and letting Uber run ads for him. In a young, quirky district, it can pay to stand out, and Ahrens would rather try his hand at being acceptable to everyone. Will the unlucky Democrat left behind be Sunnyvale City Councilmember Omar Din? That’s the popular opinion—he trails in fundraising and was the only Democrat left out of the labor endorsement in this race. Or, finally, will it be Santa Clara County Board of Education member Tara Sreekrishnan? As the most progressive candidate, she’s putting herself at risk in Silicon Valley, and her position was only an appointment, not the result of facing voters before.

Progressives knew that this election was going to be tough from the get-go. Incumbent Evan Low is clearly a moderate, and he never faced any trouble from his left. Progressives are sticking their necks out trying to grab a wealthy South Bay district, and they’ve even managed to get their candidate to nearly even funding with PG&E pointman Patrick Ahrens in terms of actual campaign contributions. But the utility giant has dropped millions on an independent expenditure campaign against her. The last week of this campaign has been dominated by a video of her egging a family friend’s car three years ago, for some reason.

AD-50 (San Bernardino area)

Robert Garcia vs. Adam Perez

Round 1: Garcia 42.4%, Perez 29.3%

Progressives have split in this district, which is fine because Republicans failed to field a candidate before the filing deadline (though they do have an official write-in candidate, technically.) Outgoing Assemb. Eloise Gómez Reyes, the California Legislative Progressive Caucus, the California Democratic Party, and teachers’ unions are backing school administrator Robert Garcia, while the Working Families Party and the bulk of organized labor are backing nurse and union activist DeJonaé Shaw. Shaw has far more money in her campaign account to work with, plus an independent expenditure campaign on her behalf, so she should make the runoff before Garcia does, and probably before the race’s lone moderate, Fontana Unified School District Board member Adam Perez, as well. But, I mean, good Lord are corporate PACs spending a lot to elect Perez. And of course Blanca Rubio is supporting him, too.

Ah, well, nevertheless. We’re not going to take a Garcia victory for granted, but Garcia has the entire Democratic party behind him, and Perez hasn’t had the good sense to not basically admit that he’s running as a Republican.

AD-52 (East Los Angeles, Silver Lake, Eagle Rock)

Jessica Caloza vs. Francisco Carrillo Jr.

Round 1: Caloza 29.8%, Carrillo 26.2%

[…] That leaves us with two more palatable options: Jessica Caloza, deputy chief of staff to AG Rob Bonta, who even has some noteworthy progressive endorsements like Assembs. Alex Lee, Isaac Bryan, and Tina McKinnor; and Franky Carrillo, who became a criminal justice reform advocate after his 2011 exoneration and release from prison, twenty years after his wrongful conviction for a murder he did not commit. The local DSA city councilmember, Eunisses Hernandez, is backing Carrillo; so is Exonerated Five member and New York City Council Member Yusef Salaam, who, like Carrillo, spent years in prison for a crime he did not commit before turning his eye to politics. Meanwhile, business PACs backed by Uber, Google, and Chevron are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for Caloza. Carrillo it is!

Not long after the primary, Carrillo’s star began to lose its luster. His wife filed for divorce and alleged worrying behavior from him, including leaving loaded guns around his children, kicking the family dog, and sexist attitudes towards her. He also had to dump nearly $1 million of oil and tobacco stocks mid-campaign after activists noticed he still owned them despite divestment commitments. It hasn’t been enough to shake the faith of his progressive endorsers—sometimes politics is more about who you throw in with than anything else. Regardless, we’ll feel less bad if Caloza takes this one than we could have.

AD-54 (Downtown LA, Montebello)

Mark Gonzalez vs. John Yi

Round 1: Gonzalez 45.2%, Yi 34.5%

Los Angeles County Democratic Party Chair Mark Gonzalez probably should’ve gotten a stronger primary result than he did, considering his near-unanimous backing from the Democratic establishment and organized labor, and that’s why there’s a tiny sliver of hope for progressive John Yi. Yi is badly outmatched financially and in terms of endorsements, but he’s backed by the network of progressive organizations and politicians who have pulled off impressive underdog wins again and again in LA over the last few years. Combine that with an open district in young, left-leaning downtown LA, and you’ve got a race to watch.

AD-57 (Downtown LA, Florence-Graham)

Efren Martinez vs. Sade Elhawary

Round 1: Martinez 32.7%, Elhawary 31.1%

One runoff spot is likely reserved for Efren Martinez, a conservative Democrat who outpaced outgoing Assemb. Reggie Jones-Sawyer in the 2020 March primary and lost to him by a respectable 15-point margin that November. Three candidates could realistically snag the other runoff spot. First, there’s YIMBY Dulce Vasquez, who could never quite decide whether she was a progressive or a centrist in her 2022 run against LA City Councilman Curren Price, and who suffers from the same problem this time around. Longtime civil rights activist Greg Akili and community organizer Sade Elhawary are vying for dominance in the progressive lane, and Elhawary, simply put, has won that fight, well outpacing Akili in fundraising and endorsements and winning over the large segment of the LA establishment that just doesn’t like Martinez. She is Martinez’s likeliest opponent.

Despite Martinez’s poor relationship with the LA establishment, the usual suspects have swooped in to save him: Walmart, the police union, the oil industry. A total of $5 million in independent expenditures have been logged in support of Martinez and in opposition to Elhawary. Organized labor has shown up for Elhawary, meanwhile, and helped put up $1.3 million in independent expenditures supporting her. Race looms large in this runoff; historically the center of Black political power in Los Angeles, this area is now heavily Latino. Both candidates are Latino, but only Martinez has a Spanish name; Elhawary, the daughter of a Guatemalan mother and an Egyptian father, is very consciously trying to straddle the racial divide.

AD-79 (southeastern San Diego, La Mesa, El Cajon)

Colin Parent vs. LaShae Sharp-Collins

Round 1: Parent 39.65%, Sharp-Collins 30.3%

With no Republicans in the race and a runoff even if one candidate clears 50%, this primary doesn’t matter much. It would if Lemon Grove Mayor Racquel Vasquez was raising money or collecting endorsements, but she’s doing neither, while La Mesa City Councilor Colin Parent and professor LaShae Sharp-Collins are. (Parent appears to be the more moderate of the two; the California Democratic Party and the left wing of organized labor are backing Sharp-Collins, while building trades, police unions, and a lot of local politicians are with Parent.) Parent and Sharp-Collins should advance to November, and the margin should tell us something about which of the two is favored in November.

This contest has remained amiable since the primary, and a vote would even be forgiven for thinking they’d govern similarly, but one key issue separates the two: criminal justice, specifically Proposition 36. As expected, Parent favors it, while Sharp-Collins is opposed, and progressive groups unsurprisingly back her over him.

Los Angeles County DA

George Gascón (i) vs. Nathan Hochman

Round 1: Gascón 25.2%, Hochman 15.9%

George Gascón was elected as a progressive reformer who promised to crack down on police brutality and chip away at mass incarceration. He’s governed as he said he would, and eleven candidates—ten of them former or current prosecutors or judges—are running against him, hoping that LA voters have moved away from the reform-oriented politics that led them to choose Gascón over incumbent DA Jackie Lacey in 2020. [T]he best-funded opponent by far is Nathan Hochman, who ran for California Attorney General in 2022 as a Republican. DA races are nonpartisan, but Hochman would test the limits of nonpartisan elections.

Polling on this race has consistently shown Gascon down by 20%-30%. The less said about this one, the better.

Long Beach City Council District 4 (Eastern Long Beach)

Daryl Supernaw (i) vs. Herlinda Chico

Round 1: Supernaw 48.45%, Chico 25.5%

Long Beach City College Trustee Herlinda Chico forced Long Beach City Councilor Daryl Supernaw into a runoff, and since then she’s consolidated labor and the Democratic Party in her corner. Chico has also been endorsed by third-place finisher Gerrie Schipske, a former city councilor. Supernaw’s backers include the local Chamber of Commerce and the local police union. The candidates also split on Prop 36: Supernaw supports it, while Chico avoids taking a position.

Los Angeles

City Council District 2 (North Hollywood, Van Nuys)

Jillian Burgos vs. Adrin Nazarian

Round 1: Nazarian 37.2%, Burgos 22.4%

Former Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian has also done multiple stints as a staffer for outgoing Council President Paul Krekorian, and he’ll be more of the same—which, in Krekorian’s case, means a member of the city council’s moderate bloc who occasionally makes vaguely progressive noises when convenient. You know the type; you probably have a bunch of these on your city council, too. Nazarian is the frontrunner and the only candidate who we could see clearing 50%, though with such a crowded field we think that’s unlikely.

[…]

The choice progressives can feel comfortable with is NoHo Neighborhood Councilor Jillian Burgos, an entertainment industry professional and entrepreneur who’s running with the backing of the California Nurses Association, City Controller Kenneth Mejia, and, as she’s happy to note on her website, pretty much every one of the various progressive and leftist voter guides that tend to move a lot of late-deciding voters in LA. She has less money than the other three candidates with a shot, but she’s not broke, and she’s the only one doing a convincing job of seeming progressive in a district that generally leans that way.

After Burgos’s surprise second place in the March top-two, the race developed largely as you’d expect a race between an establishment-friendly former assemblyman and a left-leaning activist to develop. Progressive groups that sat on the sidelines in the primary, like DSA-LA and the Working Families Party, have since backed Burgos. Meanwhile, Nazarian is painting Burgos as a dangerous radical who would defund the police, making an absurd comparison between more frugal police budgeting and his childhood in totalitarian Iran in an answer to a question for the LA Times’s voter guide. (Burgos, who describes herself as an abolitionist and is skeptical of police funding as a response to social crises, does not hide the fact that she would add to the council’s fledgling hard-left bloc.) Nazarian finished well ahead of Burgos in Round 1 and should have an easier time making it to 50%, considering his broad establishment support and financial advantage—in addition to his advantages in total raised, total spent, and cash on hand, he’s been the beneficiary of a million dollars in independent expenditures. But as we said in March, this is not particularly hostile territory for the left, and Burgos is not broke. She’s even won over one of her runoff opponents, Manny Gonez, the husband of LAUSD Board Member Kelly Gonez. (Gonez placed fourth with 12.2%.)

City Council District 10 (Baldwin Hills, Mid City, Koreatown)

Heather Hutt (i) vs. Grace Yoo 

Round 1: Hutt 37.8%, Yoo 23.1%

Heather Hutt was appointed by Nury Martinez in late August 2022 (a little over a month before Martinez’s early October fall from grace) to permanently fill the vacancy left behind by a different disgraced LA politician, Mark Ridley-Thomas, after his conviction on federal corruption charges. You understand why Hutt has kept her head down and tried to avoid making anyone angry—she only has the weakest vestige of incumbency, and she’d rather not remind voters how she got it, even though her appointment was uncontroversial at the time (she had previously served as a temporary caretaker in the seat.) Hutt is supported by her colleagues and some other LA politicians, but nobody seems to feel too strongly about keeping her in the seat. 

[…]

Grace Yoo, the field’s top fundraiser, is an anti-homeless shelter NIMBY activist, and she’s also the only Asian candidate in a district that includes Koreatown.

Heather Hutt and Grace Yoo aren’t that far apart on policy, but they’re far apart in outlook. Yoo has made her campaign all about street homelessness, crime, and how the cops need to crack down harder on both. Hutt…basically wishes Yoo would chill, calling her a “law-and-order person that believes in arresting everyone, and I don’t believe in that.” Combined with the fact that Hutt is friendlier than many of her colleagues with that hard-left bloc, it’s plenty for us to prefer her.

City Council District 14 (Downtown, Eagle Rock, Boyle Heights)

Kevin de León (i) vs. Ysabel Jurado

Round 1: Jurado 24.5%, de León 23.4%

Kevin de León has the unmitigated gall to be running for reelection after the release of tapes in which he, then-Council President Nury Martinez, and then-Councilor Gil Cedillo, along with the president of the Los Angeles Labor Federation, Ron Herrera, used incredibly racist language regarding a colleague’s young Black child, Black people in general, Indigenous people, and a variety of other groups. Cedillo, who had already lost reelection but still had a few weeks left in office when the tapes came out, quietly exited politics on schedule, and both Martinez and Herrera resigned from their jobs under massive public pressure. de León refused, and candidates piled in to challenge him. Three have risen to the top: Assemb. Miguel Santiago [...]; Assemb. Wendy Carrillo [...]; and DSA-LA’s Ysabel Jurado, who promises to add a fourth vote to the socialist bloc on the city council and counts a constellation of grassroots leftist organizations among her supporters (as well as some more mainstream labor unions and Democratic clubs.)

Kevin de León, ever the survivor, is going down fighting. He somehow got a tracker to goad Jurado into saying “fuck the police” on tape and he’s desperately hitched himself to progressive ballot measures with glossy and expensive campaign messaging. Outside PACs have chipped in with even more help, both in anti-Jurado attack ads and pro-de León messaging. It probably still won’t be enough. There’s only so much you can do to recover from the racism tapes. Jurado has closed strong, holding together her primary coalition of progressives and gathering more mainstream endorsements like the LA Times. In our view, KDL will need a lot more than the “fuck the police” clip to convince enough of his skeptics to give him yet another chance, and the clip is all he’s got.

Oakland

City Attorney

Brenda Harbin-Forte vs. Ryan Richardson

Brenda Harbin-Forte is staking her campaign for City Attorney on voter dissatisfaction with Mayor Sheng Thao, who faces a recall campaign and an FBI investigation. Harbin-Forte proudly touts that she led the Thao recall effort’s ballot access campaign. She has endorsements from some of Thao’s foes, like her onetime mayoral opponent Loren Taylor, but most of the Oakland political class is backing Ryan Richardson, the current Chief Assistant City Attorney. Unlike Harbin-Forte, Richardson doesn’t seem likely to step on anyone’s toes, but at least he isn’t aligned with the right wing of Oakland politics. (Merits of the Thao recall aside, that’s who pushed it.)

City Council At-Large

LeRonne Armstrong vs. Rowena Brown vs. Shawn Danino vs. Kanitha Matoury vs. Mindy Pechenuk vs. Fabian Robinson vs. Nancy Sidebotham vs. Selika Thomas vs. Cristina Tostado vs. Charlene Wan

Even if you remove the LaRouchite (Mindy Pechenuk), the perennial candidate (Nancy Sidebotham), and candidate with no media presence to speak of (Fabian Robinson), there are still seven candidates to speak of in this race, which is nuts.

LeRonne Armstrong is the former Chief of Police for the city, and the most overtly conservative candidate. Rowena Brown, who is Asm. Mia Bonta’s legislative director, is supported by many progressives, including outgoing at-large council incumbent Rebecca Kaplan and likely future member of Congress Lateefah Simon. Shawn Danino, a higher-up in San Jose’s Housing Department, is the YIMBY candidate, and environmental groups are likewise warm to him. Restaurant owner and Real Estate Syndicator Kanitha Matoury is trying a dual good government liberal and “run government like a business” message, which is tough to sell, but she has many in the moderate faction of city politics buying in. Selika Thomas is running a very low-budget “clean up the city” campaign, where she means that both in the sense of trash and crime.  Oakland Library Commission member Cristina Tostado wants to do two things: cut the budget and hire way more cops, and she will not be interrogated as to how you do both those things at the same time. Finally, civil rights advisor to the EPA Charlene Wan is running as a soft progressive with a lot of the same policies as mayor Sheng Thao, and light YIMBY touch—she’d be the second choice of most Brown backers.

City Council District 1

Edward Frank vs. Len Raphael vs. Zac Unger 

The entirety of Oakland politics is acting as one to elect firefighter and paramedic Zac Unger. He honestly seems kind of boring—but fucking everyone has lent their name to this guy’s campaign, because we guess everybody likes the president of the local firefighters’ union. Also running are conservative Pamela Price recall organizer Len Raphael and Edward Frank, who gives off intense New Age hippy vibes.

City Council District 3

Carroll Fife (i) vs. Baba Afolabi vs. Michelle Hailey vs. Shan Hirsch vs. Warren Logan vs. Meron Semedar

Don’t be intimidated by the crowded field of challengers to incumbent Carroll Fife. This is functionally a one-on-one race between Fife, a member of the council’s progressive majority, and Warren Logan, a staffer in the mayor’s office. Logan is running as a YIMBY urbanist and his endorsements mostly reflect that, but he’ll also serve as a vessel for discontent with the progressive Oakland council (albeit a very imperfect one, because he’s not really running as a right-winger.) Logan has outspent Fife in the home stretch, but Fife has more backing from local politicians, organized labor, and progressive groups. This one could be close.

City Council District 5

Noel Gallo (i) vs. Erin Armstrong vs. Dominic Prado 

Noel Gallo will be the most senior member of the Oakland City Council if he wins reelection, but he has to get past local government adviser Erin Armstrong and taco seller Dominic Prado first. Armstrong works for Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley, generally a moderate within the context of Oakland politics (but she is endorsed by Lateefah Simon), and her pitch is mostly non-ideological, focusing on competence, quality city services, and hyper-local issues like illegal dumping. If elected, she would be the first trans member of the Oakland City Council. Prado is more concerned with crime, but lacks the political connections of Armstrong and Gallo and will likely place third.

City Council District 7

Merika Goolsby vs. Marcie Hodge vs. Ken Houston vs. Iris Merriouns

Incumbent Treva Reid surprised the Oakland political world when she opted out of reelection at the last minute. The field to succeed her is a bit muddled. Perennial candidate Marcie Hodge is the most conservative candidate in the running. She is also, thankfully, barely running a campaign. Running even less of a campaign is progressive tenant advocate Merika Goolsby, who has reported raising and spending $0. That leaves two candidates with a shot: perennial candidate and nonprofit leader Ken Houston and city council staffer Iris Merriouns. Houston has outspent Merriouns, the chief of staff to progressive District 4 councilor Janani Ramachandran, in the home stretch, but Merriouns has the edge in organizational support. Not only is she backed by her boss, she’s supported by the Alameda County Democratic Party, the Alameda County Building Trades Council, other labor unions, and two more members of the Oakland City Council. Houston isn’t without support from some unions, and he does have the aforementioned financial advantage; this race could go either way.

Recall Elections

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County DA Pamela Price both face recall elections, efforts that are technically separate but are joined at the hip by similar millionaire backers and volunteers floating between both. They also just generally target the same reactionary impulses on crime for voters in the East Bay. The Thao recall is a little more understandable (her house was raided by the FBI after all) than the Price recall, which is purely a repeat of the Chesa Boudin recall effort in Alameda County and an attempt to fix crime by killing any criminal justice reform efforts in the crib by forcing reformers to run against no one at all rather than an actual opponent who would have to actually say what they’re going to do in office. A recent poll found Thao’s recall support at 64% in Oakland, which is just brutal.

Sacramento Mayor

Flojaune “Flo” Cofer vs. Kevin McCarty

Round 1: Cofer 29.1%, McCarty 21.6%

Assemb. Kevin McCarty (not to be confused with unemployed Central Valley resident Kevin McCarthy) is about as good as you can normally ask for from a big city mayor. He began his career in the city council, where he was known for opposing public financing of the Sacramento Kings stadium. In the Assembly, he compiled a solid voting record, and now, running for mayor, he’s close with organized labor and wants to invest in non-police emergency responses (even if he doesn’t want to pare the police back at all) and safe camping sites while the city works on reducing the homeless population (even if he still supports encampment sweeps.)

Epidemiologist Flo Cofer is underfunded, sure, but far from penniless—raising a little more than half of what the other major candidates have is enough to compete, and that’s good news, because she’s the only candidate we’re really excited about. Backed by the DSA, WFP, Our Revolution, and teachers unions, Cofer has major plans for the city, most exciting among them is establishing a public land bank to develop tens of thousands of affordable properties. In a major bout of good fortune, she was endorsed by the Sacramento Bee, unusual for a progressive candidate.

The Sacramento mayoral contest is a rare local election in California that doesn’t make us wondering why the state is collectively losing its mind. In fact, not only are both the candidates pretty solid on the issues, Cofer, the progressive, has at least even odds of winning. McCarty sounds worried, using the debate to go on offense against Cofer by dusting off the “Defund the Police radical” playbook from 2020/2022.

San Diego

City Attorney

Heather Ferbert vs. Brian Maienschein

Round 1: Ferbert 53.15%, Maienschein 46.85%

In a mostly non-ideological race, ex-Republican Assemb. Brian Maienschein, who became a Democrat in 2019, is the endorsement leader, backed by Planned Parenthood’s political arm, Mayor Todd Gloria, the San Diego police union, and Republican DA Summer Stephan. Chief Deputy City Attorney Heather Ferbert is running with the support of outgoing incumbent Mara Elliott, the city employees’ union, gun control groups, and the San Diego Union-Tribune, which leans conservative but likes Ferbert’s message of competence and continuity. Ferbert, a first-time candidate, upset Maienschein in Round 1, and she has to be considered at least a modest favorite after that.

City Council District 3 (Downtown)

Stephen Whitburn (i) vs. Coleen Cusack

Round 1: Whitburn 52.5%, Cusack 20.9%

Stephen Whitburn got a runoff with attorney and homeless advocate Coleen Cusack instead of the expected runoff with single-issue NIMBY Kate Callen, which has led to this race’s reframing around a new issue: a camping ban. San Diego banned camping after a push spearheaded by Whitburn, and the law functions to criminalize sleeping on the street—in other words, criminalizing homelessness, a tried-and-tested failed approach to combating homelessness. Cusack calls the policy a cruel waste of money. We’d expect Whitburn to absorb most of the Callen votes, because NIMBY voters tend to also like homeless crackdowns, and he already achieved a majority in March; it’s very hard to see the incumbent losing.

San Diego City Council District 9 (Mid-City)

Sean Elo-Rivera (i) vs. Terry Hoskins

Round 1: Elo-Rivera 51.8%, Hoskins 30.2%

Sean Elo-Rivera is the city council president elected by a narrow majority of progressives [...] His main challenger is police union-endorsed police officer Terry Hoskins, who wants to hand control back to the moderates and reestablish “respect” on the city council.

In the general election, which is clearly Elo-Rivera’s to lose, the two candidates have defined their positions more. Elo-Rivera supports a new sales tax to raise revenue for the city and opposes the camping ban, while Hoskins opposes the sales tax and wants encampment sweeps.

San Francisco

Mayor

London Breed (i) vs. Aaron Peskin vs. Mark Farrell vs. Daniel Lurie vs. Ahsha Safaí

San Francisco’s mayoral election is, in a word, bleak. London Breed has governed as a fairly right-wing Democrat, embracing harsh policing, cozying up to business, and resisting progressive budget ideas—and she’s probably going to lose for not being conservative enough. The mayor has been unpopular since the pandemic, as voters across the Bay Area seem to have soured on progressives and voters in San Francisco have turned on incumbent politicians. The one candidate running to her left, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, is deeply flawed, with one of the worst records on housing of anyone we’ve ever covered, but he’s been able to unite progressives regardless because the alternatives are so bad (and San Francisco progressives are often NIMBYs.) And there are not one, not two, but three serious candidates running on the message that Breed’s policing crackdown hasn’t been harsh enough and she hasn’t catered to business interests enough. Progressives have already been hedging their bets with dual or second-choice endorsements for Breed, expecting that they’ll have to rank the mayor to stop one of her worse opponents.

One of those candidates, District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, trails consistently in the polls and will be eliminated from RCV before any of the other candidates we’re going to discuss, so we won’t spend much time talking about him.

Former District 2 Supervisor and interim Mayor Mark Farrell is the most dangerous candidate for mayor. He’s running the most right-wing campaign of anyone in the field, leaning hard into tough-on-crime rhetoric and big promises to increase the scale of policing in San Francisco. To top things off, he’s iffy on housing and just got hit with one of the largest ethics fines in San Francisco history for illegally funding his campaign through a ballot proposition committee to skirt donation limits.

Philanthropist Daniel Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, would be the worst candidate without Mark Farrell in the race. He’s running on a generally similar platform, just toned down (and with the ethics violations traded for the general ickiness of a corporate heir trying to buy public office with his family’s money.) He’s fallen behind Farrell in endorsements—Farrell is an established and seasoned politician, Lurie is not—but has the money to stay competitive, and may benefit from Farrell’s poorly-timed bad headlines.

District Attorney

Brooke Jenkins (i) vs. Ryan Khojasteh

Brooke Jenkins rode the pandemic-era tough-on-crime backlash wave into office after the recall of Chesa Boudin. Now she’s fighting for a full term, counting on the fact that while that wave may have receded nationally, the tough-on-crime backlash to criminal justice reform appears to be going strong in the Bay Area. Running against her is Ryan Khojasteh, one of the Boudin-era prosecutors she fired upon taking office. Khojasteh takes a reformist tack as you’d expect, but you can tell how hard San Francisco has lurched to the right by observing how muted and moderate his rhetoric is; he frames his pitch as being the more effective candidate at responding to crime, hardly a Krasneresque reform-for-reform’s-sake progressive. 

City Attorney

David Chiu (i) vs. Richard Woon

Right-winger Richard Woon is running against City Attorney David Chiu for Chiu’s crime of being a standard liberal who upheld COVID-era restrictions on unnecessary gatherings. Not only is such a campaign badly out of date by now, San Francisco is the wrong place for it.

Sheriff

Paul Miyamoto (i) vs. Michael Juan

Paul Miyamoto has had a rocky tenure as San Francisco’s sheriff, overseeing a crisis of violence in the city’s jails so severe that it led the deputies’ union to preemptively declare the sheriff ineligible for their endorsement. However, UCSF police officer Michael Juan, Miyamoto’s lone opponent, is an extremely heavy underdog as his campaign has never really gotten off the ground.

Board of Supervisors District 1 (Richmond)

Connie Chan (i) vs. Jeremiah Boehner vs. Sherman D'Silva vs. Jen Nossokoff vs. Marjan Philhour

San Francisco is in the middle of a reactionary turn, partly because the rich are squeezing the last of the working class out of the city and changing the electorate of what was already the richest city in the country a few years ago, and partly because various reactionary tech millionaires like Garry Tan are funneling millions through PACs like his Grow SF PAC to make a right-wing San Francisco a reality. Connie Chan is one of the “worthless hard left bureaucrats” that Tan wants to oust, and, accordingly, she has now been massively outspent by former congressional staffer and proud “moderate Democrat” Marjan Philhour, Tan’s choice this election. The other candidates have barely been running campaigns.

Board of Supervisors District 3 (Chinatown, Financial District, and North Beach)

Wendy Ha Chau vs. Moe Jamil vs. Sharon Lai vs. Eduard Navarro vs. Danny Sauter vs. Matthew Susk

District 3 has historically been a moderate stronghold, and you can tell from the candidates this year. Matt Susk, Danny Sauter, and Moe Jamil are all trying to claim the mantle of cop candidate, touting different police union and police chief endorsements to try and convince voters it is them the police love the most. The only candidate even close to progressive in the mix is Sharon Lai, an urban planner and nonprofit leader who is trying to avoid getting tied up with either faction, and she is unfortunately a bit of a NIMBY. 

Board of Supervisors District 5 (Haight-Ashbury, Tenderloin, and Japantown)

Dean Preston (i) vs. Scotty Jacobs vs. Allen Jones vs. Autumn Looijen vs. Bilal Mahmood

Dean Preston, perpetual boogeyman of the San Francisco right—Elon Musk literally wants the man to be imprisoned for his legislation—is up for reelection at a time where the electoral fortunes of the San Francisco right have never been higher, and they think that this might be the year they can finally get rid of him. Because San Francisco has ranked choice voting, the right doesn’t strictly have to choose between school board recall founder Autumn Looijen and  San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee member Bilal Mahmood, but in practice they overwhelmingly are behind Mahmood in this race, while what remains of the San Francisco left is supporting Preston.

Allen Jones is a Republican, though in true San Francisco fashion he is really annoying about it, and Scotty Jacobs is trying to run the Mahmood campaign, just without any of the big-name supporters like state Sen. Scott Wiener and London Breed.

Board of Supervisors District 7 (West Side and San Francisco State)

Myrna Melgar (i) vs. Matthew Boschetto vs. Stephen Martin-Pinto vs. Edward Yee

Myrna Melgar is a member of the Board of Supervisors’ nominally progressive majority, and she’s being targeted by San Francisco’s moderates, who are feeling ambitious after gaining ground in the last election cycle. Their candidate is business owner Matt Boschetto, who tries to strike a middle ground between YIMBY and NIMBY but is firmly on the police crackdown side of the debate about public safety in San Francisco. Boschetto and Melgar are roughly even in spending. Rounding out the field are Stephen Martin-Pinto, a firefighter and military veteran running on “COMPLETE AND TOTAL SHUTDOWN OF THE OPEN AIR DRUG MARKETS,” and Edward Yee, a retired surgeon who isn’t really running a campaign.

Board of Supervisors District 9 (Mission District, Bernal Heights, Portola)

Julian Bermudez vs. H. Brown vs. Trevor Chandler vs. Jackie Fielder vs. Jaime Gutierrez vs. Roberto Hernandez vs. Stephen Torres 

District 9 is potentially the last progressive district in San Francisco if Tan, Musk, and the rest of the San Francisco right get their way against Chan and Preston. The left, including DSA, progressive councilmember Aaron Peskin (who is not up this year), and the SF Tenants Union are putting their trust in Jackie Fielder, who ran for state senate against Scott Wiener in 2020. Grow SF and Scott Wiener are, meanwhile, backing teacher Trevor Chandler. Though San Francisco rarely elects anyone who isn’t backed by the left or the right, nonprofit executive Roberto Hernandez could be an exception, trying to steer clear of the most touchy issues and relying on labor unions rather than political clubs as his base. He was also endorsed by the San Francisco Chronicle. Gay journalist and recent Castro LGBTQ Cultural District executive Stephen Torres is more or less the #2 choice of the left, which sounds like a great way to get squeezed out in a ranked choice contest, but he does seem like he’d be good in office if he makes it.

District 11 (South-central)

Chyanne Chen vs. Adlah Chisti vs. Oscar Flores vs. Ernest Jones vs. Michael Lai vs. Roger Marenco vs. Jose Morales

Grow SF and the San Francisco moderates are all in for education nonprofit leader Michael Lai, whose main focus is public safety (and by public safety, he means a police crackdown.) Lai also has endorsements from building trades unions and a ton of Twitter bluechecks proudly displayed on his website. (No, seriously, his website literally just has screenshots of random tech people endorsing him on Twitter, scroll down.) Have we mentioned that San Francisco gives us agita?

Three serious candidates are running to his left. The least viable is Adlah Chisti, a political staffer with a varied biography; she has noticeably fewer endorsements and a lot less money than the other two progressive options. Progressives’ first choice seems to be community organizer Chyanne Chen, with nonprofit leader Ernest “EJ” Jones a close second. Jones may be able to make up for that with his modest financial advantage over Chen (both are operating at a moderate financial disadvantage vs. Lai.) Jones also has some crossover support from YIMBYs. If Lai is to win, we think he’ll likely get 50% or come close to it on the first ballot; it seems like voters for Chen, Jones, and Chisti would be likely to rank the other progressives before Lai.

Phoenix City Council

District 3 (North Phoenix)

Debra Stark (i) vs. Ayensa Millan

Result: Stark 61.5%, Millan 38.5% | Stark wins

Debra Stark is a member of the Phoenix City Council’s ruling moderate bloc, aligned with Mayor Kate Gallego. The moderates have been on the upswing in recent years, with the defeat of progressive councilman Carlos Garcia in 2023 and the elevation of newfound moderate bloc member Yassamin Ansari to congresswoman-elect in the August Democratic primary for Ruben Gallego’s congressional seat. Progressives would very much like to start clawing back some power, and they’re hoping District 3 will be part of their path forward. Immigration attorney Ayensa Millan is progressives’ pick here, and she has Stark scared enough that the incumbent has spent most of her money–more than six figures in all. (Millan, oddly, hasn’t spent much of what she’s raised, at least as of October 20.) Stark should have the upper hand, given incumbency and money.

District 5 (Northeast Phoenix)

Betty Guardado (i) vs. JJ Martinez

Result: Guardado 61.2%, Martinez 38.8% | Guardado wins

Incumbent councilor Betty Guardado is likely to coast in the face of a challenge from ex-cop JJ Martinez, who has a respectable amount of money but nothing like Guardado’s massive war chest. Martinez and Guardado don’t differ much on policy; the biggest difference is that Martinez is somehow even less willing than Guardado to criticize the embattled Phoenix Police Department, his former employer.

District 7 (Eastern Phoenix)

Martyn Bridgeman vs. Anna Hernandez vs. Michael Nowakowski vs. Marcelino Quiñonez (vs. Carlos Galindo-Elvira (i) (special election only))

Result: Hernandez 53.1%, Quiñonez 21.4%, Nowakowski 14.9%, Bridgeman 10.6% | Hernandez wins

Special election result: Galindo-Elvira 53.05%, Nowakowski 25.3%, Bridgeman 21.7 | Galindo-Elvira wins

Yassamin Ansari’s seat is open (and vacant, because she resigned to run for Congress.) That has teed up a concurrent pair of elections for her council seat: a special election to fill out the rest of her term, which runs until April of next year, and a regular election to select a permanent successor. In the special election, appointed incumbent Carlos Galindo-Elvira is running to keep his job until April; Galindo-Elvira is not running for a full term, but he is mounting a serious campaign for a partial one. How that’ll affect the race, we have no idea, but it bears mentioning.

The real race to succeed Yassamin Ansari is a moderate-vs.-progressive war between Marcelino Quiñonez on the moderate side and state Sen. Anna Hernandez on the progressive side. Hernandez got into politics after Phoenix police killed her brother in 2019, becoming an activist for families like hers torn apart by the violence of the Phoenix PD. She won a state senate seat in 2022 and quickly amassed a serious, bipartisan legislative record all while remaining unafraid to cross the powers that be, criticize the police, and make her progressive politics known. Kate Gallego and her allies would rather not see a critic of the mayor’s join the council, and so they’ve landed on Quiñonez, a former state representative. (They’ve completely skipped over ex-councilman Michael Nowakowski, who has perhaps too much baggage.) With such a split field, a runoff seems likely—and on Phoenix’s electoral calendar, that runoff won’t be held until March of 2025, so this first round may end up serving as little more than a preliminary gauge of where the candidates stand. 

Georgia

Atlanta Council At-Large 3 [Special election]

Devin Barrington-Ward vs. Eshé Collins vs. Amber Connor vs. Nicole Evans Jones vs. Duvwon Robinson

Result: Evans Jones 39.6%, Collins 25.0%, Connor 15.2%, Barrington-Ward 13.8%, Robinson 6.5% | Evans Jones and Collins advance to December runoff

The Atlanta City Council killed the referendum to stop Cop City, and now organizers are coming for the Council. Keisha Waites vacated her at-large Council seat to run for a county clerkship, providing the opening that the left, and community organizer Devin Barrington-Ward in particular, was looking for. Barrington-Ward, who is endorsed by the DSA, SEIU, and several Democratic state house members, has a full-spectrum left-wing agenda he’d like to implement, particularly taxing the rich. A more conventional liberal offering comes in the form of Board of Education member Eshé Collins, who has the support of organized labor and some elements of the city establishment, though not nearly as much as public school principal Nicole Evans Jones, who has former mayors Keisha Lance Bottoms and Andrew Young in her corner, but has said very little about how she wants to govern, which is concerning. One thing she has said, specifically, is that she, like every other candidate but Barrington-Ward, supports Cop City. Amber Connor is the obligatory white candidate, and Duvwon Robinson made the ballot but doesn’t have much more of a campaign beyond that.

Louisiana

LA-02 (New Orleans area and River Parishes)

Troy Carter (i) vs. Devin Davis vs. Republicans

Result: Carter 60.3%, Lynch (R) 13.6%, Graham (R) 12.8%, Davis 10.6%, Perrilloux (R) 2.6% | Carter wins

Rep. Troy Carter won his seat in the early days of the Biden administration by winning the votes of Republicans against a fellow Democrat in a runoff. Now, if he has a runoff at all, it’ll probably be a near-guaranteed win against a Republican, saving him from a head-to-head with Devin Davis. Davis is a Gen Z environmental activist with a local focus; parts of this district are known as Cancer Alley for the heavy-polluting chemical plants which dot the landscape, and Davis promises to be a representative who isn’t in the polluters’ pockets. He’s running a scrappy underdog campaign with some support from local progressives, and he’s nevertheless likely to be eliminated today whether or not Carter clears 50% and avoids a December runoff, because a Republican should place second.

Baton Rouge Mayor

Sharon Weston Broome (i) vs. Edward “Ted” James vs. Republicans

Result: Edwards (R) 34.4%, Weston Broome 31.2%, James 28.4% | Edwards (R) and Weston Broome advance to December runoff

One of the ugliest contests in the country is playing out right now in Baton Rouge. Facing slumping polling numbers against former friend turned electoral competitor Ted James, Mayor Sharon Weston Broome’s campaign released an ad of surreptitiously recorded audio, catching James saying that

“Quite honestly, a white man, a white man, if he knows he got to deal with someone Black, he would rather deal with another man than a woman. It’s fucked up, it’s screwed up and honestly, I get to take advantage of it.”

While James claims he was taken out of context, he never disputes he said those words, and the ad ties that into the biggest claim of Weston Broome, and the biggest divide in this election: that James is the puppet of wealthy, white Republican interests who want to break away from the city, and take their tax money with them. The government of Baton Rouge city and its parish (what Louisiana calls counties) overlap significantly, and the parish government is responsible for unincorporated areas, so to avoid having to pay to send poor kids to school, the rich neighborhoods outside of the city incorporated in 2019, setting off five years of legal battles that are only now resolving. While it looks like the GOP-controlled state government will give St. George what it’s asking for, everyone involved knows it would be easier to have a Baton Rouge government that was pliant instead of hostile. While Weston Broome is the latter, Republican-funded (sorry, “bipartisan” funded) James would be the former. 

North Carolina

Raleigh 

Mayor

Janet Cowell vs. Paul Fitts vs. Eugene Myrick vs. Terrance Ruth vs. James Shaughnessy IV

Result: Cowell 59.8%, Fitts 18.4%, Ruth 11.3% | Cowell wins

This is a two-way contest between nonprofit executive and former state treasurer Janet Cowell and public policy professor Terrance Ruth. Ruth ran for mayor in 2022, and actually held the incumbent, Mary-Ann Baldwin, to a 47%-41% margin. He ran a scrappy outsider campaign that year, but this year he feels like even more of an underdog, if anything. Baldwin was an unpopular incumbent, and Democrats, especially Black Democrats, were looking for an alternative. This year, Cowell is a new face, wth plenty of friends in the Democratic Party that are willing to vouch for her, and Ruth is having trouble differentiating himself from her. Cowell has also opened up a wide fundraising lead, pulling in nearly $600,000, while Ruth only has a few thousand at his disposal. It’s just as well—when he does get into specifics about what he’d do differently from Cowell, it’s paying cops more and not rolling back single-family zoning as aggressively. 

City Council At-Large [Top 2]

Stormie Forte (i) vs. Jonathan Lambert-Melton (i) vs. James Bledsoe vs. Joshua Bradley vs. Katherine Pate vs. Reeves Peeler vs. Robert Steele Jr.

Result: Forte 28.7%, Lambert-Melton 24.4%, Bledsoe 14.1%, Peeler 9.85%, Pate 9.3%, Bradley 7.7%, Steele 5.2% | Forte and Lambert-Melton win

Stormie Forte and Jonathan Lambert-Melton are both on the moderate wing of the council, and running for reelection in the city’s final election before they switch to a primary/top 4 runoff format for the at-large seats. They face multiple opponents, including a token Green (Joshua Bradley) and Libertarian (James Bledsoe), as well as two small business owners (Katie Pate and Robert Steele). The most interesting challenger is Raleigh Planning Commissioner and criminal justice organizer Reeves Peeler, who is a favorite of the activist crowd, as well as the AFL-CIO, who endorsed him in lieu of Lambert-Melton.

City Council District A

Mary Black (i) vs. Whitney Hill vs. Mitchell Silver

Result: Silver 40.1%, Hill 33.0%, Black 26.4% | Silver wins

First-term Democrat Mary Black is a staunch progressive, supporting government-owned social housing as a response to the housing crisis and a Workers’ Bill of Rights for city employees. Whitney Hill is a Republican. Mitchell Silver is a more moderate Democrat, backed by the Wake County Democratic Party and the News & Observer, Raleigh’s main newspaper. Black takes an unabashedly activist approach, while Silver, a city planner, is a more traditional politician.

City Council District B

Megan Patton (i) vs. Jennifer McCollum

Result: Patton 54.3%, McCollum 45.1% | Patton wins

Megan Patton is a Democrat, and Jennifer McCollum is a Republican. This election is only nonpartisan on paper.

City Council District C

Corey Branch (i) vs. DaQuanta Copeland vs. Tomara DeCosta vs. Daniel Grant-King vs. Jared Ollison vs. Tolulope Omokaiye vs. Portia Wilson Rochelle

Result: Branch 40.1%, Omokaiye 20.1%, Copeland 10.3%, Rochelle 8.6%, DeCosta 8.05%, Ollison 7.5%, Grant-King 5.0% | Branch wins

Corey Branch has himself to blame for his difficult reelection. He’s only running for Council again after pulling the ripcord on a mayoral campaign at the last minute. The candidates running for what was originally an open seat all decided to stay in, and now Branch is in trouble. The Wake County Democratic Party has endorsed former Raleigh Transit Authority Chair Tolulope Omokaiye, who seems more progressive than Branch. Former Raleigh NAACP president and at-large city council candidate Portia Rochelle is also running to Branch’s left.

City Council District E

Christina Jones (i) vs. John Cerqueira III

Result: Jones 51.5%, Cerqueira 47.9% | Jones wins

First-term Democrat Christina Jones faces a challenge from nonprofit consultant John Cerqueira III, also a Democrat. Jones has the Wake County Democratic Party and the state AFL-CIO on her side, while Cerqueira is backed by the Raleigh police union and the News & Observer. While Cerqueira’s endorsements belie a more conservative candidate than Jones, the two agree on the need for more housing to meet demand in the booming Research Triangle.

Oklahoma

Tulsa Mayor

Karen Keith vs. Monroe Nichols

Result: Nichols 55.6%, Keith 44.4% | Nichols wins

The first round of Tulsa’s nonpartisan mayoral election was held on August 27, and it produced a major surprise: Republicans blew it. The lone Republican in the race, Christian nationalist businessman Brent VanNorman, placed third, narrowly falling behind state Rep. Monroe Nichols and Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith, both Democrats. The result is an unusual all-Democratic runoff to lead Oklahoma’s second-largest city, which is swingy and historically Republican. (Joe Biden narrowly carried Tulsa in 2020, but Donald Trump carried the city four years earlier.) The two Democrats are now in the awkward position of needing to convince conservative, Republican voters to vote for them—and appealing to conservatives seems to come more naturally to Karen Keith.

In the runoff, Keith has hammered Nichols as “weak on gangs,” and Nichols, the son of a police officer and a probation officer, contends that she’s only making that attack because of his race. (Nichols is Black, while Keith is white.) She has the endorsement of the Tulsa police union, and in the closing days of the campaign she announced that VanNorman would be on her transition team. Nichols allies have responded in kind, assailing Keith by holding her responsible for systemic sexual abuse at the county’s juvenile detention center—which Keith argues is unfair because, she claims, she was unaware of the situation before the abuse scandal went public. (The Tulsa County Commission, after initially denying any responsibility for the facility, voted to take over the facility after the scandal broke, revamping operations and opening the juvenile detention center to the media.) Both candidates are light on policy, but the police union endorsement and the plan to have VanNorman join the transition give us more reason to worry about Keith than Nichols. Unfortunately, Keith is probably the favorite here, if money is any indication; she has outspent Nichols by more than a million dollars over the course of the race, and as of October 21 she had a further six-figure advantage in cash on hand. And the more conservative candidate is probably who you’d expect to win in a race between two Democrats with an electorate that’s nearly half Republican. Nichols’s best hope is probably that Keith’s overtures to the right have worked so well that Democratic voters are turned off by her runoff campaign—and even then, Keith would only need a small minority of Democratic voters if Republican and independent voters broke overwhelmingly her way as you’d expect.

Texas

Austin

Mayor

Kirk Watson (i) vs. Jeffery Bowen vs. Doug Greco vs. Carmen Llanes Pulido vs. Kathie Tovo

Result: Watson 50.01%, Llanes Pulido 20.15%, Tovo 16.6%, Bowen 8.4%, Greco 4.8% | Watson wins

The 2020 mayoral election was the closest in recent memory, resulting in white moderate Kirk Watson winning a narrow victory over Latina progressive Celia Israel by a margin of less than 1%. Israel would have given Watson a major challenge had she ran again this year, buoyed by presidential year turnout, but she opted against it, leaving Watson, who barely squeaked into office, to face a quartet of unknown challengers. Watson’s half-term has been largely uneventful, though not entirely without controversy, and Watson now stands at a towering financial advantage over his competitors.

Doug Greco, lead organizer with Central Texas Interfaith, is taking on Watson’s coziness with the GOP-controlled state government, and appears to be pleasingly urbanist and progressive on other matters as well. Unfortunately, he’s best known for suing the city to overturn a cap on out-of-city campaign contributions. Carmen Llanes Pulido has a lot of progressive rhetoric, but her main policy push seems to be “[d]efending the rights of homeowners” to block new duplexes and apartments from being built nearby. But the challenger with the strongest chance of forcing Watson into a runoff is former city Councilmember Kathie Tovo, who served from 2011 to 2023. Tovo bills herself as the progressive choice for mayor, and though she's criticized Watson for many different things, is attempting to craft a message about the bigger picture preference for business interests over community input many see as Watson biggest public perception hurdle. The only candidate running to Watson's right is Jeffrey Bowen, a cantankerous old man who needs to take a web design class.

City Council District 2

Vanessa Fuentes (i) vs. Robert Reynolds

Result: Fuentes 85.7%, Reynolds 14.3% | Fuentes wins

Incumbent Vanessa Fuentes will coast against Republican former state House candidate Robert Reynolds, who is barely running a campaign.

City Council District 4

Jose “Chito” Vela (i) vs. Monica Guzman vs. Louis Herrin III vs. Jim Rabuck vs. Eduardo Romero

 Result: Vela 58.5%, Guzman 27.7%, Herrin 6.1%, Rabuck 4.3%, Romero 3.3% | Vela wins

When Greg Casar vacated his city council district in 2022 to run for Congress, a special election was held, and Casar was able to demonstrate how popular he was in North Austin by not only winning a landslide victory in his primary, but by helping his chosen successor, Chito Vela, into a landslide of his own. Vela has since managed to work well with both the progressive and liberal factions in city politics, and, accordingly, looks to be cruising to reelection. Of the two candidates who appear to be running real campaigns, both are to Vela’s right—quite openly in the case of Jim Rabuck, and more subtly in the case of Monica Guzman, who has enough sense to talk about “responsiveness” issues with the council instead of just saying she doesn't like apartments. 

City Council District 6

Mackenzie Kelly (i) vs. Krista Laine

Result: Laine 51.3%, Kelly 48.7% | Laine wins

Mackenzie Kelly is the lone Republican on the Austin City Council, and she’s in deep trouble. Elected four years ago in a low-turnout December runoff, Kelly now has to win under much tougher circumstances. Her district has been redrawn to be substantially bluer, and she can’t count on a runoff to save her, because she only has one opponent and thus will win or lose today. The nonpartisan nature of Austin municipal elections was enough for her in 2020, but in 2024 she’ll have to stretch it a lot farther.

On the council, Kelly does her best to hide her party affiliation, but it shines through every now and then. The Austin City Council passes a lot of resolutions opposing the latest horror produced by the Texas Legislature, and Kelly is a reliable vote against those. She’s also a hardcore NIMBY who consistently opposes moves to make housing more affordable in Austin, a city squeezed by a severe housing crisis. And, of course, there’s her deep ties to the GOP. Still, she’s not without her supporters in deeply Democratic Austin; a firefighter herself, Kelly is backed by the firefighters’ union and the police union. And the local paper, the Austin American-Statesman, endorsed her for “balance.” But Krista Laine, a real estate appraiser and public education advocate, has the council’s progressives and partisanship on her side. Laine distances herself from Kelly’s NIMBYism and likes to highlight her role in defeating a Moms for Liberty-backed far-right school board slate, and if elected she’d likely align with her progressive backers on the council.

City Council District 7

Edwin Bautista vs. Gary Bledsoe vs. Daniel Dominguez vs. Pierre Nguyễn vs. Adam Powell vs. Todd Shaw vs. Mike Siegel

Result: Siegel 39.8%, Bledsoe 19.3%, Nguyễn 14.85%, Powell 11.15%, Shaw 8.65%, Bautista 6.2% | Siegel and Bledsoe advance to December runoff

You may remember Mike Siegel as the affable lefty lawyer who shocked everyone in  2018 when he lost a congressional race that absolutely no one had on their radar as competitive by only 4% to incumbent Republican Mike McCaul. After a rematch that didn’t go as successfully, Siegel has remained active in Texas politics by helping to run Ground Game TX. His return to active campaigning is for a smaller office, sure, but he hasn’t lost a step, and his urbanist, green development-focused campaign is endorsed by heavyweights in Austin politics Greg Cassar and José Garza, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders. Siegel’s strongest competition are longtime Texas NAACP president Gary Bledsoe and business advisor Adam Powell, both of whom are also running as progressives.

City Council District 10

Marc Duchen vs. Ashika Ganguly

Result: Duchen 50.6%, Ganguly 49.4% | Duchen wins

The final Council contest in Austin dispenses with the unnecessary minor candidate fluff and delivers a pure center vs. left showdown. Marc Duchen, a business owner and homeowner association president has the politics of—well, you can guess—while former teacher and Democratic staffer Ashika Ganguly is a normal progressive Democrat with an urbanist streak. Duchen’s ties to the Travis County GOP, and their thinly disguised front group Save Austin Now, have become an issue on the campaign trail, which Duchen has responded to by trying to paint Ganguly as too young and inexperienced, a potent line of attack in this wealthy West Side district.

El Paso Mayor

Marco Contreras vs. Elizabeth Cordova vs. Cassandra Hernandez vs. Renard Johnson vs. Brian Kennedy vs. Ben Mendoza vs. Isabel Salcido vs. Steven Winters

Result: Johnson 32.5%, Kennedy 24.2%, Hernandez 10.3%, Winters 8.6%, Salcido 7.4%, Contreras 6.5%, Cordova 5.9%, Mendoza 4.6% | Johnson and Kennedy advance to December runoff

El Paso is electing a new mayor, though they’re likely not doing so tonight: the mayoral contest will go to a runoff if no one gets to 50%, which looks unlikely given how packed the field is. A promising candidate is City Councilmember Isabel Salcido, the only one who doesn’t wholeheartedly support bulldozing part of downtown to widen the interstate, and who answered “housing affordability” instead of something about high taxes when asked by The El Paso Times what the biggest issue in the city was. Unfortunately, she’s also a realtor who isn’t really advancing many ideas of her own. Her fellow city councilmember Cassandra Hernandez seems like she has decent policies, but this year she only narrowly avoided criminal charges for abusing a gas card given to her by the city. Business owner Renard Johnson is a soft favorite in the race. He’s raising the most money and has endorsements from organized labor, Beto O’Rourke, and former mayor John Cook. The only conservative with a campaign to speak of is City Councilmember Brian Kennedy, who is pledging to cut the budget instead of increasing taxes.

Speed round for the other candidates: Marco Contreras is a restaurant owner who wants to build an entire second downtown for some reason, Elizabeth Cordova wants to ask Israel how to farm the desert, Steven Winters was in the military, and Ben Mendoza may or may not exist.

Virginia

Norfolk Mayor

Kenny Alexander (i) vs. Giovanni Dolmo vs. Thomas Leeman Jr.

Result: Alexander 59.5%, Leeman 33.45%, Dolmo 6.35% | Alexander wins

Norfolk residents don’t have a particularly exciting choice. Incumbent Kenny Alexander may be a competent administrator, but he has few accomplishments and little sense of urgency for fixing Norfolk’s issues, which include a growing housing affordability crisis. Unfortunately, his only real opponent is self-financing financial advisor Thomas Leeman Jr., whose plans, if he enters office, are, at their most defined, setting up a committee to look at problems, and maybe, if he’s feeling particularly ambitious, having a dialogue. We don’t trust a “business leader” to be hiding his good ideas from the public.

Richmond Mayor

Andreas D. Addison vs. Danny Avula vs. Michelle Mosby vs. Maurice Neblett vs. Harrison Roday

Result: Avula 46.0%, Mosby 25.4%, Roday 13.0%, Addison 11.9%, Neblett 2.9% | Avula carries 6/9 wards and wins outright

The Richmond mayoral contest is going to be decided by one of the stupidest electoral systems devised in this country. If one candidate wins five of the city’s nine wards, that candidate becomes mayor. If no candidate does, the top two vote-getters, regardless of how many wards they won, advance to a runoff, in which the popular vote will once again be discarded for the electoral college of wards.

That runoff stipulation could be particularly important this year, with four serious candidates in the mix. City Councilor and local gym owner Andreas Addison has an ambitious urbanist agenda for public transit and creating a land value tax. He’s struggled with fundraising, however, and he strikes us as the kind of candidate who can survive on enthusiasm and determination alone in his yuppie-central council district where a shoe leather campaign can work, but flounders on the big stage. Pediatrician and former Virginia Department of Social Services commissioner Danny Avula is the fundraising leader, and is running a vague, good-governance outsider type of campaign, but has been criticized by abortion advocates for cutting family planning during his time in the Department of Social Services. City Council President Michelle Mosby is running as the experienced candidate, with a dash of reminding voters she’d be the first female mayor of the city. Nonprofit director Harrison Roday is trying to bridge the “outsider with fundraising chops” lane of Avula with the “urbanist with political connections” lane of Addison, and appears to be doing a good job of it. Roday, who currently sits on the board of the Roe Your Vote Virginia PAC, takes a mainstream liberal tone, but leads with progressive policies that favor tenants, non-police programs to combat violence, and increasing school funding. Finally, activist Maurice Neblett is also running, but has raised very little money. Neblett is running as an indistinguishable business-as-usual candidate, which is disappointing—if you’re seeing a no-chance campaign through to the finish, at least have fun with it.

Governor

Bethany Hall-Long vs. Matt Meyer vs. Collin O’Mara

Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long and New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer are locked in an unusually bitter and negative race to succeed term-limited Gov. John Carney. We’re more suspicious of Hall-Long, who represents a continuation of Carney’s corporate administration. Hall-Long was his LG, is endorsed by Carney, and has the support of the state Democratic Party, making her the status quo choice in a state that definitely doesn’t need any more status quo. She’s also pretty clearly corrupt, or at least an ethics nightmare. Hall-Long hid over $300,000 of self-funding over the course of 8 years, only to call it “unintentional” when someone noticed. We simply do not believe her, even if her campaign performed an audit and found there was “no wrongdoing”.

New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer embodies another common, slightly concerning archetype in Delaware politics. Instead of party insiders, Meyer is relying on money. He laps the field in fundraising: $1.6 million to the $917K O’Mara has pulled in and the $217K Hall-Long has scraped together after the scandals. He’s bought himself dominance on the airwaves, and ingratiated himself with newspaper editorial departments, who universally seem to have endorsed him. Meyer has leaned into Hall-Long’s campaign finance issues, and she, in term, is bringing up the lax attitude his office has had towards sexual harassment.

The progressive choice, supported by the Working Families Party, is National Wildlife Federation CEO and former Delaware Natural Resources Secretary Collin O’Mara. O’Mara presents himself as a quiet wonk, but he’s going bold on policy: universal pre-k and childcare, major increases in housing production paired with rent control, and the implementation of aggressive environmental standards to make Delaware a net-zero emissions state. He has, unfortunately, been left behind in the vicious back-and-forth between Hall-Long and Meyer.

Lt. Governor

Sherry Dorsey Walker vs. Kyle Evans Gay vs. Debbie Harrington

Well this is odd. We’re not sure how to react, really. It’s a statewide primary in Delaware, and both candidates seem pretty good. We say both, because Army veteran Debbie Harrington is clearly the odd woman out, with nearly all the endorsements and money going elsewhere. State Rep. Sherry Dorsey Walker didn’t quite come up through the progressive infrastructure that has turned over state leadership in the last few cycle, but, in office, she hasn’t voted that differently from those gate-storming progressives. Many of them, in fact, have endorsed her, including state Reps. Madinah Wilson-Anton and Larry Lambert. State Sen. Kyle Evans Gay is more of a modern liberal Delaware Democrat, still accepting of the corporate Delaware Way, but on the right side of most issues. She’s endorsed by the Democratic Party and every labor union in the state, an advantage that’s only bolstered by her field-leading fundraising and barrage of TV ads.

Insurance Commissioner

Trinidad Navarro (i) vs. Kayode Abegunde

Kayode Abegunde managed to crack 35% of the vote against incumbent Trinidad Navarro in 2020 despite a nonexistent budget and gadfly vibes, so this race is worth watching to see whether Navarro has stepped up his game at all in the past four years.

HD-02 (Wilmington)

Stephanie Bolden (i) vs. James Taylor

James Taylor managed a respectable 38% of the vote against state Rep. Stephanie Bolden, an opponent of marijuana decriminalization with a shaky voting record, in 2022 with little money and no organizational support. However, he has even less money this time than he did in 2022, and is once again going it alone. Expect Bolden to win another term.

HD-03 (Wilmington)

Branden Fletcher Dominguez vs. Josue Ortega

HD-03 had the potential to be an exciting progressive pickup. Then Branden Fletcher Dominguez, the candidate backed by the local DSA and WFP chapters, dropped out with just days to go, leaving Josue Ortega to win by default.

HD-10 (Northern border)

Stephen Jankovic vs. Melanie Ross Levin vs. Dennis E. Williams

State Office of Women's Advancement and Advocacy Director Melanie Ross Levin makes a lot of sense for this district: general liberal, probably quite corporate, but not entirely beholden to the state party insiders. A clear sign of that is how heavily incumbent state Rep. Sean Matthews, is going to bat for Ross Levin. Matthews is no leftist, but has always been willing to buck state house leadership. The fact that she’s supported by The Sierra Club and Stonewall PAC, two liberal-but-not-confrontational groups, but not the WFP, says a lot about how she’ll operate in office. Her opponent is former state Rep. Dennis Williams, who held this seat until Matthews defeated him in a primary in 2014. Comeback bids to regain his old seat in 2016 and for State Auditor in 2018 (where he didn’t even win HD-10) were massive flops, and apparently he thinks this time will go differently. Williams was a moderate-at-best legislator whose absence has not been felt. One of his last votes in office was opposing a minor 1-year buffer zone for ex-legislators before they could become lobbyists. We’re quite confident Ross Levin would be better.

Stephen Jankovic is a ghost candidate. He might be a pro-Trump chiropractor, or he might not, but we know he won’t win. 

HD-14 (Rehoboth Beach)

Kathy McGuiness vs. Marty Rendon vs. Claire Snyder-Hall

You’ve gotta be kidding. Kathy McGuiness is back? It seemed as if the onetime state auditor, who had been elected to serve as Delaware’s top government watchdog, was done for good after a disastrous 2022. That year, she was tried on felony corruption charges for giving her daughter a state job and steering a state contract to a favored campaign consultant, convicted of two misdemeanor corruption charges, soundly defeated in the Democratic primary for reelection, and forced to resign lest the governor remove her from office. Since then, one of her misdemeanor convictions has been vacated by the state Supreme Court (while the other was affirmed), and that’s apparently enough to justify a comeback attempt. You don’t even need to ask her—the outgoing incumbent in this seat, former state House Speaker Peter Schwartzkopf, thinks so too. A pair of local Democrats are counting on Rehoboth voters to disagree.

Former professor Claire Snyder-Hall has run for office before, losing in a landslide to popular Republican state Sen. Ernie Lopez in the 2014 GOP wave. (The GOP is no longer particularly competitive in Rehoboth, as the town has lurched left just like many other resort towns in the Trump years.) After her 2014 loss, Snyder-Hall spent nearly a decade with the good-government group Common Cause Delaware before deciding to run for Schwartzkopf’s open seat. She has the Delaware State Education Association and the statewide AFSCME Council 81 in her corner, as well as prominent state progressives like state Rep. Eric Morrison and former state Rep. John Kowalko. (Her platform includes a Delaware Green Amendment and an openness to state-level single-payer.) She’s raised and spent less than either of her opponents, but she’s got enough money to seriously compete with them.

Retired congressional staffer and UNICEF executive Marty Rendon rounds out the field. His fundraising is better than Snyder-Hall’s and comparable to McGuiness’s; policy-wise, he’s the candidate for voters who want a boilerplate liberal but are turned off by McGuiness’s sordid past.

HD-15 (Central New Castle County)

Valerie Longhurst (i) vs. Kamela Smith 

Valerie Longhurst took over as Speaker from Peter Schwartzkopf after the last election. Schwartzkopf was fairly conservative in his own right, and Longhurst is every bit as bad. You know how Tim Walz likes to talk about how he brought free school meals to Minnesota public schools? Longhurst took a bill that would’ve done that for Delaware and means-tested it beyond recognition. When Democratic Gov. John Carney vetoed the legislature’s first attempt at marijuana legalization, Longhurst was one of a handful of Democrats who didn’t vote to override his veto. When her caucus really demands something, she’ll give in, but Longhurst is not the type of leader to push progressive policy on her own initiative. Healthcare worker Kamela Smith is hoping that Delaware voters want a more progressive leader. Backed by the Working Families Party, Smith wants to bring transparency to the often-opaque state government of America’s leading corporate tax haven, feed kids in school, cap rent increases, and expand voting rights to allow for more mail-in voting. WFP has dropped a significant amount of money into this district on Smith’s behalf, and it’s clear this is a priority race for Delaware progressives. If Smith wins, and the Speaker goes down, it’ll send an unmistakable message to other Delaware Democrats: get with the program or get voted out.

HD-27 (Central New Castle County)

Eric Morrison (i) vs. Margie López Waite

State Rep. Eric Morrison has ruffled some feathers since his initial 2020 election, when he unseated a socially conservative Democrat as part of a wave of progressive primary victories across the state. Some unions and moderate Democratic leaders went all-in for Morrison’s 2022 primary challenger—only for Morrison to win 2 to 1. While the Chamber of Commerce is back for another round, the energy behind charter school leader Margie López Waite feels subdued, and Morrison seems like a solid favorite.

HD-29 (Dover suburbs)

William Bush (i) vs. Monica Shockley Porter

State Rep. William Bush was handed this seat in 2018 without a primary. Since that stroke of good fortune, he’s quietly established himself as one of the more conservative, more “Delaware Way”-ish members of the House Democratic caucus, most memorably by being a lonely—and decisive—vote against marijuana legalization even after Pete Schwartzkopf had caved and backed legalization. PhD candidate and social services worker Monica Shockley Porter, much like Kamela Smith in the 15th district, is hoping Delaware voters will choose a different way forward. Shockley Porter, like Smith, is backed by the Working Families Party, which has made ousting Bush a priority (and spent accordingly.) Bush is counting on the old Delaware Way to carry him to another term, while Shockley Porter is relying on her progressive allies and a personal network built in Delaware’s nonprofit world. As far as policy goes, Shockley Porter prioritizes issues including voting rights expansion, universal pre-K, and paid family and medical leave.

New Castle County Executive

Karen Hartley-Nagle vs. Marcus Henry

Karen Hartley-Nagle is almost an accidental officeholder. She won her first election as President of the New Castle County Council in 2016 with a 48% plurality, then managed to win a second term with a much weaker 40% plurality. Why such an underperformance? It might have something to do with the harassment lawsuit she got from a former aide, who alleged that the council president subjected her to a neverending torrent of verbal abuse and insensitive comments. That harassment lawsuit cost the county well over $100,000, and permanently soured relations between Hartley-Nagle and…well, basically everyone else in the often-clubby world of Delaware politics. The county council even asked for Hartley-Nagle to resign in 2018. (She declined.) Hartley-Nagle was able to survive 2020 despite all that, but in 2024 she can’t rely on a split field—she actually has to win a majority. And nobody wants that.

County government staffer Marcus Henry has called in just about every high-profile endorsement you can think of, from U.S. Sen. Chris Coons on down. He’s also swamped Hartley-Nagle with cash—hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending, answered by maybe a tenth of that amount from Hartley-Nagle’s side. Hartley-Nagle may be the two-term countywide elected facing a political neophyte, but she seems like the underdog here.

New Hampshire

Executive Council District 2 (Concord and Western NH)

Karen Liot Hill vs. Michael Liberty 

Executive Councilors in New Hampshire are in a weird space where they have minimal policy input in government, but are often candidates for higher office, so they have to be heavily scrutinized for positions, just not for the office they’re currently running for. Both Lebanon Councilmember Karen Liot Hill and businessman Michael Liberty may be promising similar general Democratic principles, but we feel more comfortable with the idea of Liot Hill running for something more important. She may be a Biden dead-ender with multiple DUIs, but Liberty’s political contribution history shows him supporting mostly moderate Republicans and Andrew Yang, until he started regularly giving to Democrats last year. 

SD-15 (Concord)

Angela Brennan vs. Rebecca McWilliams vs. Tara Reardon

This election is between three competent, qualified women, but don’t tell that to real estate lawyer and former state Rep. Tara Reardon, who claims to have joined the race because the current candidates, state Reps. Angela Brennan and Rebecca McWilliams, lack the necessary experience. However, it’s Reardon who might be the riskiest bet for voters. A new state law forces legislators to recuse themselves in matters of financial conflicts of interest, and Reardon is married to one of the state’s top lobbyists. Though she claims it would be irrelevant, she’s facing attacks that she would have to sit out on some of the chamber’s biggest votes, a charge the state ethics committee is currently deliberating on. McWilliams, whose campaign has focused on her extensive legislative record and support of residential upzoning, comes across as the quiet, wonky type to Brennan’s more activist posture, but the differences between the two seem more personality than policy, even if McWilliams has more of it. Reardon is the standout candidate here, and not in a good way.

SD-20 (Manchester)

Patrick Long vs. Sean Parr

Patrick Long, who serves in both the state house and the Manchester Board of Alders, is supported by a considerable number of his colleagues in both bodies in his effort to become a state senator. He’s obviously a respected politician, but he’s also a longtime opponent of marijuana legalization who voted to ban refugees from being settled in the city. School Board member Sean Parr may be the underdog, but nothing in his record suggests breaking from the party in such a big way.

Rhode Island

In the last few cycles, we watched as a fledgling organized left began coordinating an effort to defeat the dominating conservative faction of the legislature. Those efforts made some progress, but a disappointing 2022 cycle and factional infighting led to everyone but the state’s Working Families Party chapter either packing up shop or exiting electoral work. It’s a real shame, and it reduces each election to an isolated incident instead of a battle in a larger war between left and right.

SD-04 (North Providence)

Dominick Ruggerio (i) vs. Leonardo Cioe Jr.

Dominick Ruggerio, who we’ve previously referred to as “the most conservative Democrat to lead a legislative chamber in the US” is the second most powerful politician in Rhode Island, outside of the governor, and that goes a long way to demonstrating how fucked up Rhode Island politics are. Ruggerio is consistently opposed to gay rights, abortion rights, gun control, and balancing the budget through anything but austerity. A member of the senate since 1985, Ruggerio received his first real challenge in 2020 from Lenny Cioe, a gay nurse running as part of the progressive movement. After a close call—Cioe lost only 55%-45%—Democrats significantly altered the district in redistricting, cutting out almost all of Providence, which had favored Cioe, resulting in a district almost entirely contained within the suburb of North Providence. Cioe ran again in 2022, and lost by a worse 59%-35%, with the remaining 6% going to an even more conservative candidate running to protest Ruggerio allowing an abortion rights bill to make it to the floor. Cioe is back again, and focusing on a specific bill Ruggerio pushed this session, which opened the floodgates for online gambling in the state.

SD-14 (East Providence)

Valarie Lawson (i) vs. Brian Coogan

Valarie Lawson is a normal enough Democratic state senator. Brian Coogan is a former state rep recommended by Rhode Island Right to Life who’s perhaps best known for his ties to Nicholas Alahverdian, the American sex offender who faked his death and adopted a persona as a British man named Arthur Knight in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid a rape charge in Utah and an FBI fraud investigation in Rhode Island. (Alahverdian managed Coogan’s last campaign in 2016. Coogan later helped British media identify Knight as Alahverdian and by all accounts played no role in Alahverdian’s many misdeeds.) The Alahverdian connection is just a weird footnote, really; the deciding factor for us is the Right to Life recommendation.

SD-20 (Cumberland and Woonsocket)

Denis Collins vs. Marian Juskuv vs. Brian Thompson

One of the state’s most consistently conservative regions for Democrats provides us with an appropriately infuriating legislative contest. The party selection here is Woonsocket City Councilmember Brian Thompson, who seems in line with the local political zeitgeist well enough that he won’t even support an assault weapons ban when directly asked and advertises that he’s supported by anti-abortion local state Rep. Stephen Casey. History teacher and Cumberland School Committee member Denis Collins is running as what in the rest of the country would be considered a normal, party-line Democrat, but here qualifies him to be the liberal candidate. Marian Justuv appears to be a local crank running to stop communism, 

SD-28 (Cranston)

Darrell Brown vs. Melissa Carden vs. John Croke Jr. vs. Bernice Morris vs. Lammis Vargas

This contest at least has a clear progressive choice: nonprofit director Bernice Morris, who’s running on a housing-first platform, but is willing to go against the moderate grain of the state not just for rent control (4% annually, as she always emphasizes), but for universal pre-K and a tax on properties worth more than $1 million. It couldn't be a stronger contrast to the party-endorsed candidate, Cranston city councilmember Lammis Vargas, who bills herself as an education candidate, but doesn’t have much to say about what she wants to actually do with it. Rounding out the field is gun control advocate Melissa Carden running as the gun control candidate, Conservation Law Foundation VP Darrèll Brown running as the environmental candidate, and veteran John Croke Jr, who is running as the generic candidate.

SD-37 (South Kingstown)

Susan Sosnowski (i) vs. Anita Jacobson 

Susan Sosnowski has faced URI professor Anita Jacobson before, but not in a primary. Jacobson ran as an independent for this seat in 2022, winning an impressive 13% of the vote against Sosnowski and the Republican nominee. Sosnowski, a liberal veteran of the legislature, has plenty of money and endorsements from a who’s-who of Rhode Island liberal politicians and interest groups, and she should coast to reelection. However, Jacobson’s evident skill as an independent candidate could allow her to do better with primary voters than her minimal budget and low-tech campaign would otherwise indicate.

HD-09 (Providence)

Enrique Sanchez (i) vs. Santos Javier vs. Anastacia Williams

Enrique Sanchez enraged the conservative Rhode Island political old guard when he defeated 30-year incumbent Anastacia Williams by a 54%-39% margin last cycle. The socialist state house rep has, in office, found no favor with house leadership, and the feeling is mutual. Sanchez has had a target on his back for two years, and the result is a Williams comeback bid, which you’d think would be an opportunity for her to not get caught sleeping this time around, but she’s barely engaging with local media. Complicating the rematch is Santos Javier, a landlord/real estate agent who is being suspiciously evasive about his policy stances or why he’s running. That evasion makes sense when you look at who’s working on his campaign: Republican mayoral candidate Dave Talan.

HD-11 (Providence)

Grace Diaz (i) vs. Tania Quezada

Grace Diaz has been frustratingly resilient despite her conservative politics, surviving primary after primary by comfortable margins. Maybe that was just because she faced the same challenger in every primary since 2012—but that changed this year, with perennial candidate Laura Perez staying out. In her place is Tania Quezada, a member of Mayor Brett Smiley’s transition team who doesn’t appear to be running a campaign.

HD-14 (Cranston)

Charlene Lima (i) vs. Giona Picheco

Conservative Democrat Charlene Lima defeated progressive challenger Giona Picheco by nearly 20 points in 2022, which is a tough place for Picheco to start from. However, in 2022, independents may have been drawn to pull Democratic primary ballots because of the competitive gubernatorial primary—this year, at least in Cranston, the action is on the GOP side, with a very heated mayoral primary between some of the city’s most high-profile politicians. Additionally, if Lima’s campaign finance disclosures are accurate, she’s more or less ignoring Picheco this time around, something she didn’t do in 2022. Picheco has also managed to win over a major union in her second go at Lima—the Rhode Island SEIU State Council, which also backs politicians like Dominick Ruggerio and Grace Diaz, is backing Picheco.

HD-16 (Cranston)

Brandon Potter (i) vs. Joseph Graziano

Brandon Potter ousted a conservative Democrat in 2020 and has generally stuck to the progressive side of Rhode Island politics while in office. That’s what’s fueling Joe Graziano’s challenge, funded by the conservative side of Cranston Democratic politics (donors include Charlene Lima and Christopher Millea, the conservative Potter unseated in 2020.) That and…gambling? Rhode Island legalized online gambling earlier this year over the opposition of a mostly progressive minority of lawmakers. Potter was one of the holdouts, and he’s been unafraid to blame Dominick Ruggerio—the Senate sponsor of the legalization bill—for his primary this year.

HD-37 (Westerly)

Samuel Azzinaro (i) vs. Jonathan Daly-LaBelle

Samuel Azzinaro may be best known for introducing a Moms for Liberty-style book ban in the legislature last year; needless to say, he deserves to lose. Unfortunately, he’s taking his challenge from local activist Jonathan Daly-LaBelle quite seriously, lessening the chances of an upset.

HD-51 (Cumberland and Woonsocket)

Robert Phillips (i) vs. Garrett Mancieri

Conservative state Rep. Robert Phillips originally planned to vacate this seat and run for Woonsocket mayor, backing Woonsocket City Councilor Garrett Mancieri to replace him. Then Phillips reassessed his priorities and his chances, and opted to run for reelection instead. Mancieri, who had been backed by state House leadership prior to Phillips’s abrupt reversal, wasn’t ready to step aside for Phillips and quickly announced he’d stay in the race. Mancieri is unlikely to be good—he was backed by state House leadership, and Phillips himself was an early donor—but it’s unlikely he can manage to be worse than Phillips, a social and fiscal conservative endorsed by RI Right to Life.

HD-57 (Central Falls and Cumberland)

Brandon Voas (i) vs. Phoenix Witt

State Rep. Brandon Voas won two years ago by exploiting divides in the Cumberland Democratic Party and promising to be a normal Democrat, unseating a pro-gun, anti-abortion incumbent. In office, he's kept his promise to be a normal Democrat, cozying up to state House leadership (now socially liberal, in contrast to pre-2021 leadership) and amassing an establishment-friendly liberal voting record. However, he hasn’t been a vocal progressive like many successful primary challengers in Rhode Island, and Gen Z student Phoenix Witt is running to give voters a progressive alternative. Witt cites social housing as a priority and takes particular issue with Voas’s vote to double the state’s campaign contribution limits—a vote which divided legislative Democrats almost evenly. Witt has her work cut out for her, with Voas holding a more than 4-to-1 financial advantage and likely having the support of conservative Democrats who backed his opponent last time.

HD-58 (Pawtucket)

Cherie Cruz (i) vs. Elizabeth Moreira

Mayor Don Grebien is a polarizing figure in Pawtucket politics. He has allies representing most of the city in the state Senate, but several of its state reps are progressives who’ve clashed with him, especially Cherie Cruz and her HD-59 neighbor Jennifer Stewart. Cruz, a member of the state House’s progressive bloc, won a plurality in 2022 in an open seat, and now she faces a Grebien administration official, Elizabeth Moreira. Moreira, who oversaw the city’s COVID response under Grebien, would shift power back to the center if she won (though, to her credit, she has managed to piss off Right to Life enough for the group to issue an anti-endorsement of both her and Cruz.) Both Cruz and Moreira seem to be working hard to win votes, but Cruz appears to have the more professional operation based on her campaign finance filings; combined with incumbency, that’s enough for us to see her as favored.

HD-64 (East Providence and Pawtucket)

Jenni Furtado vs. Ashley Pereira

The surprise retirement of state Rep. Brianna Henries in May leaves East Providence School Committee Chair Jenni Furtado as the only serious candidate for HD-64. Furtado had been challenging Henries, a progressive, in the Democratic primary prior to her surprise retirement. Ashley Pereira is a perennial candidate recommended by RI Right to Life who lost to Henries 55-45 in 2022. Maybe Pereira can do better against someone who’s not an incumbent, but voters motivated by opposition to Henries’s progressivism now have Furtado as an acceptable alternative to vote for.

Governor’s Council

2nd District (Southwest Boston suburbs)

Tamisha Civil vs. Muriel Kramer vs. Sean Murphy vs. David Reservitz

The Governor’s Council, a body that currently only exists in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, exists only to confirm gubernatorial appointments and pardons, tasks that most state governments in the last 300 years have delegated to their senates. While there briefly was a movement to elect new blood in hopes of making the all-Democratic body less of a rubber stamp for Republican governor Charlie Baker, with the election of Democrat Maura Healey, people have mostly gone back to forgetting it exists. 

Victim's Witness Advocate in Suffolk Superior Court Tamisha Civil has been on our preview twice before, as the progressive challenger to state Rep. William Galvin, one of the most conservative Democrats in the legislature. We’re a bit concerned about giving someone with a background in probation and the DA’s office power over pardons, commutations, and judgeships, but she at least has the kind of political history that suggests anything other than using the office to passively accept whatever the governor does.  

Social worker Muriel Kramer may be running for state office for the first time after decades in local Hopkinton (pop. 19,000) politics, but she’s earned one very powerful ally during that time: Senate Majority Leader Karen Spilka, who is also Kramer's local state senator. Kramer is framing her campaign in criminal justice terms, and Spilka, author of some significant pieces of criminal justice reform legislation, lends Kramer credibility on the issue. 

Attorneys Sean Murphy and David Reservitz are the less promising options. Both are practicing civil attorneys who have some vague statements about experience and fairness as reasons they should be elected. Reservitz, who has lapped the field in fundraising (a comparatively large $133K to Civil’s $48K, Murphy’s $36K, and Kramer’s $8K) and previously served on then-Gov. Deval Patrick’s Judicial Nominating Commision, is a mild favorite, while Murphy, who served time for dealing oxycodone before entering a career in law, isn’t. 

3rd District (Western Boston suburbs)

Marilyn Petitto Devaney (i) vs. Mara Dolan 

If you want to understand the power of inertia in Governor’s Council races, look no further than Marilyn Petitto Devaney, who has, across multiple decades in office, assaulted store clerks, rifled through other people’s mail, and flat out faked endorsements, the last of which she did during her 2022 primary campaign. And she still won reelection over public defender Mara Dolan 60%-40%. Dolan has substantial ground to close in her rematch this year, but she is being taken a lot more seriously this year by the state establishment, and has picked up the Boston Globe’s endorsement. Conversely, Petitto Devaney seems to think she’s bulletproof, and honestly being the deciding vote to confirm an anti-choice judge in July of 2022 and winning by 20% a few months later, it’s not hard to see where she gets the idea. Her biggest endorsement is, tellingly, very-recently-no-longer-anti-choice Congressmember Stephen Lynch.

4th District (Boston and South Shore)

Christopher Iannella (i) vs. Stacey Borden vs. Ronald Iacobucci

The final Governor’s Council race is a straightforward progressive vs. moderate battle. Prison abolitionist and nonprofit leader Stacey Borden is running an expressly progressive campaign: her website showcases pictures of her with the Squad, and she’s been touting her endorsement from Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who represents about half of the district in Congress, as much as humanly possible. Borden is much more willing to reject judicial appointments if it means tilting the balance of the courts away from ex-prosecutors and corporate attorneys, an approach utterly rejected by the incumbent, who only cares about, in his words, “temperament”. Christopher Iannella Jr., son of legendary Boston City Councilmember Christopher Iannella Sr, has been on the Governor’s Council for 30 years, and spent that entire time as a rubber stamp, though one of the few times he broke with the consensus was in a nearly successful effort to block a nominee at the behest of gun groups. Borden has done very well for herself among progressive Boston groups, but unfortunately this district also has the historically conservative neighborhood of South Boston and the city’s most conservative suburbs, the same combination that makes Rep. Stephen Lynch so hard to dislodge.

State Senate

1st Suffolk (Boston - South End, Southie, and Dorchester)

Nick Collins (i) vs. Juwan Skeens

Nick Collins can’t last in the Senate forever. An old school conservative Southie-ite like him isn’t going to be able to hold down a majority-minority district forever, even if he did get his colleagues to make his district significantly less Black when they redrew the lines in 2022. Still, 2020 was the best year to do it, and that year, the competent but underfunded campaign from Samuel Pierce went down 74%-26%. This year, with a district that presents even more of a challenge, another Democrat is challenging Collins: entrepreneur Juwan Skeens, who mixes many progressive policy ideas with some weird vibes (his issues page begins with the federal debt clock, for some reason). Skeens, despite being a former staffer to Councilmember Andrea Campbell (and therefore someone who should know people in politics), has essentially failed to fundraise anything.

2nd Bristol and Plymouth (New Bedford area)

Mark Montigny (i) vs. Molly Kivi

Mark Montigny has been in the Senate for over 30 years and has done absolutely nothing of note in that time. He’s a terminal backbencher, sitting around and collecting checks for chairing committees that don’t exist. The political culture of New Bedford is stodgy and moderate, even by Massachusetts standards, and Montingy may just be the kind of politician they like. We’re happy that Molly Kivi is at least willing to test that idea by running a campaign promising to be more responsive and open, even if she’s doing it on a budget of nothing but $2,000 she loaned herself. 

Hampden (Springfield and Chicopee)

Adam Gomez (i) vs. Malo Brown

Adam Gomez was one of the few 2020 down ballot progressive victories in Massachusetts, unseating moderate James Welch by a 5% margin. Since then, the district theoretically became even more Gomnez-friendly by dropping the suburb of West Springfield, in exchange for all but a few precincts of Springfield proper, which Gomez, a former Springfield Councilmember, won by 29% in that initial election. It may have, however, opened him up to the vagaries of Springfield’s political scene. Councilmember Malo Brown is challenging Gomez, citing most commonly his record on the Springfield Council, where Gomez championed police defunding, citizen oversight boards, and, most objectionable of all to Brown, the rejection of a potential police chief who was resistant to reform efforts. 

Brown is bolstered by tens of thousands of dollars in local business and cop cash, and flanked on his campaign literature by Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno and state Rep. Bud Williams. Sarno and Williams are both blights on the city’s politics, conservatives with absurdly long careers representing different moderate branches of local interests. Williams, who is anti-choice, is facing a primary challenge of his own this year. This campaign has gotten nasty, and Gomez has made some mistakes that make him more vulnerable than he should be (Hooters as a campaign expense? Come on, man).

Norfolk, Plymouth, and Bristol (Southern Boston suburbs)

Erin Bradley vs. Kathleen Crogan-Camara vs. William Driscoll Jr.

This district is part of those “most conservative Boston suburbs” we mentioned in the 4th Governor’s Council primary above, so our hopes aren’t set the highest here, but we’re still excited, because Walter Timilty, and by extension the whole Timilty dynasty, is finally gone. Timilty was a conservative so out of step with the state that registered nurse Kathleen Crogan-Camara held him to a 60%-40% victory in 2022. Crogan-Camara, a progressive who bills herself as “a different kind of Democrat” may very well have missed her moment—her campaign is getting a lot less traction now that there’s no Timilty to run against—but with name recognition in a three-way race is still a serious contender. Progressive groups and organized labor instead seem to like Erin Bradley, probably because she was a legislative analyst for Senate President Karen Spilka, the closest thing progressives have to an ally in state government. The odds-on favorite is, unfortunately, state Rep. William Driscoll Jr., and unremarkable moderate who has lapped the field in fundraising and has the support of Rep. Stephen Lynch, building trades unions, and a collection of state lawmakers. He already represents the Boston-adjacent northern edge of the district, and should win heavily in the more conservative southern towns, which would make him tough to beat even if progressives weren’t splitting the vote.

State House

Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket (Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cape Cod)

Arielle Faria vs. Thomas Moakley

Local ADA Thomas Moakley has the right last name for a career in Massachusetts politics; his great-uncle was longtime Southeastern Mass congressman Joe Moakley. He also has a generally progressive platform, though he sounds squishy on housing (he’s skeptical of rent control and seems a little too wedded to local control over zoning—the status quo which has fueled the nation’s housing crisis) as well as criminal justice. Outgoing state Rep. Dylan Fernandes, local law enforcement leaders, and officials in Moakley’s hometown of Falmouth back Moakley, but as you might have guessed from the law enforcement bit, Moakley is not the progressive favorite here. That would be affordable housing manager Arielle Faria, who has progressive groups, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and a number of unions in her corner (mostly SEIU chapters, as well as the American Federation of Teachers.) Faria, who lives and works on Martha’s Vineyard, is focused on housing affordability and climate change, where she embraces progressive stances across the board (also true of every other platform plank of hers.) Moakley has a modest but meaningful financial advantage over Faria.

3rd Berkshire (The Berkshires)

Leigh Davis vs. Jamie Minacci vs. Patrick White

Three local town councilors (called select board members because New England refuses to abide by the normal nomenclature of American local government) are running for the Democratic nomination for the seat being vacated by longtime state Rep. Smitty Pignatelli. (Pour one out for one of the best names in politics.) One, Stockbridge’s Jamie Minacci, lags badly in fundraising and will likely finish in third place, behind her Stockbridge colleague Patrick White and Great Barrington’s Leigh Davis. Both Davis and White cast themselves as staunch progressives and generally agree on the issues, whether it’s local issues (for example, regulating short-term rentals in this tourism-dependent district), statewide issues (for example, both want to hike taxes on the rich and make the Massachusetts legislature more transparent), or their views of the outgoing incumbent (both cite Pignatelli as a role model.) Progressive groups and organized labor favor Davis, who has been a member of various unions throughout her career; Davis and White are roughly evenly matched financially.

11th Essex (North Shore - Lynn and Nahant)

Hong Net vs. Sean Reid

Two local officials in the city of Lynn are running for the seat being left behind by state Rep. Peter Capano. The frontrunner is probably Lynn School Committee member Sean Reid, also the legislative director for state Sen. Brendan Crighton; Reid has the support of much of organized labor and also has a significant financial advantage. However, Lynn City Councilor Hong Net can’t be counted out: Net has some organizational support of his own from SEIU branches, and presumably greater name recognition from a longer career in Lynn politics. Net is clearly running as a progressive, while Reid is vague on the issues and skipped Progressive Mass’s detailed questionnaire. Net, a Cambodian refugee, may also be able to count on Lynn’s significant Cambodian-American community for support at the polls.

16th Essex (Lawrence and Methuen)

Francisco Paulino (i) vs. Marcos Devers

Last cycle, Francisco Paulino unseated backbencher Marcos Devers with the help of Lawrence Mayor Brian DePeña. Since then, the two of them have had a dramatic falling out for reasons only unbeknownst to them, which has inspired DePeña to campaign for the man he helped remove from the legislature: Marcos Devers. At the time, we said that the close involvement of DePeña, a business-aligned moderate, was a good reason to vote against his candidate. Now that he’s played both sides, we’re less sure. With the contest now falling mostly along the lines of personal relationships and local politics—the charter school lobby, who helped finance Paulino in 2022, isn’t bothering this time—the victor may simply not matter that much.

11th Hampden (Springfield)

Bud Williams (i) vs. Johnnie McKnight

Like the Hampden Senate contest above, this is a Springfield factional battle. Incumbent Bud Williams is backing Malo Brown’s challenge to progressive state Sen. Adam Gomez, while middle school teacher Johnnie McKnight previously managed Gomez’s campaign and ran against Williams ally Domenic Sarno for mayor of Springfield in 2015. McKnight is seeking to make abortion a central issue in this campaign, and it’s obvious why: Williams is shaky on abortion. While the incumbent claims to be pro-choice, he’s voted against multiple landmark bills expanding abortion access. Williams unfortunately has a massive financial advantage over McKnight as of July 31, though whether he actually used it in the home stretch is something we’ll only find out after the primary. Williams survived a challenge from union organizer Jynai McDonald (now Gomez’s campaign manager) 64%-36% in 2022, and that’s the benchmark tonight.

5th Middlesex (Western Boston suburbs - Natick)

David Linsky (i) vs. Jaymin Patel

Small businessman Jaymin Patel ran against unremarkable liberal David Linsky in 2020, losing by nearly 60 points. While Patel narrowly outspent Linsky over the summer, when you’ve already lost 80-20 it’s hard to come back from that. Not helping matters is the fact that Patel holds “moderate democratic views,” giving progressives no reason to break with the incumbent.

7th Middlesex (Western Boston suburbs - Ashland and Framingham)

Jack Patrick Lewis (i) vs. Carlton Phelps

State Rep. Jack Patrick Lewis faces a challenge from Ashland Democratic Party activist and bank analyst Carlton Phelps. Phelps strikes a vaguely progressive tone, but Lewis’s spending patterns indicate an incumbent who isn’t taking his seat for granted. Lewis, who chairs the Massachusetts House Progressive Caucus, also has the entire Massachusetts Democratic establishment and organized labor behind him. This should be an easy win for Lewis.

9th Middlesex (Western Boston suburbs - Waltham)

Thomas Stanley (i) vs. Heather May

In 2022, moderate Democratic state Rep. Thomas Stanley faced his first primary in years from Waltham Democratic City Committee Chair and Emerson College union organizer Heather May, who ran to his left and promised to join the Massachusetts House’s small bloc of progressive legislators. May nearly pulled off the upset, holding Stanley to a 53%-47% victory, and she’s back for Round 2. In her campaign, May is foregrounding Beacon Hill’s abysmal lack of transparency, which allows legislators to escape scrutiny for controversial votes by making many votes nonpublic. (Yes, you read that correctly—many of the legislature’s votes are withheld from the public.) Once again, May is operating at a financial disadvantage with support from only a couple of progressive groups—but that was nearly enough two years ago, so this is a race to watch.

11th Middlesex (Western Boston suburbs - Newton)

Alexander Jablon vs. Amy Mah Sangiolo

This race appears to be Newton City Councilor Amy Mah Sangiolo’s race to lose. Sangiolo has the backing of the Newton establishment and even its police union, not the norm for a candidate who also bothered to fill out a Progressive Mass questionnaire and won the endorsement of the Sierra Club. Sangiolo also has a wide financial advantage over auditor Alex Jablon, who cites government transparency as a top issue. Jablon’s campaign has raised an okay amount of money, but almost everyone in Newton politics seems to have simply settled on Sangiolo.

12th Middlesex (Newton and Brookline)

Bill Humphrey vs. Rick Lipof vs. Greg Schwartz

Two Newton City Councilors are running to succeed state Rep. Ruth Balser, and she’s backing neither of them—preferring medical doctor Greg Schwartz. The local establishment, including the police unions for both Newton and Brookline, narrowly prefers Newton City Councilor Rick Lipof, who has outraised and outspent his competitors. (There is no natural way to mention this, but Lipof may be dragged down by some weird, creepy texts he sent a female colleague offering her a foot massage.) Newton City Councilor Bill Humphrey, a progressive campaign consultant and commentator, has the least money (though his campaign is by no means broke; this is simply a very expensive race) but has been focusing on relentless door-knocking and has the benefit of being the only obvious progressive running in a very liberal part of inner-ring Boston suburbia. Progressive groups and the bulk of organized labor, including the normally conservative building trades, are backing Humphrey, while local officials are split between Lipof and Schwartz. Humphrey has the most detailed and most progressive platform of the three candidates, and is the only one with a clear focus on making the state legislature more transparent so that legislators can be held accountable for things like committee votes.

18th Middlesex (Lowell)

Rady Mom (i) vs. Tara Hong vs. Andrew Kollar

Progressive Tara Hong nearly upset state Rep. Rady Mom in 2022, after Mom broke with most Democrats to oppose a police reform bill and established himself as a generally moderate Democrat over the years. Hong held Mom to a narrow plurality win after the two spent nearly at parity, and the same spending pattern has emerged in their rematch. Hong, who is a substitute teacher and community activist when he’s not running for office, has to hope that small business owner Andrew Kollar takes up less of the anti-Mom vote than Lowell School Committee member Dominik Hok Y Lay did in 2022. As in 2022, progressive groups are enthusiastically backing Hong, hoping to add a member to the small bloc of progressive state reps.

25th Middlesex (Cambridge)

Marjorie Decker (i) vs. Evan MacKay

Marjorie Decker isn’t an overt conservative, like many members of the legislature who need a primary challenge, but she does represent Cambridge, the ur-college town, and Harvard is in her district. Viewed through that light, it’s harder to put up with a middle-of-the-road Democrat with endless patience for the opaque machinations of house leadership. Massachusetts has a notoriously leadership-driven legislative process, to the point where the public doesn’t even have access to most votes that representatives and committees take, a practice Decker has supported against attempts to change it. Recent-ish Harvard graduate, and current Harvard grad student labor leader Evan MacKay is making this intransigence their focus, attempting to harness the reformist, good-government tendency of Cambridge voters, as well as drawing on the large pool of left-wing voters in the city—MacKay is, after all, a DSA-endorsee who emphasizes that a more transparent legislature is a means to an end of passing more progressive legislation that voters in Massachusetts actually want. 

This contest has become a focal point for both insurgent progressives and the old guard across the state. Gov. Maura Healey has made a rare endorsement for Decker, as has Sen. Ed Markey, and, disappointingly, Rep. Ayanna Pressley. Progressive Mass and Act on Mass, the state’s leading progressive/transparency orgs, have done their best to promote MacKay, and they’ve picked up an endorsement from Auditor Diana DiZoglio, who has been on a crusade since her election to audit the legislature, whose resistance has led to a ballot measure this fall on whether she’ll get to do that. This race is the most expensive house contest in the state, with Decker and allies making up the bulk of that; hopefully, MacKay’s volunteer force, especially in a low-turnout election right as school gets back in session, could turn the tide.

27th Middlesex (Somerville)

Erika Uyterhoeven (i) vs. Kathleen Hornby 

Democratic socialist Erika Uyterhoeven was elected to represent the left-wing, Boston-bordering city of Somerville in 2020, and some Somerville Democrats have never gotten over it. Former legislative staffer Kathleen Hornby is running against Uyterhoeven with the backing of the Somerville Democratic City Committee. Hornby has outraised and outspent Uyterhoeven, and she’s wisely framed herself as a progressive—in a contested race it’s unlikely that Somerville would dump a progressive incumbent for a self-professed moderate. However, Hornby was a staffer for Cambridge state Rep. Marjorie Decker—a member of the obstinately conservative state House leadership—and she’s attacking Uyterhoeven for being too much of a purist who’s willing to vote against the Democratic consensus when the Democratic consensus is bad, like the budget-destroying package of tax cuts for the wealthy that Gov. Maura Healey and Beacon Hill leaders rammed through the legislature last year. Hornby would likely be a progressive enough vote, but she’d also be a doormat for the worse-than-useless legislative leadership, which is not something anyone would accuse Uyterhoeven of, even her detractors.

28th Middlesex (North Boston suburbs - Everett)

Joseph McGonagle Jr. (i) vs. Michael Marchese

Joseph McGonagle was one of Republican Gov. Charlie Baker’s favorite Democrats when Baker was in office. Baker’s parting gift to McGonagle was a bunch of money from his Massachusetts Majority PAC in 2022. Everett City Councilor Michael Marchese isn’t running against McGonagle for his Republican-friendly stances; he is, however, calling the incumbent old and out of touch, asserting that he’s more in step with the times and with Everett’s modern diversity. (Neither man seems particularly in step with the times, honestly.) Marchese has run against McGonagle twice before, losing both times.

35th Middlesex (North Boston suburbs - Malden and Medford)

Paul Donato Sr. (i) vs. Nichole Mossalam vs. Zayda Ortiz 

Socially conservative state Rep. Paul Donato Sr. has no business representing Boston’s diverse, left-leaning inner northern suburbs. Unfortunately, he may survive yet another tough primary because progressives couldn’t settle on one candidate. Nichole Mossalam, a progressive activist and mosque outreach leader, showed Donato was weak with a 56%-44% loss in 2020 and nearly unseated him in a 50.6%-49.4% nailbiter in 2022, and many of her progressive allies, plus a good number of local officials, are backing her to finish the job. However, former Progressive Mass president Zayda Ortiz is also running with the support of Progressive Mass and several local officials. Both Ortiz and Mossalam have a good amount of money to work with—but each of them has less than Donato does, and Donato no longer needs a majority to hold on. It seems to us that either woman would have a good shot at Donato if she had the field to herself, but with both in the race the pool of progressive voters is going to be split.

7th Norfolk (Southern Boston suburbs - Milton and Randolph)

Christos Alexopoulos vs. Tony King vs. Richard Wells Jr.

Though the campaign has been a cordial affair, it doesn’t take a tremendous amount of detective work to spot deep ideological differences in this race, which pits cannabis business owner Tony King against cops Richard Wells and Christos Alexopoulos. Organized labor has, in a welcome surprise, chosen King as their candidate, possibly because he also runs a union printing shop, but also possibly because both Wells and Alexaopoulos give off very centrist, even conservative vibes and have little to say to voters other than that they’re cops.  Wells is the fundraising leader, while Alexopoulos trails both Wells and King badly, but benefits from being the only Randolph-based candidate in a district where Randolph makes up most of the population. 

13th Norfolk (Western Boston suburbs - Needham)

Patrick Gatto vs. Kenneth Ruetenik vs. Joshua Tarsky (vs. Bhuren Patel)

The race to succeed longtime state Rep. Denise Garlick, a quietly quite good member of the state house, gives us plenty of candidates to consider. Patrick Gatto, a longtime Democratic staffer and volunteer, has labeled himself the progressive candidate, though his history with candidates like Joe Kennedy in 2020 and his day job in real estate gives us pause. Lawyer Joshua Tarsky is endorsed by Seth Moulton, so we know to stay far away, but he is, predictably,  the fundraising leader. 24 year-old Kenneth Ruetenik has deep family roots in Progressive Mass, who he cites as a major influence. He also lists specific ideas, like raising the corporate tax rate, that other candidates won’t touch. Unfortunately, he’s raised almost no money. Confusing things further is the presence of genuinely serious write-in candidate Bhuren Patel. 

11th Plymouth (Southern Boston suburbs - Brockton)

Rita Mendes (i) vs. Fred Fontaine

After running two extremely unsuccessful write-in campaigns for this seat in 2022, and losing 66%-34% against Brockton’s incumbent mayor in 2023, business owner Fred Fontaine is on the fast track to perennial candidate status. Fontaine should lose by a wide margin to incumbent Rita Mendes. 

6th Suffolk (Boston - Mattapan)

Russell Holmes (i) vs. Haris Hardaway vs. Samuel Pierce

Normally a hotbed of Democratic primary activity, the city of Boston is seeing a sleepy primary cycle this year. State Rep. Russell Holmes’s reelection race might be what passes as the most competitive race in the city; Haris Hardaway, who lost to Holmes 75%-24% in 2022, and perennial candidate Samuel Pierce are trying to deny Holmes another term. Hardaway, at least, has a bit of money to work with, but it shouldn’t be enough to come back from a 50-point drubbing.

8th Suffolk (Boston - Back Bay and Beacon Hill)

Jay Livingstone (i) vs. Lisa Graf vs. Kelechi Linardon

State Rep. Jay Livingstone faces token challenges from autistic self-advocate Lisa Graf and phantom candidate Kelechi Linardon. He’ll coast.

Local Offices

Really, there’s just one, but it’s a clear ideological fight between Boston’s progressive and liberal governing coalition on one side and the conservatives who have recently been shut out of power on the other side.

Suffolk County Clerk of Supreme Judicial Court

Aliison Cartwright vs. Erin Murphy

Remember Erin Murphy? Murphy was the only real victory for conservatives in Boston before the 2023 backlash election, barely squeaking into 4th place in the 2021 at-large Council election. As we said at the time, 

“Erin Murphy is the great white hope of the city’s moderate establishment. After running and losing in 2019, she cultivated relationships with the building trade unions and the affluent homeowning class, which allowed her to emerge as the leading non-progressive this time around. Endorsed by the police, she supports every excess of the department. Endorsed by every local moderate Irish politician in Boston, she promises to carry on their tradition.”

It appears she already wants out. Murphy is seeking one of the most obscure and powerless roles in local politics, basically handling the paperwork for the county’s top courts. That doesn’t mean she couldn’t cause problems there, but it’s not really an office with a lot of room to shine. Public defender Allison Cartwright is the much better choice for the role, and the Boston establishment, from Mayor Michelle Wu on down, does seem to agree. Normally we might be inclined to hope she wins anyway so she can be replaced on the council, but unfortunately Boston’s succession rules dictate that the 5th place candidate from 2023 take her spot, and that’s Bridget Nee-Walsh, who is just as bad.

SD-05 (Jacksonville)

Tracie Davis (i) vs. Francky Jeanty

Result: Davis 95.2%, Jeanty 4.8% | Davis wins

In Jacksonville, Democratic politics is a constant battle between normal-enough liberals and extreme social conservatives. State Sen. Tracie Davis, first elected in 2022 in an expensive race, is a member of the former group. Fortunately, Davis isn’t facing a serious challenger this year. Political newcomer and motivational writer Francky Jeanty is running against her, and he has raised very little money. Davis will win handily.

SD-15 (parts of downtown Orlando and northwestern suburbs)

Geraldine Thompson (i) vs. Randolph Bracy

Result: Thompson 60.8%, Bracy 39.2% | Thompson wins

Geraldine Thompson has been in and out of the state legislature since 2006, bouncing from the House to the Senate and launching an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2016. She’s represented this district, which includes parts of downtown Orlando and northwest Orange County, since 2022. Thompson is a solid liberal, but doesn’t make a lot of waves. She faces a primary challenge from former state Sen. Randolph Bracy, who was last seen losing to Maxwell Frost in FL-10 in 2022. Bracy served in the state legislature for a decade, first in the House and then the Senate, and his sister, LaVon Bracy Davis, is currently a member of the state House. Bracy is much more conservative and corporate-friendly than Thompson. For example, he received a “preferred” rating—though not an “endorsement”—from Florida Family Action, a right-wing group.

While Thompson and Bracy represent pretty different molds of Democrats, the biggest controversy in the race so far has been a lawsuit that Bracy threatened to file against Thompson for allegedly living outside of the district. At a press conference that Bracy held to announce the lawsuit, Thompson crashed the conference, took the podium, and said that while she does own a home outside of the district, she lives in the district with her daughter—which is admittedly not a great defense. More interestingly, however, Thompson “suggest[ed] Bracy’s lawsuit is retaliation over a failed romantic pursuit involving her family.” Bracy denied the allegation, but did not seem to deny that he had a romantic entanglement with a member of Thompson’s family. Weird.

Anyway, both Thompson and Bracy are pretty known quantities in the district, and though Thompson has outraised Bracy, it’s not by a commanding amount—and neither candidate has raised a lot anyway. Bracy’s campaign is curiously offline—his Twitter account has not been updated from his 2022 congressional campaign and he has no website or other social media presence. Thompson is probably favored here, but a Bracy win wouldn’t be crazy.

SD-25 (south Orlando and Osceola County)

Kristen Arrington vs. Alan Grayson vs. Carmen Torres

Result: Arrington 50.5%, Torres 25.6%, Grayson 23.9% | Arrington wins

State Sen. Vic Torres is term-limited in this majority Latine district, which includes all of Osceola County and parts of south Orange County—where most of the hotels, resorts, and theme parks are located. Somewhat surprisingly, Torres hasn’t laid out the red carpet for his daughter, former state Rep. and current Orange County Property Appraiser Amy Mercado. No, instead, he’s done that for his wife, Carmen Torres, a long-time Democratic activist in the area. Torres has two main opponents: state Rep. Kristen Arrington, wife of Osceola County Commissioner Brandon Arrington, and former Congressman Alan Grayson, who dropped his longshot U.S. Senate campaign to inexplicably run for state Senate, despite showing no previous interest in state politics.

It’s tough to tell who’s favored here. Torres has the support of much of the Democratic establishment at the state and local level, and probably benefits from being the only Latine candidate in this district. Arrington, on the other hand, has locked up the endorsements of most of the state’s unions. Arrington is also outraising and outspending Torres somewhat significantly.

Yet Grayson is the wild card in the race. He obviously benefits from sky-high name recognition, but is a deeply polarizing figure. Grayson last won an election in 2014 and a competitive Democratic primary in 2008. Since then, he’s racked up an impressive series of losses: a 2016 campaign for the U.S. Senate (lost); a 2018 campaign for FL-09, running against Congressman Darren Soto in the Democratic primary (lost); a 2020 write-in campaign for FL-06, running against Republican Congressman Michael Waltz (ostensibly to prevent Waltz from abusing the franking privilege); and a 2022 campaign for FL-10 (lost). Grayson hasn’t raised much, but has self-funded a good amount—and can probably still pull a non-trivial amount of the support of Orlando-area Democrats, so he has a non-zero chance of winning.

Arrington is probably the slightly better candidate here—despite some past ethical issues and her support from the state corporate lobby, the fact that Orlando progressives have rallied around her gives us confidence—but Torres would be fine. However, Arrington, Grayson, and Torres all have plausible paths to winning a plurality of the vote here.

(Correction: in the initial version of this issue we incorrectly stated that Kristen Arrington had been endorsed by state Rep. Anna Eskamani, state Sen.-elect Carlos Guillermo Smith, and the Associated Industries of Florida. Those endorsements were from 2022. We apologize for the error.)

SD-35 (western Broward County)

Rodney Jacobs vs. Chad Klitzman vs. Barbara Sharief

Result: Sharief 46.6%, Klitzman 34.9%, Jacobs 18.5% | Sharief wins

State Sen. Lauren Book has always been a bit of an oddity in the legislature—she’s the daughter of extremely prominent lobbyist Ron Book, who’s played both sides of the aisle, but has racked up a reasonably progressive record in the legislature. Regardless, she’s term-limited this year—though very likely to remain in Florida politics in some capacity—and there’s a tough primary to succeed her in this Broward County-based district. The candidates are:

• Barbara Sharief, former Broward County Mayor/Commissioner, multiple-time candidate for higher office (including this State Senate seat in 2022)

• Chad Klitzman, Democratic election lawyer and 2020 candidate for Broward County Supervisor of Elections

• Rodney Jacobs Jr., head of a Miami police watchdog board

All three candidates are campaigning as solid progressives, but Klitzman is probably the best one among the three. Sharief is a former Republican who made sizable contributions to the RNC in the leadup to the 2004 presidential election, has faced allegations that her health care company has overbilled Medicaid, and seemed to support anti-choice state Rep. James Bush III (more on him below) in his unsuccessful 2022 re-election campaign. Jacobs, who is probably the third wheel in this race, has benefited from mailers that have falsely accused Klitzman of supporting Republican candidates that were funded, in part, by Republican lobbyist Michael Corcoran (the brother of Richard Corcoran, DeSantis’s apparatchik at New College who has facilitated a conservative takeover of the tiny liberal arts college).

While Klitzman hasn’t made a lot of waves, being a standard-issue Democrat without ethical issues or secret support from Republicans is good enough in this race. Plus, Klitzman would be one of the first openly gay state senators in the state.

Regardless, Klitzman and Sharief are probably the two likeliest candidates to win. They’ve been competitive with each other financially, with Jacobs further behind, and have both racked up endorsements from the local Democratic establishment. The demographic makeup of the electorate could play a significant role in the outcome—Klitzman is white while Sharief is Black, and both groups cast a significant share of the Broward Democratic primary vote.

HD-13 (west Jacksonville)

Angie Nixon (i) vs. Brenda Priestly Jackson

State Rep. Angie Nixon is one of the few openly progressive members of the state legislature—she beat conservative Democrat Kim Daniels (more on her below) in 2020 and beat back a Daniels-backed challenger in 2022. She faces a tough challenger this year in Brenda Priestly Jackson, a former Jacksonville City Councilwoman who’s been active in Jacksonville-area politics for decades. Priestly Jackson has criticized Nixon’s ineffectiveness in the legislature, which is coded language for not playing nicely with Republicans. Priestly Jackson has played nice with Republicans for much of her career—when civil rights groups challenged the Jacksonville City Council map, the City Council hired a Republican election lawyer to defend the maps and Priestly Jackson was vocally opposed to the map adopted in the final settlement, which undid an incumbent-protection gerrymander. She’s also received campaign contributions from state and local Republican groups and a “preferred” rating from Florida Family Action.

Nixon is probably favored here. She’s significantly outraised Priestly Jackson, both through her official campaign account and an affiliated committee; has support from local labor unions; and hasn’t given conservatives in the area a real opening. Priestly Jackson can’t be counted out—name recognition in a low-attention race isn’t nothing—but you should expect a Nixon win here.

HD-14 (downtown and south Jacksonville)

Kim Daniels (i) vs. Lloyd Caulker vs. Theresa Wakefield-Gamble

State Rep. Kim Daniels is one of the worst people in Florida politics—and it’s unclear why she’s even a member of the Democratic Party, let alone how she has repeatedly won contested Democratic primaries. We’ve written about her in 2020 and 2022 before and, as we did in 2022, we’ll quote from our 2020 synopsis:

She’s absolutely, and comically, terrible for reasons that are difficult to fit into this newsletter. Let’s try. For a start, all of these are actual Kim Daniels quotes:

“You can talk about the Holocaust, but the Jews, they own everything!”

“I thank God for slavery […]if it wasn’t for slavery, I might be somewhere in Africa, worshipping a tree.”

“We curse gay pride to the root and declare that i[t] is nothing to be proud of; it is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord […]We come against the witchcraft that is working behind the scenes of the homosexual agenda.”

It won’t surprise you that Daniels is aggressively anti-abortion, introduced legislation to mandate Bible studies in public schools, and, while she was on the Jacksonville City Council, opposed an anti-LGBT discrimination ordinance, drawing a bizarre analogy to Biblical Egypt, which she said also had anti-LGBT discrimination laws, along with laws allowing bestiality and necrophilia.

After losing renomination to Angie Nixon, 60-40%, in 2020, Daniels ran again for a different district in 2022, and won 47% of the vote in the Democratic primary. Daniels has a tough time winning a majority of the vote in a closed Democratic primary, so a split field helps her—and, unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happened this year, too. Daniels faces two challengers: Lloyd Caulker, a former pastor and consultant, and Theresa Wakefield-Gamble.

Caulker is, uh, strange. Florida Politics reported that Caulker is the registered owner of Salvation Navy, a “business” that describes itself on LinkedIn as “Strategist against the Commandery of Knights Templer, Consistory of Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret Etc.” Naturally, Caulker also says that Jesus Christ called on him to run and praised Ron DeSantis as a “great leader” during COVID. He also professes no knowledge at all about Kim Daniels. Okay then.

Wakefield-Gamble is a more normal candidate—though she does unfortunately describe herself as a “Serial Entrepreneur” and a “Disruptive Thinker” on her website—and is running against Daniels from the left, focusing specifically on solving affordable housing and homelessness. But Wakefield-Gamble hasn’t attracted a ton of local support yet and is being outspent by Daniels, though not too badly. Added to that the fact that Caulker is also running—though, honestly, he might take votes from Daniels—and she has a tough race. Wakefield-Gamble has gotten some endorsements from state and local Democratic Party caucuses and committees, as well as SEIU, but no group has seemed to do very much advocacy on her behalf so far. Daniels is probably favored for re-election, but Florida progressives need to make defeating her a big priority going forward.

HD-44 (south Orlando)

Rita Harris (i) vs. Daisy Morales

In 2022, state Rep. Daisy Morales was defeated for re-election by Rita Harris in a largely non-ideological contest that largely focused on Morales’s oddness. Harris, a white candidate running in a majority-Latine district, defeated Morales 54-46%, and Morales is running again. This is an open primary, but given that this is a 61% Biden district and there aren’t very clear ideological stakes, the fact that Republicans and independents can vote probably won’t matter much. The state and local political establishment have rallied behind Harris, who’s also outraised and outspent Morales by a solid margin. Morales has raised pitifully little, but has loaned herself $25,000, so she has resources to get her message out. Nonetheless, Harris is the strong favorite here.

HD-46 (Kissimmee and northwestern Osceola County)

Jose Alvarez vs. Vanessa Alvarez vs. Jacqueline Centeno vs. R. LeWayne Johnson

After serving two terms, incumbent state Rep. Kristen Arrington is running for the Senate (see above), resulting in a crowded open seat. Jose Alvarez, the former Mayor of Kissimmee; phantom candidate Vanessa Alvarez; Jacqueline Centeno, a teacher and 2018 Orange County School Board candidate; and R. LeWayne Johnson, an attorney and head of the Florida Coalition to Prevent Veteran Homelessness, are all running. This race hasn’t really developed, and the stakes here aren’t very clear. Jose Alvarez seems to have won the support of many local elected Democrats and has lapped the rest of the field in fundraising, but hasn’t said much about the issues. Vanessa Alvarez lacks a website, and we couldn’t find out much about her.

HD-89 (east-central Palm Beach County: Greenacres/Lake Worth Beach) 

Destinie Baker Sutton vs. Debra Tendrich

State Rep. David Silver is term-limited in this 59% Biden district, and it features another inscrutable Democratic primary. Personal injury attorney Destinie Baker Sutton and nonprofit executive Debra Tendrich are both running here, and the stakes are, yet again, unclear. Neither candidate has raised much money nor elaborated very much on their views, both have support from state and local electeds, and both have endorsements from local police unions. Baker Sutton has outraised Tendrich, but not so dramatically that she’s favored.

HD-98 (northeastern Broward County - Coconut Creek/Lauderdale Lakes)

Keith Abel vs. Shelton Pooler vs. Emily Rodrigues vs. Mitch Rosenwald

State Rep. Patricia Hawkins-Williams is term-limited, and there’s a crowded Democratic primary—and an open one, at that—to succeed her in this 70% Biden district. Veteran Keith Abel, small business owner Shelton Pooler, campaign consultant Emily Rodrigues, and Oakland Park Mayor Mitch Rosenwald are all competing here. Of the four candidates, Rodrigues and Rosenwald are probably the likeliest to win—they’ve raised the most money and seem to have the most significant institutional support. Rodrigues, who would be one of the youngest members of the state legislature, is endorsed by Ruth’s List (the Florida-level analog of EMILY’s List) and Run for Something, while Rosenwald has the support of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund.

HD-99 (central Broward County - Plantation)

Daryl Campbell (i) vs. Joshauwa Brown

Daryl Campbell was first elected to the state House in a low-turnout special election in 2021, and seemed vaguely vulnerable to progressive challenger Elijah Manley in 2022—but ended up winning with 71% of the vote, which was a strong performance, but likely not one that would scare off potential challengers. He faces Joshauwa Brown, a nonprofit owner, but Brown hasn’t raised much or said how he’d be different from Campbell, so Campbell is a lock for renomination. This is technically an open primary, but in such a dark-blue seat, that’s really just a formality.

HD-107 (Miami Gardens/North Miami Beach)

Wallace Aristide vs. Loreal Arscott vs. Monique Barley-Mayo vs. Wancito Francius vs. Faudlin Pierre vs. Christine Olivo

Two-term state Rep. Christopher Benjamin opted to run for a county judgeship rather than seek re-election, and a crowded race with six candidates has emerged to succeed him. High school principal Wallace Aristide, magistrate judge Loreal Arscott, nonprofit executive Monique Barley-Mayo, security company executive Wancito Francius, attorney Faudlin Pierre, and 2022 congressional candidate Christine Sanon-Jules Olivo are all running here.

Of those candidates, you should hope that several of them don’t win—like Barley-Mayo, who announced that she “joined forces” with a local Trump backer, for example (whatever that means); Francius, who is anti-choice; and Aristide, who is “preferred” by Florida Family Action. Of the remaining candidates, the best is probably Faudlin Pierre, a civil rights attorney who frequently represents the ACLU. However, this is a difficult race to gauge. Though Pierre is the strongest fundraiser in the field—he’s raised about double what his next-closest competitor has—Aristide, Arscott, Francius, and Olivo have the resources to get their messages out. The difficulties in gauging this race are made more complicated by the fact that no Republican or independent candidate filed, so this is an open primary. While that normally wouldn’t be a factor in this district, which gave Joe Biden 78% of the vote, the sheer number of candidates in the race could actually give Republican primary voters some power.

HD-109 (North Miami/Opa-Locka)

Ashley Gantt (i) vs. James Bush III vs. Roy Hardemon

In 2022, defeating anti-choice state Rep. James Bush III was a big priority for progressives, and they narrowly succeeded in doing so—he lost the Democratic primary to Ashley Gantt, 52-48%. Since then, Gantt has been one of the most vocal members of the Democratic minority in the legislature, so naturally, she’s facing a challenge from the right. Gantt actually faces two challengers, both of whom are socially conservative former state representatives. Bush is back, and so is Roy Hardemon, who served a single term from 2016 to 2018 and was defeated in both his 2018 re-election campaign and a 2020 comeback attempt.

As we noted in our 2022 preview, both Bush and Hardemon are “awful.” Bush supported restrictions on abortion, DeSantis’s “don’t say gay” bill, and the ban on transgender athletes, and so is unsurprisingly “preferred” by Florida Family Action; Hardemon “was arrested for kidnapping and assault and was wishy-washy on abortion rights in the legislature.” Fortunately, neither campaign seems to be getting anywhere. Gantt has outraised Bush and Hardemon several times over. This race, too, is an open primary—and if Gantt faced a single challenger like Bush, that might matter a bit more. However, Gantt is a strong favorite for renomination here.

Broward County Sheriff

Gregory Tony (i) vs. Steven Andrew Geller vs. David Howard vs. Alvin Pollock

Florida’s bluest big county has a DeSantis-appointed sheriff, and he may well win another term. Gregory Tony was appointed after DeSantis suspended prior Sheriff Scott Israel, who was widely criticized for his handling of the Parkland shooting, upon taking office in 2019. Israel attempted a comeback campaign in 2020, and narrowly lost to Tony as other candidates split the vote. Tony’s 37% performance wasn’t anything to write home about, and he had already pissed off the deputies’ union by failing to provide PPE to deputies during the COVID pandemic, ultimately firing the union president for criticizing him and spurring the union to hold a vote of no confidence in Tony, a vote which Tony lost. However, Tony’s win, narrow as it was, seems impressive when you consider the fact that it came out during the campaign that Tony had killed a man as a juvenile in Philadelphia in 1993 and failed to disclose that to the DeSantis administration when they were vetting Israel replacements. (Tony claimed self-defense, which witnesses disputed.) Lying on official forms is a habit of Tony’s, so much so that Broward prosecutors added him to what some jurisdictions call a do-not-call list—a list of law enforcement officers with problems in their record which could damage the credibility of their testimony. Multiple ethics cases against Tony are pending.

Tony faces three challengers, all of whom are retired law enforcement personnel, and running on broad themes of competency and trust. Former detective and court services administrator Al Pollock is a returning candidate, trying again after placing a distant third in that 2020 primary with the support of the deputies’ union. Steve Geller (not to be confused with the Broward County Commissioner of the same name) is a former beat cop and internal affairs agent who carries the endorsement of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Former Pembroke Park police chief David Howard is also in the mix.

Unfortunately, Tony remains favored due to his massive (nearly $3 million) warchest, the unwillingness of Democrat-aligned groups like the AFL-CIO to break from him, and the fact he has three challengers to split the vote.

Palm Beach County (15th Judicial Circuit) State Attorney

Alexcia Cox vs. Gregg Lerman vs. Craig Williams

Three-term State Attorney Dave Aronberg has long been rumored as a candidate for higher office—but other than an unsuccessful run for Attorney General in 2010, he’s never gone for it. That’s probably for the best. Aronberg has only given vague feints in the direction of criminal justice reform, and has gone out of his way to cozy up to Republicans. When Pam Bondi was elected Attorney General in 2010, Aronberg immediately went to work for her as a “special prosecutor” for drug trafficking. He stayed neutral when she successfully ran for re-election in 2014. And though he ultimately withdrew from consideration, he entertained the idea of accepting an appointment from Donald Trump as U.S. Attorney for a little while. Aronberg isn’t seeking a fourth term, and there’s a three-way race to succeed him.

There are two long-time prosecutors from the State Attorney’s office in the race—Alexcia Cox and Craig Williams—and a defense attorney, Gregg Lerman. All three candidates have remained extremely vague about what their priorities are. Cox, who would be the first Black woman to serve as State Attorney in south Florida, seems to be the nominal frontrunner, and she’s lined up an odd coalition of endorsements: the local Black political establishment, the AFL-CIO, and the local police union. Concerningly, Cox was appointed by Aronberg to head up the office’s conviction integrity review unit—and despite reviewing 120 petitions, she pursued none of them. She said that “we were happy about the fact that we had not determined there was a case in our office that warranted exoneration,” which . . . is crazy, as the South Florida Sun-Sentinel concluded.

Williams and Lerman have attracted few endorsements themselves, but have been able to remain somewhat competitive with Cox in fundraising. Lerman, as a defense attorney, might be the safest bet, given that he seems to indicate a preference for criminal justice reform and preventing recidivism, but even he says, “All of the candidates for State Attorney say they are ‘Tough on Crime’, and if people deserve jail time, they will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” Even so, Lerman got the endorsement of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, which praised him as “the most likely change agent” in the race.

Palm Beach County (15th Judicial Circuit) Public Defender

Daniel Eisinger vs. Adam Frankel

(Yes, this is really an elected position.) Carey Haughwout, Public Defender since 2001, isn’t seeking re-election. Here, the stakes are pretty clear. Daniel Eisinger, who’s worked in the Public Defender’s office for twenty years, has the endorsement of Haughwout and local Democrats. His opponent, Adam Frankel, is a former Delray Beach City Commissioner and criminal defense attorney who is endorsed by the police union. A candidate for public defender accepting a police union’s endorsement is a gigantic red flag. Eisinger should win here.

Palm Beach County Sheriff

Ric Bradshaw (i) vs. Alex Freeman

Ric Bradshaw has been Sheriff in Palm Beach County since he was first elected in 2004 and is one of the most powerful people in county politics. (He’s also one of Ron DeSantis’s favorite Florida Democrats.) This year, he faces a rematch from his opponent in the 2020 Democratic primary, currently the Deputy Police Chief in the tiny town of Jupiter Inlet Colony. When Alex Freeman ran against Bradshaw in 2020, he was dramatically outspent—Freeman raised just $34,000—but lost by a surprisingly close margin, 61-39%. This year, Freeman’s done a little bit better with fundraising, but not by much. Freeman is also campaigning on a reform platform, arguing that police alternatives need to be supported, excessive policing can result in more crime, a civilian review board needs to be created, and the culture of the sheriff’s office needs to encourage more proactive reporting of internal policy violations. To that end, Freeman has attracted some meaningful support from local progressive groups—like the DFA chapter in Palm Beach County—and civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump. Bradshaw is probably the favorite here, but Freeman has a solid performance to build on.

Alaska

HD-38 (Kuskokwim Delta - Alaskan Bush)

Conrad McCormick (i) vs. Nellie Jimmie vs. Victoria Sosa (vs. Willy Keppel [Veterans Party])

This, the only safe-district Democratic primary election outside of Florida, is somehow a beauty pageant primary, owing to Alaska’s new top-four ranked-choice voting system. This will tell us how at-risk Conrad McCormick is in November.

Wyoming

There are no Democratic legislative primaries in any district in Wyoming.

SD-02 (Hartford and suburbs)

Douglas McCrory (i) vs. Shellye Davis vs. Ayana Taylor

Douglas McCrory pissed off a lot of Democrats last year when he decided to become the #1 advocate for the charter school industry in the legislature, but progressives may fumble the opportunity to remove him by splitting their efforts between two candidates. At the party convention for SD-02, the delegates from Hartford voted for McCrory, the delegates from Windsor backed Windsor Board of Education member Ayana Taylor, and Bloomfield’s supported teachers union member/AFL-CIO leader Shellye Davis. McCrory won that endorsement because Davis’s delegates supported McCrory in the second round, which Taylor’s campaign is using as evidence for their claim that Davis is in the race for the purpose of splitting the anti-McCrory vote, at the behest of the incumbent.

It's a dubious claim, given that Davis was in the race since January, and teachers unions clearly despise the man. On one hand, it does sound a bit like Taylor, the niece of McCrory’s predecessor, believes she has the right to take on McCrory by herself, and didn't win over labor before making her run. But on the other, Taylor has claimed that she talked with Davis specifically about running and Davis wasn't interested until after Taylor was already in the race. Regardless of who’s telling the truth about the circumstances that led to this split field, we hope it doesn’t allow McCrory to survive with a plurality.

SD-22 (Bridgeport and suburbs)

Scott Burns vs. Bill Finch vs. Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox vs. Tyler Mack

Connecticut has absurdly high standards for ballot access, and this is the only Democratic primary in the state with four candidates. It was in fact originally going to have five after a bizarre convention vote where every candidate received at least 15% of delegates, and even though one candidate dropped out, that convention was a demonstration of how this race is anyone's game. The competitiveness of this contest is surprising given the presence of former state senator and Bridgeport mayor Bill Finch, even if he was last in office nine years ago. Finch has remained active in politics since his 2015 defeat (to Joe Ganim) and now has the support of the building trades but not organized labor as a whole, and most of the Bridgeport political class is keeping him at arm’s length, even if he is the only candidate with much name rec in the city.

The Bridgeport political class is instead supporting Tyler Mack, a member of the Bridgeport Council until earlier this year when he resigned because his family moved out of the district. He not only has the support of most councilors, but also outgoing senator Marilyn Moore. Moore, who has been on the more progressive end of CT politics, was joined by the Working Families Party in supporting Mack, which makes him definitively the progressive choice here. Bridgeport Councilmember Scott Burns is also running a progressive-flavored campaign, but at the moment appears to have little chance of winning. The only non-Bridgeport candidate (despite Finch technically living outside of the city now) is lawyer Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox, best known for her three runs for state house district 123, entirely within the town of Trumbull, which is in turn entirely in SD-22. She’s seen as the favorite to win the suburbs, which puts her in very good position. The wealthier, whiter suburbs may not be a majority of the district, but have good enough turnout (compared to Bridgeport’s low standards) that they should comprise about half the primary electorate. And with the Bridgeport vote as split as it is, that may be enough. We wouldn’t mind seeing her win, as she wants to take aggressive measures to make the state’s tax code more progressive, including eliminating the carried interest loophole, implementing a statewide property tax, and taxing income over $5 million at 9.99%.

SD-23 (Bridgeport)

Herron Gaston (i) vs. Ernest Newton

Local pastor Herron Gaston unseated conservative Democratic incumbent Dennis Bradley last cycle. He’s acquitted himself well in his single term in office, and has a reputation as an up-and-comer in state politics. Not acquitting himself well, or at least not getting acquitted, is former state Sen. Ernest Newton, whose 18-year tenure in office ended in 2006 after a corruption conviction for taking bribes. He ran for his old seat in 2012, and celebrated his return to politics by committing campaign finance fraud, for which he was convicted again. We wish we could say this was his next attempt to return to elected office, but it’s not. He’s already on the Bridgeport City Council, because voters in that city simply love corruption, as Gaston can attest to—he used to work for Joe Ganim. Both Newton and Gaston are happy to turn this into a generational contest, but in our view, the repeated public corruption is a much better reason to keep Newton out of the legislature than his age.

HD-15 (Hartford suburbs - Bloomfield)

Bobby Gibson (i) vs. Jennifer Marshall-Nealy

The Bloomingfield Democratic Committee unexpectedly threw its weight behind Justice of the Peace Jennifer Marshall-Nealy, giving the party endorsement over incumbent Bobby Gibson, who refused to attend the convention, apparently in protest of how the committee was elected. The candidates clearly embody some sort of factional difference in Bloomfield, but the candidates themselves are both running on standard, broadly acceptable Democratic values.

HD-26 (New Britain)

Aram Ayalon vs. David DeFronzo

Aram Ayalon was a progressive, anti-establishment (not necessarily in that order) voice on the New Britain Council for several terms, eventually rising to the level of Minority Leader. The Bernie-supporting, education-funding focused columnist at The New Britain Progressive is unfortunately, albeit unsurprisingly, not the party-endorsed candidate in this race. That would be Councilmember David DeFronzo, best known for being the son of former New Britain Mayor and state Sen. Donald DeFronzo. Outgoing state Rep. Peter A. Tercyak is also supporting the younger DeFronzo, who represents a more moderate path than Ayalon.

HD-58 (Enfield)

David Alexander vs. John Santanella

David Alexander previously served in the state House from this district only a few years ago, so let’s look at his biggest accomplishments during that time.

• 2015: DUI

• 2016: Another DUI

• 2017: Drunkenly assaulting his father

• 2018: Drunkenly assaulting his mother

Cool.

Town Councilor John Santanella seems like an aggressively normal Democrat and has been endorsed by the entire party apparatus in Enfield.

HD-88 (Hamden)

Joshua Elliott (i) vs. Dan Garrett

Joshua Elliott has been a decent progressive legislator for several terms, and, despite co-owning a small business, voted for state’s the $15 minimum wage. He’s being challenged by landlord Dan Garrett, who despite his profession, is pitching himself as a progressive protest vote. Garrett was, until last year, married to progressive mayor Lauren Garrett, and he did a respectable job running for town council, even if he lost. However, this year he doesn't appear to have an actual campaign, and his social media is comprised of posts about Gaza, not his upcoming election.

HD-91 (Hamden)

Jennifer Pope vs. Laurie Sweet

Truth be told, there's no bad choice in this election, but Laurie Sweet would clearly be better. Hampden is a rare Connecticut town where progressives took over the party infrastructure, and Sweet was one of their first victories. In her two terms on the town council, Sweet was responsible for some of the state’s strongest pro-renter legislation, and is in this election running as a candidate allied with the Working Families Party and the now-progressive Hampden Democratic Committee. She also has an endorsement from the state’s DSA chapter that she doesn't really publicize but clearly has to at least ask for.

HD-94 (New Haven and Hamden)

Tarolyn Moore vs. Abdul Osmanu vs. Steven Winter

Incumbent Robyn Porter is retiring as a result of disputes with house leadership, leaving the house district with Yale University open. Progressives understandably sense an opportunity here, and are excited about the campaign of Hamden Council member Abdul Osmanu, who Porter endorsed not longer after he announced his campaign. The party choice is Steven Winter, the city’s Executive Director of Climate and Sustainability. Winter is also running as a progressive but this is a situation where we’re choosing to trust progressive groups in the area like DSA and WFP, who have both endorsed Osmanu. School administrator and pastor Tarolyn Moore is also running but hasn't received the traction of either Osmanu or Winter.

HD-110 (Danbury)

Bob Godfrey (i) vs. Melissa Santana

Bob Godfrey has been kicking around the state house since the 80s, and owes his longevity to the machine politics of Danbury rather than an exemplary voting record. Unfortunately, the vote of his that earned him his first primary in decades was the correct vote: opposing new charter schools. Investment banking sales director Melissa Santana is a pro-charter school activist hoping to unseat Godfrey and clear the path to opening new charter schools in Danbury. In a state legislature as large as Connecticut’s, it can feel like an individual legislator makes little difference, but deference to local electeds is still powerful in the body, and charter school interests could very well get their way in Danbury by winning this one race.

HD-124 (Bridgeport)

Andre Baker (i) vs. Eneida Martinez

The political allies of hilariously corrupt Mayor Joe Ganim, having just secured his reelection and fully taken over the Bridgeport party infrastructure, are trying to knock off backbench state Rep. Andre Baker and replace him with city councilmenber Eneida Martinez. Though we have little positive or negative to say about Baker, he’s got to be better than a woman currently under investigation by the state for illegally harvesting ballots for the Joe Ganim absentee operations that was so fraud-filled it caused an entire election to be invalidated.

HD-140 (Norwalk)

Travis Simms (i) vs. Carleton Giles

Earlier this year, Governor Ned Lamont bowed to Republican pressure and removed the chair of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, Carleton Giles, who was under fire for taking the board in a direction where commutations were more likely to be approved. The board approved a total of 71 commutations, in a year, across the whole state, which was enough to cause backlash. Giles was (narrowly) allowed to remain on the board, but his power is greatly diminished.  He’s now running for state house against three-term incumbent and former boxer Travis Simms, and could very well win. Simms, though uncontroversial, doesn’t have many accomplishments in the legislature, and won’t have many of the incumbency advantages common to Connecticut—the Norwalk Democratic Town Committee had to issue no endorsement in this race after what sure seems like fraud in the voting process (Giles won 63-61, which is more votes than there are voting members of the committee) and the AFL-CIO is also sitting this one out, by choice. Given Giles’s recent history on the Board of Pardons and Paroles, we’d like to think he’s the most progressive choice here, but Simms, despite breaking from the party on red flag gun control laws, has the WFP endorsement.

HD-146 (Stamford)

David Michel (i) vs. Eilish Collins Main

The Stamford Democratic Party has endorsed against two incumbents this year. One, Anabel Figueroa (see HD-148 below) is for very clear reasons, while the other, David Michel, fell out of the good graces of the party for reasons that have more to do with the party itself. Michel, a former Green who joined the Democrats and defeated the incumbent in this district in 2018, has consistently been one of the most progressive members of the state house, and is now Assistant House Majority Leader. We have to assume one of his more progressive causes—rent control, ranked choice voting, rideshare unionization, renter right to counsel—has rankled the feathers of the old guard enough for them to support an opponent. We’re confident it’s because he’s too progressive partly because his party-endorsed opponent, professional campaign manager Eilish Collins Main, has said as much, attacking Michael for spending too much time on issues that “are not relevant”, and saying ““I’ve seen a lot of legislative reports about bears and whales and windmills.” Tellingly, this challenge, and the party endorsement, are happening right after the centrist slate won a majority in the most recent party committee elections.

HD-148 (Stamford)

Anabel Figueroa (i) vs. Jonathan Jacobson

Is Anabel Figueroa trying to lose? That's normally what the take away when a Democrat headlines a large anti-abortion rally, and Figueroa spoke to a crowd of 1,500 at the CT Match for Life (the state’s largest gathering of people who should have been aborted)as part of a forum dedicated to advancing the idea that abortion clinics are trying to reduce non-white populations, where she blamed “education” for Latinas getting abortions. This came after she voted against a bipartisan, Democrat-led bill to increase reproductive health options to college students. The Stamford Democratic Party has picked a pro-choice candidate to run against her, Stamford Board of Representatives member Jonathan Jacobson. We don't really trust their judgment here, as they’re the ones who selected Figueroa for the legislature in the first place last year. Jacobson is, however, all we have as an alternative to Figueroa this year.

Minnesota

MN-05

Ilhan Omar (i) vs. Abena McKenzie vs. Don Samuels vs. Nate Schluter

Ilhan Omar had an unexpectedly close call in 2022, but few expect her to have as much trouble this year in her rematch with former Minneapolis City Councilor Don Samuels. Even the congresswoman herself has acknowledged that 2022 was an anomaly (and, implicitly, a case of her camp taking the primary for granted), telling Axios “we are campaigning the way we normally campaign, and not the way we campaigned in 2022.” (Emphasis ours.) And it’s true—Omar’s campaign this time around is very different from her 2022 effort. While Omar had a financial advantage in 2022, she’s greatly increased it this year, and she’s spent more than $5 million on this primary, blanketing the district with ads and receiving substantial help in the form of mailers and canvassing from the Minnesota DFL and some progressive groups. Samuels, meanwhile, has floundered, though there has been a last-minute uptick in donor interest after the defeat of Cori Bush last week. While the national mood seems to have shifted against the Squad, Samuels hasn’t been able to attract the support of AIPAC’s super PAC or any of the other usual sources of heavy outside spending; all he’s got is a combined $109,000 in digital ads, texting, and mailers from Make A Difference MN, a newly-formed super PAC that has not yet disclosed its donors. The most recent poll, an internal from Omar’s camp conducted in mid-July, has the congresswoman up 60%-33% on Samuels.

HD-8A (Duluth)

Jordon Johnson vs. Pete Johnson

Retiring state Rep. Liz Olson is going to be replaced by a Democrat named Johnson. The two candidates for the DFL nomination in her blue Duluth seat are Jordon Johnson, a nonprofit social services manager and trans man with a handful of community supporters in his corner, and Pete Johnson, a Duluth fire captain running with the DFL endorsement and the support of organized labor. Pete has way more money than Jordon, and the backing of the DFL and labor would make Pete the favorite even if Jordon was at financial parity, which he isn’t.

HD-36B (Northeastern MSP suburbs)

Brion Curran (i) vs. T.J. Malaskee

State Rep. Brion Curran’s path to reelection was complicated by her former employer last fall. A former sheriff’s deputy, it was none other than Curran’s former employers at the Chisago County Sheriff’s Office who pulled them over on October 9, finding their blood alcohol content was double the legal limit. Curran expressed contrition and pleaded guilty, but the damage was done. Curran was able to keep most of organized labor and state House leadership on her side, but couldn’t secure the DFL endorsement against Maplewood Area Historical Society executive director T.J. Malaskee. Curran has outraised and outspent Malaskee, but Malaskee has the backing of some local politicians and isn’t flat broke, and the fact that Curran couldn’t win the DFL endorsement suggests some degree of organization by her opponents.

HD-38A (Northwestern MSP suburbs - Brooklyn Park)

Huldah Hiltsley vs. Wynfred Russell

Democratic primaries are rarer in Minnesota owing to their convention system. Like a few states, the parties issues official endorsements, but instead of winning over a small number of party insiders like, for instance, Connecticut requires, Minnesota’s convention system involves an arduous multi-stage organizing battle involving hundreds of voters volunteering their time to support candidates in a day-long physical convention. As a result, the convention winner is, almost by default, the better organized campaign, especially since they need to win 60% of the vote to secure the endorsement. Add to that the tangible party resources that come with an endorsement, and most losing candidates just don’t see a path to victory past the convention, and drop out. So when a candidate begins their campaign by saying they plan to keep running even if they lose at the convention, they know they’re probably not going to win. 

That’s exactly what former Brooklyn Park Councilmember Wynfred Russell said at his kickoff event, months ahead of the convention. The convention ended with no endorsement, meaning Russell had put an the air of doom over his candidacy for no real reason. We understand why he sees himself as the underdog after running for mayor and losing 60% to 40%, but it seems like he’s on the outs with the political establishment for deeper reasons than that. We just wish we could figure out what they are. His opponent, Huldah Hiltsley, has all of the major endorsements in this race, from labor to party caucuses (progressive caucus included), and previously ran for state senate, losing by a 62%-38% margin. We noticed her as having more progressive endorsements but not an overtly more progressive campaign than her opponent then, and it appears that’s the case now too.

HD-49A (Western MSP suburbs)

Kissy Coakley vs. Alex Falconer

The DFL endorsement in HD-49A went to conservationist Alex Falconer, who seems like a cool guy. He’s running as an environmentally-focused progressive, has a long history in DFL politics, and has collected major endorsements, ranging from Senator Tina Smith to outgoing HD-49A state Rep. Laurie Pryor. Despite Falconer looking like a major favorite, and, as alluded to in the HD-38A item above, the convention being that candidates drop out after losing in the convention, Minnetonka City Councilmember Kissy Coakley has decided to take it to the voters. We admire her focus on criminal justice reform, but her vague statements about policy and what she wants to do in office don’t offer progressives anything that Falconer doesn’t.

(Note: in the email edition of this issue we inexplicably referred to the junior senator from Minnesota as Tina Fey, not Tina Smith. In our defense, Smith’s predecessor in the Senate was an SNL star.)

HD-61A (Downtown and west-central Minneapolis)

Katie Jones vs. Isabel Rolfes vs. Will Stancil

Hahaha, oh god. If you, like us, are too online and already know who Will Stancil is, you can skip the next paragraph.

Will Stancil tweets. A lot. Both of the authors of this newsletter tweet too much, and we’re here to tell you he tweets way too much. Like anyone who tweets incessantly about politics and has a largish following, he’s developed something of a personal political philosophy: less an ideology, more of an electoral theory, where every Republican victory exists as a confluence of the media failing Democrats, and Democrats failing themselves. Seemingly all of the news media is incentivized against Democrats; and feckless Democrats, unwilling to stand up for themselves, give in to the pressure of whatever the false concern of the day is, resulting in a media narrative, the most powerful force in the political universe. Media narratives don’t just shape reality, they are reality, and the intelligent few who can see above the narratives can save the Democrats by teaching them to confront media incentives. This is, in some sense, true on a macroscopic level, but Stancil is the kind of poster incapable of making too many good posts in a row without also making a terrible point and digging in. For instance, his last few hundred tweets before taking his first Twitter break in years to door knock were screaming that Biden didn’t need to step down, no other candidate would do better than him, and that the focus on his age after the debate was “a product of media incentives, not objective reality.” (He’s since made peace with Kamala becoming the nominee.)

Stancil declared for this seat not long after incumbent Frank Hornstein announced his retirement, becoming part of a three person field, along with engineer Katie Jones and legislative assistant Isabel Rolfes. All three are young, policy-focused candidates running in an upscale, largely progressive district in Minneapolis, and, even though Stancil is often annoying, it’s helpful to remember that most people are annoying sometimes, they just don’t usually broadcast it to Twitter. The DFL convention deadlocked, with Stancil and Jones getting 36% of the delegates each and Rolfes taking 26%. Stancil was ahead by 1 delegate, but the only winner in that circumstance is “no endorsement”. Stancil has raised over $100,000 thanks to his online fanbase, and looked like a mild favorite because of it, which we… didn’t mind at the time.

The race has taken a sharp, and clarifying, turn to the factional in the final weeks. Kaite Jones secured the endorsements of progressive Minneaspolis City Council members Katie Cashman and Aisha Chughtai. Then, an outside group, donors hidden until after the election, sent out flyers highlighting questionable tweets from Stancil, where he emphasized how few people were affected by overturning Roe v. Wade, and told someone he was arguing with to drink bleach. Stancil denounced the flyers, as did All of Mpls, the main group organizing the business/centrist faction of Minneapolis politics, and vehement opponents of the left. Stancil tried to distance himself from All of Mpls’s endorsement without denouncing them, saying he didn’t want to get involved with “the Minneapolis factional stuff”. Twitter user @jukebox85303523 has pointed out that Stancil recently ran a newspaper ad listing his endorsements, which includes a name he doesn’t have on his website endorsement list: Karin Birkeland, the chair of All of Mpls.

That clears things up—if Stancil is the All of Mpls candidate, him losing is the best outcome. Since the convention, Jones has been gaining steam as the anti-Stancil candidate, both from fundraising better than Rolfes is, but also by gathering important endorsements, most notably Rep. Hornstein himself, though Attorney General Keith Ellison isn’t unimportant either. 

Vermont

First, a housekeeping note: we are not doing the Vermont House this year. The districts are so tiny, there are so many of them, and there are only two of us. Sorry. We are still doing the state Senate, though, so Vermont state legislative nerds still have something to read in this preview.

Lieutenant Governor

David Zuckerman (i) vs. Thomas Renner

Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman has always been firmly on the left of Vermont’s political spectrum. Since his 2016 election as lieutenant governor, he’s been running on the Democratic ballot line, but he’s primarily a member of the Progressive Party dating back to his days as a state legislator. His past skepticism of vaccines, while very Vermont, haunted him in 2020 when he ran for governor; he was able to win the Democratic nomination over first-time candidate Rebecca Holcombe, but lost in a landslide to popular Republican Gov. Phil Scott and found himself out of a job. Luckily for Zuckerman, his successor as lieutenant governor, moderate Democrat Molly Gray, ran for Congress in 2022 after just one two-year term, allowing Zuckerman to run for his old job and win a narrow 44%-39% Democratic primary victory against state Rep. Kitty Toll. Zuckerman should be favored to hang on to his job in the face of a challenge from Winooski City Councilor Thomas Renner, but Renner does have the support of Toll and other past Zuckerman opponents like state Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, as well as the Democratic members of the Burlington City Council, which is heavily polarized between Democrats on the right and Progressives on the left. Renner, a 34-year-old gay Black man, wants to bring greater diversity to Vermont’s government and doesn’t have much in the way of a policy platform beyond progressive generalities—which makes sense for the mostly powerless office of lieutenant governor but also leaves us with nothing interesting to say.

Senate - Addison County [Two win]

Christopher Bray (i) vs. Ruth Hardy (i) vs. Caleb Elder

We’re not sure what exactly possessed Caleb Elder to give up his state House seat for a bid to enter the Senate, but we do know that he can’t be allowed to succeed. Elder voted against H 829, which could be one of the biggest Democratic policy wins in Vermont in the last few years—a 3% tax on income over $500,000, with the money going to fund housing projects and rental assistance. He’s one of 5 Democrats in the state of Bernie Sanders who voted against taxing the 1%. Incumbents Christopher Bray and Ruth Hardy have been around for a while and, while neither are standouts, are reliable, progressive legislators with good voting records.

Senate - Caledonia County

Amanda Cochrane vs. Shawn Hallisey

This Clinton+6, Biden+15 district might honestly be competitive by Vermont standards, and Republicans are actually fielding a candidate here, but the differences between the candidates here bear watching. Nursing home administrator Shawn Hallisey, who describes himself as a “Blue Dog” and rails against raising taxes, is clearly a disaster, while nonprofit worker Amanda Cochrane, endorsed by popular outgoing state Sen. Jane Kitchel, seems fine.

Senate - Chittenden County Central [Three win]

Philip Baruth (i) vs. Martine Gulick (i) vs. Tanya Vyhovsky (i) vs. Stewart Ledbetter

Burlington’s political culture is split between the left-wing Progressives (originally formed to support then-mayor Bernie Sanders) and the business-friendly Democrats, who, owing to the defection of their left wing and de facto absorption of the Republicans in the city, have become pretty conservative, in Vermont terms. This primary is a Progressive vs. Democratic battle—local news anchor Stewart Ledbetter is running with the hope of unseating one candidate in particular, Progressive-first, Democrat-second Tanya Vyhovsky, a democratic socialist who was elected in 2022. Though, if he misses and knocks out Democrat-first, Progressive-second Philip Baruth, or even generally pretty good Democrat Martine Gulick, we doubt him, or his donors, would be too upset. A flood of business cash has entered his campaign pockets, including thousands from Republican politicians, who know what they’re buying. Ledbetter has lapped the field in fundraising multiple times over, and has raised more money than any other legislative candidate in the state. Just as relevant, the Democratic faction of Burlington politics, including former mayor Miro Weinberger, has been pulling hard for him.

Senate - Chittenden County South [Three win]

Thomas Chittenden (i) vs. Virginia Lyons (i) vs. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (i) vs. Louis Meyers

Physician Louis Meyers runs for this seat every two years and takes in 2-3% of the vote, except for 2022, when he ran for Congress and didn’t even do that well. Meyers, like Ledbetter, also represents a challenge from the center, but unlike Ledbetter, we don’t have to take him seriously.

Senate - Grand Isle County

Andrew Julow (i) vs. Julie Hulburd

Human resources professional Julie Hulburd may be running as a Democrat, but she has an entire page on her website to let you know she doesn’t really want to be one. She’s only in the party because of the social issues, but is otherwise “moderate and fiscally conservative”. How she became the chair of the Colchester Democrats when her hope was to work more closely with Republicans than to actually win as Democrats we’ll never know. That’s a bad enough pitch that we’re inclined to side with incumbent Andrew Julow, and he’s only an incumbent because he was appointed by Republican governor Phil Scott. Yes, in fairness, he was selected from a list submitted by local Democrats, but it’s still an inauspicious start, and we’d have some healthy suspicion for him to overcome if his opponent weren’t a proud fiscal conservative.

Senate - Windsor County [Three win]

Alison Clarkson (i) vs. Rebecca White (i) vs. Joe Major vs. Marc Nemeth vs. Justin Tuthill

There’s a primary happening here. Technically. Incumbent Dick McCormick is retiring, leaving two incumbents for a three spot primary, which normally brings in a field of candidates competing for that final spot. That sort of happened here, but one of them, Justin Tuthill, is a former Republican Congressional candidate who is going nowhere in this primary, and a second, attorney Marc Nemeth, made the decision to unofficially withdraw for health reasons. That leaves only Hartford Town Treasurer Joe Major left to scoop up that final spot.

Wisconsin

SD-04 (Milwaukee)

Dora Drake (i) vs. LaKeshia Myers

Then-Assemb. Dora Drake already beat her Assembly colleague LaKeshia Myers in a July 2 primary to fill the vacancy left by the appointment of state Sen. Lena Taylor to a local judgeship. After winning a July 30 special general election unopposed, Drake is now the incumbent, and she has maintained the financial advantage that helped carry her to a 2-to-1 victory in the special primary.

SD-14 (Madison suburbs and rurals)

Jimmy Anderson vs. Samba Baldeh vs. Melissa Ratcliff

When the court added a new Democratic senate district to the Madison area, three members of the state Assembly flocked into the primary: Jimmy Anderson, Samba Baldeh, and Melissa Ratcliff. The three can’t seem to disagree on anything, and, while none are fire-breathing progressives, all have spotless voting records in the legislature and are on the same page about what to pass if Democrats have the majority. It looks like it’ll come down to parsing endorsements, and by that metric we’re the least sold on Ratcliff, who counts the building trades unions and former county Sheriff David Mahoney in the place of any real progressive endorsers. She also lacks the valuable experiences that Anderson, who is paralyzed from the waist down, and Baldeh, an immigrant from The Gambia, bring to the body. Anderson, who is endorsed by Mandela Barnes and multiple Dane County elected officials belonging to the Progressive Dane bloc, fares best in endorsements, but we’re splitting the smallest of hairs here.

AD-08 (Milwaukee)

Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (i) vs. Enrique Murguia

It's largely been forgotten now, but Sylvia Ortiz-Velez was, immediately after arriving in the legislature, a vote against COVID vaccination, siding with Republicans on efforts to kill vaccine mandates on multiple occasions. It’s the kind of thing that, even though her votes have since come more in line with the party mainstream, makes us much more willing to hear out a flawed challenger like Enrique Murguia. Murguia’s pitch is being more progressive than Ortiz-Velez, and his scrappy, hard-working campaign seems like it might be able to counterbalance having almost no money. 

The fly in the ointment with Murguia is that he’s currently on probation after a pair of drunk driving arrests, the second of which led to a crash. The drunk driving incidents are from 2020, but he made the decision to fight the more serious one in court, which didn’t resolve until this year. The details of the incident are concerning (the man blew a 0.234 BAC), and Murguia’s decision to claim it wasn’t him in the car even though he admitted to it both the night of and several days later in a Facebook post made the incident cringeworthy. Murguia says he’s quit drinking, but also implies he only lost the court case because his lawyer was a Ortiz-Velez supporter, which doesn’t sound like the actions of a repentant man.

The anti-vaxxer or the drunk driver. Milwaukee, the choice is yours.

AD-09 (Milwaukee)

Deisy España vs. Priscilla Prado

This is a simple left-vs.-center primary. On the left, we have community organizer Deisy España, who lacks money but has the support of the state AFL-CIO, UAW, and Milwaukee’s leading progressive politicians like Assembs. Ryan Clancy and Darrin Madison and state Sen. Chris Larson. On the right/center, we have tax preparer Priscilla Prado, who’s backed by police and firefighters’ unions and the state realtors’ association. Prado is focused on housing development and public safety, while España is focused on healthcare, immigrants’ rights, and repealing Wisconsin’s anti-union right-to-work law.

AD-11 (Milwaukee)

Amillia Heredia vs. Sequanna Taylor

Dora Drake’s state Senate run opened up her northern Milwaukee Assembly district. The frontrunner is County Board member Sequanna Taylor, who has a financial advantage and name recognition from a decade in local government (despite lacking a campaign website.) She wants to bring her local government experience to Madison and help policymakers better navigate the relationship between the state and local governments, citing policies like a proposed alert system for survivors of domestic violence which can only be implemented at the state level. However, Taylor faces a spirited challenge from grad student Amillia “Mia” Heredia, who has served as president of UW-Milwaukee’s student government and has the endorsement of several local progressive groups like BLOC Milwaukee and Citizen Action of Wisconsin. Heredia, who works as a court-appointed special advocate for Milwaukee youth and an intern for the County Board, wants to bring her passion for child advocacy and combating racial inequity to Madison.

AD-12 (Milwaukee)

Russell Goodwin vs. Decorah Gordon vs. Katrina Blossom Morrison vs. Brandon Willford

This locally-focused, low budget contest probably comes down to healthcare policy professional Brandon Willford and legislative assistant Katrina Blossom Morrison. Morrison, who worked for LaKeshia Myers, also carries her endorsement, but has raised almost no money, making the few thousand that Willford cobbled together look like a fortune. Willford previously ran for county board on a transit-focused platform, and Morrison is a first time candidate, but both are quite young and haven’t defined themselves politically much yet.

Union steward Decorah Gordon was running a labor-focused campaign that seemed to have been going well, but she unexpectedly dropped out of the race just a few days ago. Former Republican pastor Russell Goodwin Sr., who lucked into a term on the Milwaukee County Board a few years ago, is also on the ballot.

AD-14 (Milwaukee suburbs - West Allis)

Brady Coulthard vs. Nathan Kieso vs. Angelito Tenorio

Campaign consultant Brady Coulthard, labor activist and social worker Nate Kieso, and former West Allis Ald. Angelito Tenorio are all running on broadly progressive platforms. All three share a focus on expanding Medicaid and shifting funding away from school vouchers and charter schools and back into traditional public schools, and all three have raised and spent a good amount of money on their respective campaigns. Each candidate would bring a different underrepresented perspective to Madison: Coulthard is young and queer, Kieso is a rank-and-file union activist, and Tenorio is a Filipino-American veteran. Endorsements from local and statewide organizations and politicians are split between these three candidates; perhaps unsurprisingly, labor prefers Kieso (though some unions are backing Coulthard), West Allis elected officials like Tenorio and Coulthard, and progressive groups split between Tenorio and Coulthard.

AD-18 (Milwaukee and Wauwatosa)

Margaret Arney vs. Angela Kennedy

This could be a geographic contest if Angela Kennedy was running a serious campaign. Kennedy is from Milwaukee, and this seat joins parts of central Milwaukee to the eastern end of the suburb of Wauwatosa. However, she isn’t doing that, leaving Wauwatosa Ald. Margaret Arney as the clear and overwhelming favorite to win this open seat. Arney bills herself as a progressive who is “100% pro-union,” “100% pro-choice,” and a firm supporter of public schools, and she has support from established figures in the city of Milwaukee itself like U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore and city attorney Evan Goyke, who vacated this seat in April after winning the city attorney election.

AD-19 (Milwaukee)

Ryan Clancy (i) vs. Jarrod Anderson

Assemb. Ryan Clancy is one of the founding members of the Wisconsin legislature’s fledgling socialist caucus, and his outspoken left-wing politics probably would have made him a target regardless of whether or not Clancy had endorsed the Uncommitted campaign (termed “uninstructed” in Wisconsin); however, Clancy’s endorsement of the anti-Biden protest vote was cited by challenger Jarrod Anderson as a reason for running. Biden’s withdrawal from the race both moots the issue and vindicates the Uncommitted campaign, so Anderson is stuck arguing in vague terms that Clancy isn’t enough of a team player. However, Anderson has plenty of money to get that message out, and many in the Milwaukee establishment—including County Executive David Crowley and Mayor Cavalier Johnson, as well as some of Clancy’s House colleagues—are lending their support to Anderson as well. Police unions and business PACs have spent heavily on Anderson, making this a very expensive race.

AD-44 (Janesville and outlying areas)

Catherine Myers vs. Ann Roe

Janesville School Board member Catherine Myers had a brief moment of national notoriety, as the primary candidate Randy “Iron Stache” Bryce had to beat before he could be the WI-01 nominee. 2018 was a wild time—if that didn’t make sense to you, read all about it here. Myers lost that primary by a respectable 60%-40%, and carved out a persona only slightly less progressive than Bryce. This time around she gets to be the more progressive candidate, running against local small business owner Ann Roe for an open seat in the legislature. Roe is running on extremely vague policy platitudes, and has support from the Wisconsin Realtors Association.

AD-47 (Madison suburbs)

Joe Maldonado vs. Randy Udell

Fitchburg Ald. Joe Maldonado is facing off with a former colleague on the city council, Randy Udell, for a seat representing some of Madison’s suburbs and rural outskirts. Maldonado is focused on “collaboration” and “bringing people to the table,” which is nice, but not an actual policy in any way, shape, or form. He wants to legalize cannabis, improve youth services, and expand healthcare access, according to a press release announcing his candidacy, but for someone who appears to be the progressive choice (more on that in a bit) he’s unusually vague and nonprofit-y in the way he presents himself. Udell is more specific, focusing on rural broadband, Medicaid expansion, a state-level child tax credit, and abortion rights, among other core Democratic issues. It’s only when you look at each candidate’s backers that the contrast becomes clear: Udell is supported by local police unions and associations representing realtors and developers, while some prominent Wisconsin progressives, including former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong, are backing Maldonado. Udell seems favored, as he has a financial advantage, labor backing, and the support of many local officials.

AD-48 (Madison suburbs)

Bill Connors vs. Andrew Hysell vs. Goodwill Obieze vs. Avery Renk vs. Rick Rose

In the final days of this 5-candidate race, 4 of them united to tell the public that Andrew Hysell, a businessman who has donated considerably to conservative Republicans, may have misused millions in federal funds while administering a reading program in Kansas. Hysell responded that “they’re afraid I’m winning,” and given the facts of the case, so are we. Any non-Hysell candidate pulling it out here is a victory. If we truly had our choice of the field, it would be 25-year-old progressive attorney Avery Renk. Unfortunately, even though he has the endorsement of Gary Hebl, who represented most of the current from 2005-2023, lags behind the field in fundraising. Dane County Super. Rick Rose has earned voters’ trust through years of consistent commitment to the kind of values Dane County is known for. Sun Prairie City Council President Bill Connors also seems fine even if we don’t love the way he’s self funding his campaign or his incredibly vague policy stances. Finally, HR manager Goodwill Obieze could be another good pick—he was endorsed by Progressive Dane when he ran for county supervisor in 2021, but his campaign, like Renk’s, is underfunded.

AD-65 (Kenosha)

Ben DeSmidt vs. Kyle Flood

Incumbent state Assemb. Tod Ohnstad is attempting to calmly retire and hand off his seat to restaurant owner and associate history professor Ben DeSmidt, the normalest of normal Democrats. That’s exactly the kind of thing that School Board member Kyle Flood doesn’t want to happen. First elected at only 18, Flood is taking his first crack at a higher profile office, and is running against insider politics and business as usual as much as he’s running for anything in particular. His vision is to “bring together independents, Democrats, progressives, socialists, libertarians”. He wants to move to term-limited, non-partisan elections, and as much as this all might sound a little naïve, or even outright crankish, he’s been endorsed by the SEIU and six members of county government.

AD-77 (Madison)

Chuck Erickson vs. Renuka Mayadev vs. Thad Schumacher

This contest, in the heart of Madison, is a quiet and respectful affair between three qualified candidates, rather than an explosive left vs. center battle that often happens when a seat opens up in a city like Madison. Dane County Board Member Chuck Erickson would be one of only a few out gay members of the legislature, and we like his focus on the rights of queer and trans youth. He’s endorsed by the SEIU but has raised the least of the field, at under $50,000. The fundraising leader, at nearly twice that, is University of Wisconsin program administrator Renuka Mayadev, who has an encouraging background in nonprofits and public policy, as well as a focus on reproductive rights. Pharmacy owner Thad Schumacher appears to be a regional candidate from the suburb of Fitchburg, where his pharmacy, campaign headquarters, and endorsers are all from, which is strange, because it’s not in the district.

AD-78 (Madison)

Shelia Stubbs (i) vs. Maia Pearson

Incumbent Sheila Stubbs is a shaky Democratic vote in the Assembly, siding with Republicans on COVID restrictions, criminal justice reform, and general culture war bullshit. She’s far from the worst offender in the Democratic caucus, but one of the bluest districts in the state should be able to elect someone they don’t have to worry about at all. That could be Madison School Board Member Maia Pearson, who is explicitly pitching herself as “the progressive candidate in the race” while Stubbs touts her bipartisanship. Statewide Democrats like Gov. Tony Evers don’t have too much of a problem with Stubbs, but this is Madison, Pearson is running a real campaign, and upsets can’t be counted out, especially given how much of this district is new to Stubbs.

AD-80 (Madison and suburbs)

Mike Bare (i) vs. Nasra Wehelie

Freshman Mike Bare hasn’t done anything wrong per se. He was elected in 2022 on a vaguish but labor focused platform, and has voted in line with the party since he was sworn in. This primary is less about Bare and more about redistricting, which shifted him from a rural and suburban district west of Madison to a district about half inside the city limits. Madison Ald. Nasra Wehelie would be the first Muslim woman to serve in the state legislature, and brings the upfront progressive energy of Madison, which could be an asset if Democrats wind up with narrow control of the legislature, and bills need to be fought for, not just against. Bare should do well in the suburbs, and has been endorsed by both Gov. Tony Evers and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (herself a Dane County native) but Wehelie could win on the strength of Madison voters, who she’s courted with endorsements from Madison’s current and former mayors Satya Rhodes-Conway and Paul Soglin.

Dane County Executive

Melissa Agard vs. Dana Pellebon vs. Wes Sparkman vs. Regina Vidaver

State Sen. Melissa Agard is the favorite in this race. She’d got the most money and was endorsed by the previous two county executives. Are any of the other candidates worth considering? Let’s examine the field. Wes Sparkman, Director of The Tamara D. Grigsby Office for Equity and Inclusion in Dane County, who describes himself as “moderate to progressive”, is the weakest candidate on housing, sounding less interested in pushing localities to rapidly build up housing stock like will be required as Dane County grows. County Board Super. Dana Pellebon is the only candidate functionally rejecting a regional transit agency over the cost and taxes it would require. That just leaves Madison Ald. Regina Vidaver as a worthwhile alternative to Agard. Both women want forward-thinking adjustments that incorporate the increasingly urban future of Madison while halting suburban sprawl, and have working class backgrounds that inspire them to focus on economic and social justice while in office. Either would make a fantastic executive.

Missouri

MO-01 (St. Louis City and County)

Cori Bush vs. Wesley Bell vs. Maria Chappelle-Nadal vs. Ron Harshaw

Result (>95% in): Bell 51.2%, Bush 45.6%, Chappelle-Nadal 2.6%, Harshaw 0.6% | Bell wins

Cori Bush was written off by many when she sought a rematch with Rep. Lacy Clay in 2020 after losing to him by about 20 points in 2018. Then, of course, she defeated Clay and became the newest member of the Squad in Congress. She won an easy renomination victory in 2022 over state Sen. Steven Roberts, who faced multiple credible accusations of sexual assault, but her enemies in St. Louis and Washington weren’t finished with her. They regrouped and found a much stronger opponent in St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, who had run for that office as a progressive and garnered some national attention as the man who unseated Bob McCulloch, the prosecutor who notoriously let Michael Brown’s killer Darren Wilson off the hook. Bell had already burned most of his bridges to the progressive movement before he launched a primary challenge to Bush, owing to the fact that he didn’t follow through on any of the promises he made on the way to beating McCulloch. His decision to switch from challenging Republican Sen. Josh Hawley to challenging Bush, who rose to prominence as an activist for racial justice in Ferguson, only solidified the perception among St. Louis activists that Bell had been a fake all along.

The ensuing campaign has been nasty and sharply personal. Team Bush charges that Bell is a sellout propped up by AIPAC and its increasingly Republican donor base; Team Bell (which includes much of the local press) charges that Bush is a far-left dilettante, seizing on comments Bush made in her 2022 autobiography, resurfaced by the New York Post, claiming to have cured a woman’s tumors through prayer. (Yikes.) The Bush camp went nuclear and leaked a recording from the summer of 2023 in which Bell directly promised Bush that he would not run against her, which underscores why Bell’s run has prompted such a reaction from the St. Louis left—apparently, he didn’t just betray the people who elected him; he also went back on his own word to do so.

An onslaught of outside spending from AIPAC appears to have buried Bush’s message, according to an internal poll released by the Bell-supporting group Democratic Majority for Israel which shows Bell leading Bush 48%-42%, a month after the same pollster found Bell leading 43%-42%. Bush is backed by many progressive organizations and politicians, including St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and Board of Aldermen President Megan Green, but it may not be enough to keep her from meeting the same fate as fellow Squad member Jamaal Bowman, who also faced a very well-funded challenge from a local elected official backed by millions in spending from AIPAC’s affiliated super PAC, the United Democracy Project.

SD-07 (Kansas City)

Pat Contreras vs. Patty Lewis

Result (>95% in): Lewis 67.0%, Contreras 33.0% | Lewis wins

This contest, between state Rep. Patty Lewis and development company executive Pat Contreras, has gotten unexpectedly ugly thanks to negative ads run by Contreras against Lewis, hitting her for voting against the Republican budget. Contreras is using the classic trick of presenting a budget “no” vote as a vote against every line in the budget, the kind of practice that makes us skeptical about whatever candidate is doing it. The election is by other appearances a low stakes affair—so low that the Chamber of Commerce issued a rare dual endorsement here—but Lewis at least appears to be an honest party footsoldier in a way that Contreras isn’t.

SD-09 (Kansas City)

Barbara Anne Washington (i) vs. Brandon Ellington

Result (>95% in): Washington 79.0%, Ellington 21.0% | Washington wins

Brandon Ellington just got bounced out of the Kansas City Council after a single term by a wide 61%-39% margin. Though ideologically a progressive, his go-it-alone approach to legislating annoyed other progressives enough that they didn’t lift a finger to help him against a challenger who only seemed slightly to his right. Ellington, who left his seat in the state house to run for city council, is now making an attempt to return to state government. His challenge to incumbent Barbara Anne Washington feels opportunistic, since Washington is an uncontroversial, lower-profile legislator. Ellison doesn’t have much to criticize about her approach—“not bringing home enough money” is what you go to when you don’t have anything else.

SD-13 (North St. Louis County)

Angela Mosley (i) vs. Chantelle Nickson-Clark

Result (>95% in): Mosley 56.7%, Nickson-Clark 43.3% | Mosley wins

We don’t want to be rooting for the Mosleys, a grimy political dynasty with at this point half a dozen different members who have been in or ran for elected office, but Angela Mosley’s opponent in this election is state Rep. Chantelle Nickson-Clark, one of the three Democrats who voted for the private school voucher bill last session. The absolute lowest bar for elected Democrats in a Republican state like Missouri is to not vote for bills like these. Nickson-Clark has received a ton of money in return for her vote, but has received pushback from the Democratic establishment, and in particular the Missouri Education Association.

HD-15 (Northern Kansas City suburbs)

Kenneth Jamison vs. Greg Smith

Result (>95% in): Jamison 61.7%, Smith 38.3% | Jamison wins

This will not be the only time we say an election is “policy-lite” or that candidates “don’t differ on the issues”—in red states, most Democratic candidates say they want to stop Republicans and stop there. Our vibes-based assessment, then, favors Ford worker Greg Smith over family law attorney Kenneth Jamison. While Jamison talks up his military services and bucolic ideas of suburban life, Smith focuses more on his work with the UAW and fighting right-to-work legislation. It doesn’t hurt that Jamison is endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce.

HD-19 (Northern Kansas City)

Patricia Geronima Hernandez vs. Wick Thomas

Result (>95% in): Thomas 50.6%, Hernandez 49.4% | Thomas wins

Librarian Wick Thomas is on their third crack at this seat, after twice challenging incumbent Ingrid Burnett and losing by 40%-25% in 2020 and 58%-42% in 2020. We’re hoping the third time’s the charm for the (to quote a Pitch KC headline from their second run) pansexual glam-rockstar, who is running as a progressive and generally seems to be quite cool. Party activist Patricia Geronima Hernandez would also be a strong choice, and add well-needed Hispanic representation in the legislature. This Hispanic-plurality district is the only one in the state, and either candidate could plausibly win.

HD-28 (Kansas City suburb of Raytown)

Donna Barnes vs. Mike Sager

Result (>95% in): Barnes 75.3%, Sager 24.7% | Barnes wins

Mike Sager served a single term in the state house, from 2003-2005, was convicted of pocketing over $20,000 from his campaign fund and filing false forms to hide it, made a comeback run in 2012, and was lucky to get 10% of the vote. Sager’s political career needs to stay dead, and we’re willing to put up with state Rep. Jerome Barnes handing off his seat to his spouse, Donna Barnes, if that’s what it takes.

HD-50 (Columbia)

Jeff Basinger vs. Gregg Bush

Result (>95% in): Bush 60.1%, Basinger 39.9% | Bush wins

Columbia is a college town, anchored by the University of Missouri, where over 10,000 Missourians work, and 30,000 students attend. It’s the only reliably liberal area of Missouri outside of metropolitan St. Louis and Kansas City, and it has an open contest thanks to the early retirement of state Rep. Doug Mann.

Trial attorney Jeff Basinger and nurse Gregg Bush are both running on the standard red-state Democratic platform—fight back against Republican extremism, defend abortion rights, stand up for unions, etc. Bush is the favorite of organized labor and has outraised Basinger, and he notes that he’d be the only nurse in the state legislature. Basinger, meanwhile, is offended that Bush pledged to vote against funding for the University of Missouri unless the university promised to bargain with its unionized workforce. No offense to Basinger, but America’s state legislatures would be vastly improved if they had fewer lawyers.

HD-66 (Northern St. Louis County)

Marlene Terry (i) vs. Tommie Pierson Sr.

Result (>95% in): Terry 64.4%, Pierson 35.6% | Terry wins

Tommie Pierson Sr. held the previous version of this district until 2016, when he ran for Lt. Governor and handed off the House seat to his son, Tommie Pierson Jr. After badly losing that primary, Sr. spent one term as mayor of suburban town Bellefontaine Neighbors (pop. 11,000), before voters angrily expelled him in 2023. The reason he lost so badly—taking third place with only 24% of the vote—that year was his attempt to basically assert unilateral control over the city by withholding pay from the aldermen until they voted like he wanted them to. We really hope voters in the city have forgiven Pierson Sr. for that, and for his other ethical issues, because we need him to win this one. Incumbent Marlene Terry is one of the three Democrats who helped Republicans pass a sweeping school voucher bill. Naturally, she’s now reaping the benefits of private school interests trying to reelect one of their loyal supporters, while the rest of us have to hope for a grimy machine politician’s unearned comeback bid to succeed.

HD-67 (Northern St. Louis County)

Tonya Rush vs. Neil Smith

Result (>95% in): Rush 65.0%, Smith 35.0%

Neil Smith and Tonya Rush are engaged in what feels like a very local election. Rush, a realtor turned healthcare company owner, and Smith, a former state rep, are both running competitive campaigns but offering boilerplate policy visions and not talking to media much. Still, there are signs Rush is the better choice, or at least Smith is the worse one. Smith has ties to the conservative Mosley dynasty, and the AFL-CIO endorsed Rush instead of Smith in this race despite Smith being the former lawmaker who should, theoretically, have connections with the group. Smith left the state house after only one term because he lost his primary in 2022 by a bruising 66%-34% margin—maybe there’s a reason for that.

HD-68 (Northern St. Louis County)

Janay Mosley vs. Pamela Paul vs. Kem Smith

Result (>95% in): Smith 47.1%, Mosley 42.8%, Paul 10.1% | Smith wins

Jay Mosley, current patriarch of the conservative Mosley dynasty, is exiting the state house owing to term limits, and is attempting to pass the baton to his daughter, Janay Mosley. We’re concerned that it’s going to work, not just because of the Mosleys’ power, but also because the opposition is split. Organized labor and the official Democratic establishment (town committees) are pushing Dr. Kem Smith, but also on the ballot is Pamela Paul, who ran for this seat against Mosley in 2022 and took 26% of the vote.

HD-70 (Northern St. Louis County)

Stephanie Boykin vs. Rickey Joiner vs. Durell Reeves

Result (>95% in): Boykin 73.1%, Joiner 14.8%, Reeves 12.1% | Boykin wins

Stephanie Boykin’s website still has some lorem ipsum text on it, and yet she’s the clear favorite for this open seat. Neither Rickey Joiner nor Durell Reeves has any money to spend according to their campaign finance filings, and Joiner doesn’t even appear to have a website.

HD-73 (Northern St. Louis County)

Raychel Proudie (i) vs. Mike Person

Result (>95% in): Proudie 66.4%, Person 33.6% | Proudie wins

Mike Person, a longtime political operative, tried actually getting elected to the city council in Ferguson, but found it too difficult, so when a state house vacancy opened up, he convinced his fellow party committee people to, at a nomination convention held in his living room, bypass voters and hand him the nomination for the special election in a deep blue seat. He still somehow managed to fuck even that up and barely defeated a Libertarian in the general election. While in the regular election he won a narrow reelection victory against a divided field in 2020, the 37% of the vote he barely scraped by with was a bad omen. When he faced only one candidate in 2022, fellow incumbent Raychel Proudie, he was sent packing, 62%-38%. Against all sense, that didn’t convince him to quit. Don’t expect this election to go any better for him.

HD-75 (Northern St. Louis County)

Catina Howard vs. Chanel Mosley vs. A.J. White

Result (>95% in): Mosley 44.1%, Howard 43.4%, White 12.5% | Winner TBD

You’re reading that correctly, it’s another goddamn Mosley. Chanel Mosley, sister of Janay, and daughter of Jay and Angela, is threatening to expand the family’s footprint even further. Luckily, the opposition is just as divided as in HD-68. Wait, did we say luckily? We meant the opposite of that. Catina Howard, a longtime leader in Amalgamated Transit Union Local 788, and A.J. White, a member of the Black Jack (pop. 7,000) City Council, are both real, viable candidates, and are collectively lowering the threshold for a Mosley victory. We’re obviously going to prefer the union leader over the suburban local politician, but we can’t be as confident voters will.

HD-78 (Central St. Louis)

Jami Cox Antwi vs. Marty Joe Murray vs. Jessica Pachak

Result (>95% in): Murray 57.5%, Antwi 31.4%, Pachak 11.0% | Murray wins

Erstwhile charter school principal Jessica Pachak has no money and no shot here; this is a race between former congressional staffer Jami Cox Antwi and Democratic activist Marty Joe Murray. Antwi and Murray both hit the same general notes, talking about opposing legislative Republicans and defending reproductive freedom, and both have raised low but non-trivial amounts of money; the tiebreaker for us is Murray’s strong support from organized labor and noteworthy St. Louis progressives, including Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, who held this seat prior to his 2023 election as alderman.

HD-80 (Southern St. Louis)

Elizabeth Fuchs vs. Ben Murray

Result (>95% in): Fuchs 59.4%, Murray 40.6% | Fuchs wins

This simple establishment vs. progressive race pits Elizabeth Fuchs, a social worker and lecturer on anti-racism at Washington University in St. Louis, against political aide Ben Murray. No points for guessing which candidate is which. Fuchs is cool, and has support from some corners of St. Louis’s progressive movement as well as queer activists like herself, but her campaign message also feels sort of dated—her “about” page discusses her family and the Catholic church being colonizers in a way that feels very 2020. Murray is also on good terms with seemingly everyone, so a push to stop him from being elected hasn’t materialized.

HD-81 (Southern St. Louis)

Steve Butz (i) vs. Cydney Johnson vs. Bill Stephens

Result (>95% in): Butz 58.6%, Stephens 31.8%, Johnson 9.5% | Butz wins

This race is a rematch of one of the nastier and more ideologically charged contests in 2022. Steve Butz, thanks to term limits, is running for his final term, but he doesn’t deserve it. A moderate who publicly opposed abortion during his last campaign and conspicuously talks around his position on the issue today, Butz is obviously out of step with the Democratic Party, but defeated progressive Bill Stephens 60%-40% in 2022. Stephens, a gay atheist who nonetheless won a nonpartisan seat on the Board of Alders in a part of the city that is often downright Republican lost by way more than we were expecting, but is trying again. Third-wheel candidate Cydney Johnson won’t win, but may take some of the needed anti-Butz vote.

HD-86 (Central St. Louis County - University City)

Jeff Hales vs. Donovan Meeks vs. Trina Nelson

Result (>95% in): Hales 54.1%, Meeks 27.5%, Nelson 18.3% | Hales wins

Trina Nelson, the choice of outgoing state Rep. Joe Adams, has been disqualified from holding office under Missouri law for failing to pay taxes. If she wins the primary, local party leaders will be able to choose a different nominee; more likely, this primary will be won by University City councilor Jeff Hales, who has much more money to work with. Hales positions himself as vaguely progressive, throwing in an almost non sequitur plug for Medicare for All on his Issues page. Donovan Meeks is a phantom candidate who does not appear to have taken any action to campaign other than filing to get on the ballot.

HD-99 (Central St. Louis County)

Ian Mackey (i) vs. Boris Abadzhyan

Result (>95% in): Mackey 80.6%, Abadzhyan 19.4% | Mackey wins

Boris Abadzhyan has run for Missouri House every two years since 2018, always achieving more than 10% but less than 20% of the vote against whichever incumbent he happens to run against. In 2022, that incumbent was Ian Mackey, and while 2022 was Abadzhyan’s best performance yet (18%), we have no reason to believe Mackey’s 82% won’t be repeated in 2024.

Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney

Stephanie Burton vs. John Gromowsky vs. Melesa Johnson

Result (>95% in): Johnson 48.4%, Gromowsky 26.1%, Burton 25.5% | Johnson wins

The winner here is probably going to be one of two prosecutors—John Gromowsky or Melesa Johnson. Neither sound open to reform efforts, but Stephanie Burton, who has worked for the Midwest Innocence Project and Death Penalty Litigation Clinic, clearly is. Unfortunately, she’s an underdog in this fight. 

Though both prosecutors, Gromowsky and Johnson have substantial daylight between them, most obviously on drug possession—Johnson said she would continue the current office’s practice of not charging simple drug possession when not connected to a violent crime, while Gromowsky would reverse it. Oddly, so would Burton. Johnson is more skeptical of the death penalty than Gromowsky, though obviously much less so than Burton. The Black establishment in Jackson County is enthusiastically supporting Johnson, who is Black, while Gromoswsky, who is white, counts among his biggest supporters the police unions. He’s just straightforwardly the wrong choice, and we’d be fine with Johnson winning if it means him losing.

St. Louis City Sheriff

Vernon Betts (i) vs. Alfred Montgomery

Result (>95% in): Montgomery 50.3%, Betts 49.7% | Montgomery wins

Vernon Betts has served as the city of St. Louis’s elected sheriff since winning his first race in 2016, and he’s a colorful character, to say the least. In a recently surfaced recording, Betts joked (“joked”?) to deputies that they should shoot people who are “not on the team,” allegedly referring to his own political career and loyalty to him. He’s also been caught on tape disparaging a deputy who sued for discrimination and retaliation, casting the deputy as disloyal for not supporting Betts’s political career. Alfred Montgomery challenged Betts in 2020, losing 61%-28%, but he’s hoping that an earlier start to his own campaign and Betts’s latest concerning comments will propel him to victory in the rematch. Mayor Tishaura Jones and Board of Aldermen President Megan Green are backing Montgomery over Betts, saying, in essence, that they’re tired of Betts’s nonsense. And each man is calling the other mentally ill, because this race has just gotten that nasty and personal.

St. Louis City Treasurer

Adam Layne (i) vs. Jimmie Matthews

Result (>95% in): Layne 66.1%, Matthews 33.9% | Layne wins

St. Louis City Treasurer Adam Layne is going to coast in the face of minor opposition from former Alderman Jimmie Matthews, who last held office in the 1980s but has kept running for office ever since, earning the title of perennial candidate despite his status as a former officeholder.

Washington

WA-06 (Olympic Peninsula and Tacoma)

Hilary Franz vs. Emily Randall vs. Republicans

Result (>90% in): Randall 34.6%, McEwen (R) 30.2%, Franz 24.7% | Randall and McEwen advance to November

Rep. Derek Kilmer stunned Washington, DC and Washington State alike when he announced he’d retire from Congress at the end of his term. At 50, Kilmer is young by congressional standards, and his retirement came as a true shock; Kilmer said he wanted to spend more time with his family than the cross-country commute allowed, and he’s giving up a fair amount of clout within the House Democratic caucus to have more time with his family. Shortly after Kilmer announced his retirement, three Democratic candidates jumped in the race to succeed him, and two remain in the race.

Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz had been running for governor, struggling to gain traction against frontrunner Bob Ferguson. The 6th district includes her hometown of Bainbridge Island, so it was a natural escape hatch from a longshot gubernatorial campaign. Franz quickly racked up endorsements from many labor unions, particularly in the more conservative building trades, as well as Kilmer and Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards. But if she hoped for a glide path to Congress, she didn’t get it, because state Sen. Emily Randall has turned out to be a tough opponent. Randall flipped a swing seat in Tacoma’s northern suburbs in 2018 and quickly became popular with her colleagues, many of whom are backing her campaign. Randall is also backed by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and many labor unions—including the unions representing Franz’s employees at the Department of Natural Resources, and the statewide AFL-CIO affiliate. She’s also endorsed by Jefferson County Commissioner Kate Dean, who briefly ran for WA-06 herself after Kilmer’s retirement announcement, and national organizations which have endorsed in this race are uniformly backing Randall. Some of those organizations’ reasons for backing Randall are obvious—the PACs affiliated with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus want a queer Latina in Congress for reasons we hope you can guess. But the race has been upended by the late involvement of Protect Progress, a cryptocurrency industry super PAC, which has dropped more than $1 million in advertising supporting Randall over Franz. Franz’s campaign has decried the crypto industry’s involvement, and it does make it much harder to believe that Randall is the progressive choice in this race. Whichever Democrat comes out on top is likely headed to a general election with Republican state Sen. Drew McEwen, whose chances are slim in a district that voted for Joe Biden by double digits.

WA-08 (Seattle exurbs)

Kim Schrier (i) vs. Keith Arnold vs. Imraan Siddiqi

Result (>90% in): Schrier 49.9%, Goers (R) 45.4%, Siddiqi 3.3% | Schrier and Goers advance to November

This district is on the edge of competitive, but it’s worth a mention due to the candidacy of CAIR Washington director Imraan Siddiqi, who takes issue with Rep. Kim Schrier’s steadfast support for the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and her general penchant for conservative posturing that is unnecessary in a district which leans slightly towards Democrats. Siddiqi is outmatched financially, but Schrier could use a reminder that her district consistently votes for the Democratic presidential nominee and doesn’t actually demand conservative messaging votes. In all likelihood, Schrier will move on to face Republican Carmen Goers in November.

WA-09 (Tacoma to Seattle)

Adam Smith (i) vs. Melissa Chaudhry

Result (>90% in): Smith 54.2%, Chaudhry 20.1%, Martin (R) 18.4% | Smith and Chaudhry advance to November

Rep. Adam Smith is a low-profile congressman who leads the Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee, and he’s a perennial target of underfunded primary challengers who rightly think a deep-blue district could do better. This year, that challenger is Melissa Chaudhry, a grant writer running on a progressive platform; she earned the Stranger’s endorsement and with it some protest votes, which may be enough to carry her into the general election and box out Republicans Mark Greene and Paul Martin and third-party centrist David Ishii.

Governor

Bob Ferguson vs. Mark Mullet vs. Republicans vs. assorted cranks and weirdos

Result (>90% in): Ferguson 45.2%, Reichert (R) 27.5%, Bird (R) 10.5%, Mullet 6.1% | Ferguson and Reichert advance to November

Every poll of this election paints the same picture: Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, and former U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, a Republican, will advance to November’s general election, with each man eliminating a more conservative challenger from within his own party. For Reichert, that’s far-right activist Semi Bird, the favorite of many local Republican Party organizations; for Ferguson, that’s anti-tax crusader Mark Mullet, a state senator from the Seattle suburbs who claims to be a Democrat but could’ve fooled us otherwise. Polls have both Mullet and Bird mired in the single digits, as Ferguson and Reichert just have vastly superior name recognition. This will very likely be a very boring primary.

Lieutenant Governor

Denny Heck (i) vs. David Griffin vs. Republicans

Result (>90% in): Heck 48.9%, Matthews (R) 22.8%, Hagglund (R) 16.7%, Griffin 8.9% | Heck and Matthews advance to November

Denny Heck retired from representing the Olympia area in Congress in 2020…only to change his mind and launch a successful bid for lieutenant governor. Heck faces only minor opposition from Republicans and fellow Democrat David Griffin, who wants to bring a greater focus on bipartisanship and poses on his campaign website with a very cute dog.

Attorney General

Nick Brown vs. Manka Dhingra vs. Pete Serrano (R)

Result (>90% in): Serrano (R) 41.9%, Brown 35.5%, Dhingra 22.6% | Serrano and Brown advance to November

We’re not going to pretend to be excited by an election for attorney general that’s between two career prosecutors and a Republican, even if both of the prosecutors have overall solid platforms. Former US Attorney (and Survivor contestant) Nick Brown headed up the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington during the Biden administration before resigning to run for AG, and he takes a very progressive, aggressive view of what his potential AG’s office would do: he wants to reorganize the office, which has broad civil law enforcement authority, to focus more resources on tenants’ rights, wage theft, and labor law. State Sen. Manka Dhingra, a prosecutor for Seattle’s King County before her 2017 election to the state Senate, is more focused on criminal justice reform, and absolutely clears Brown on criminal justice issues; Dhingra actually has a record of advancing criminal justice reform in the legislature to back up her rhetoric, too. However, as the Stranger rightly notes, a state AG’s office does far more civil work than criminal, and that’s where Brown takes a bolder view of the office’s potential. Ultimately, Washington State voters have a choice between two decent candidates who share the unfortunate defect of being prosecutors (and Republican Pete Serrano, but our discussion of him starts and ends with his party affiliation.)

Secretary of State

Steve Hobbs (i) vs. Marquez Tiggs vs. Republicans

Result (>90% in): Hobbs 48.7%, Whitaker (R) 36.6%, Tiggs 9.6% | Hobbs and Whitaker advance to November

Steve Hobbs finally completed Washington Democrats’ long-overdue sweep of statewide offices after moderate Republican Kim Wyman resigned to take a job in the Biden administration, and Gov. Jay Inslee appointed Hobbs, then a state senator, to fill in for Wyman. Hobbs narrowly defeated centrist independent Julie Anderson in a 2022 special election and now faces a much weaker field composed of one Republican, one independent running under the banner of the basically defunct No Labels organization, and minor Democratic candidate Marquez Tiggs.

Superintendent of Public Instruction

Chris Reykdal (i) vs. John Patterson Blair vs. David Olson vs. Reid Saaris

Result (>90% in): Reykdal 39.4%, Olson 31.1%, Saaris 23.9%, Blair 5.1% | Reykdal and Olson advance to November

Chris Reykdal is an uncontroversial liberal incumbent backed by organized labor who plans to keep badgering the legislature to increase school funding. Reid Saaris is a frustratingly vague education nonprofit guy who distances himself from charter schools and school vouchers but is funded by some of their main Washington State backers. Gig Harbor school board member David Olson is a right-winger and former Vashon school board member John Patterson Blair barely seems to be running. Reykdal is the clear choice in this nonpartisan race.

Insurance Commissioner

Bill Boyd vs. Chris Chung vs. Patricia Kuderer vs. John Pestinger vs. Republicans

Result (>90% in): Kuderer 45.4%, Fortunato (R) 28.4%, Murta (R) 10.1%, Pestinger 5.6%, Hendrix (I) 3.7%, Boyd 3.1%, Chung 2.9% | Kuderer and Fortunato advance to November

Democrats have a crowded field of candidates for Insurance Commissioner that will helpfully be winnowed by the August primary. The leading Democrat is state Sen. Patty Kuderer, a reliably liberal backbencher supported by organized labor, but the centrist Seattle Times prefers insurance industry professional John Pestinger. Bill Boyd wants to privatize the state’s workers’ compensation system, and Chris Chung is a phantom candidate.

Public Lands Commissioner

Jeralee Anderson vs. Kevin Van De Wege vs. Patrick DePoe vs. Allen Lebovitz vs. Dave Upthegrove vs. Republicans

Result (>90% in): Herrera Beutler (R) 22.0%, Upthegrove 20.8%, Pederson (R) 20.7%, DePoe 14.1%, Lebovitz 10.3%, Van De Wege 7.6%, Anderson 4.5% | Herrera Beutler and either Pederson or Upthegrove advance to November

King County Council chair Dave Upthegrove isn’t a progressive in the context of King County politics, but he’s who many progressives have reluctantly landed on in this race as they evaluate a field of alternatives who are either more conservative or simply untested. State Sen. Kevin Van De Wege, who represents the Olympic Peninsula, is a fairly conservative Democrat who’s particularly shaky on environmental issues, which are central to the job of the Public Lands Commissioner. Patrick DePoe is a Makah Tribe member and current tribal relations official in the Department of Natural Resources backed by outgoing incumbent Hilary Franz, but that may almost be a liability, as Franz faces scrutiny for allegedly using her authority at the head of DNR to boost her political ambitions as she seeks a congressional seat. Redmond City Council member Jeralee Anderson is an engineer who runs a sustainability nonprofit and seems to be struggling to break through, as does firefighter Allen Lebovitz. DePoe seems to be doing the best job of anyone other than Upthegrove at collecting support from prominent Democrats and labor unions, and his support from the leadership of many of Washington’s Native tribes will undoubtedly boost him as well, but this does appear to be Upthegrove’s race to lose.

Supreme Court, Position 2

Todd Bloom vs. Dave Larson vs. Sal Mungia vs. David Shelvey

Result (>90% in): Mungia 43.4%, Larson 36.5%, Bloom 16.2%, Shelvey 3.4% | Mungia and Larson advance to November

This one is simple: Todd Bloom is a Republican, Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Dave Larson is a crime fearmongerer who’s appeared at an event with GOP gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert, family law attorney David Shelvey is a bit of a gadfly, and Sal Mungia, a former president of the state bar association endorsed by just about everyone in Washington politics, is the only candidate who doesn’t throw up any red flags.

LD-03 (Spokane)

House, Position 1: Natasha Hill vs. Ben Stuckart

Result (>90% in): Kiepe (R) 35.4%, Hill 32.5%, Stuckart 32.0% | Kiepe and Hill advance to November

Attorney and civil rights activist Natasha Hill and former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart are both running as standard liberals with little daylight between the two on the issues. The lack of real policy stakes in this race is evident from the number of dual endorsements issued by unions and progressive groups. This race even happens to be the second choice of both candidates—Hill previously ran for Congress in 2022, losing to GOP Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and Stuckart considered running for McMorris Rodgers’s open seat this year before this state House seat opened up. We’re sorry, this one is just really boring.

LD-05 (Seattle exurbs)

House, Position 1: Victoria Hunt vs. Jason Ritchie vs. Kristiana de Leon

Result (>90% in): Hunt 35.4%, Hargrove (R) 27.4%, Halverson (R) 16.9%, de Leon 10.3%, Ritchie 10.0% | Hunt and Hargrove advance to November

Victoria Hunt and Kristiana de Leon both offer generally progressive platforms, but with different focuses. Hunt is a member of the Issaquah City Council and has a message tailored to suburban progressives, including transit-oriented development and greater funding for housing and supportive services. de Leon is a member of the Black Diamond City Council and is more focused on small towns and exurbs like her own (though she, and not Hunt, is endorsed by the Urbanist, a major Seattle-area urbanist organization.) Either would make a good addition to the legislature. The only underwhelming choice is Jason Ritchie, a former Sammamish City Council member who’s running to the center on a platform of only making minor changes to the status quo. There are also two Republicans running, so we may or may not have to return to this race in November depending on whether one Democrat or two ends up advancing to November.

LD-21 (Northern Seattle suburbs)

House, Position 1: Strom Peterson (i) vs. Jason Moon

Result (>90% in): Peterson 50.5%, Khan (R) 27.5%, Moon 21.8% | Peterson and Khan advance to November

Mukilteo City Councilmember Jason Moon is a moderate backlash candidate trying to harness anger over any issues or policies of the state or Seattle in the last decade that he thinks exists. Drug recovery sites, pro-housing laws, and police reform—all get a freak AI photo and a vague reactionary blurb about how he’s going to push back against them. Or something. The man’s website starts getting into policy with the inspiring statement “I think it's time for a change in our current housing, drug, or public safety laws!” and barely gets any more specific from there. We’d normally expect Strom Peterson, a state house backbencher, to advance into the general facing off against a Republican instead of this clown, but a variety of suburban politicians, and not just ones from Mukilteo, have endorsed Moon, so we’re keeping our eye on this race.

LD-22 (Olympia)

Senate: Jessica Bateman vs. Tela Hogle vs. Bob Iyall

Result (>90% in): Bateman 68.9%, Iyall 20.4%, Hogle 8.1% | Bateman and Iyall advance to November

State Rep. Jessica Bateman is aiming for a promotion, and she’s got a solid enough record in the House that we feel comfortable with her getting that promotion. Bateman has led the way on promoting affordable housing through the statewide legalization of so-called “missing middle” housing, and she also wants to reform Washington’s regressive tax code to raise more revenue from the wealthiest. Business owner Tela Hogle and Nisqually tribal elder Bob Iyall both offer progressive platforms as well, but it’s hard to see either one beating Bateman.

House, Position 2: Syd Locke vs. Lisa Parshley

Result (>90% in): Parshley 63.8%, Locke 32.9% | Parshley and Locke advance to November

Beauty pageant primaries are the phenomenon created by Top 2 electoral systems such as Washington’s, which guarantee spots for two candidates in the general election, but don’t have a mechanism for canceling the first round if only two candidates file for the office. The result is the entire district being asked to vote in an election with zero stakes but minor informational value for where the race stands. The first of the night is here, where 30-year state house legislative aide Syd Locke is running as a proud socialist for an open seat that Olympia City Councilmember Lisa Parshley is considered the favorite for.

LD-23 (Kitsap County - Bremerton, Bainbridge Island)

House, Position 2: Greg Nance (i) vs. Brynn Felix vs. John Gibbons

Result (>90% in): Nance 46.3%, Miles (R) 29.2%, Felix 19.3%, Gibbons 5.2% | Nance and Miles advance to November

Appointed state Rep. Greg Nance has drawn a pair of strong primary challengers through no apparent fault of his own. Dentist John Gibbons, the former president of the Washington State Dental Association, is running on a platform of being a standard liberal who is also a dentist, and ACLU lobbyist Brynn Felix acknowledges that the votes aren’t yet there for state-level single-payer but wants to build up a supportive bloc of legislators in advance. Progressive organizations and labor unions are split between Felix and Nance, who has focused on less ideological issues like improving Puget Sound ferry service but hasn’t cast any notably terrible votes in his brief time as a legislator.

LD-24 (Olympic Peninsula)

Senate: Mike Chapman vs. James Russell

Result (>90% in): Chapman 53.8%, Kelbon (R) 41.2%, Russell 5.0% | Chapman and Kelbon advance to November

State Rep. Mike Chapman is very likely to succeed outgoing state Sen. Kevin Van De Wege, but he does technically have to beat Democratic phantom candidate James Russell in the August primary first.

House, Position 1: Adam Bernbaum vs. Eric Pickens vs. Nate Tyler

Result (>90% in): Bernbaum 28.1%, Roberson (R) 26.8%, Pickens 17.3%, Streifel (R) 14.2%, Tyler 13.5% | Bernbaum and Roberson advance to November

The contest for the seat left behind by Mike Chapman is a lot more interesting than the contest actually involving Mike Chapman, but that’s not saying much. Teacher and union leader Eric Pickens, the president of the Sequim School Board, wants to improve Puget Sound ferry service and build on his own union experience to advance pro-union policy. He’s backed by many labor unions, and he shares the endorsement of Chapman and a number of local politicians with state legislative aide Adam Bernbaum. Bernbaum is, unfortunately, also backed by Kevin Van De Wege, which makes us think Pickens is probably more progressive. Rounding out the field is Makah tribal leader Nate Tyler, who has also been endorsed by Chapman. (Ro Khanna, someone has finally outdone you.) Tyler is the most vague and the most moderate-sounding on policy, but the differences between these three candidates are slight.

LD-27 (Tacoma)

House, Position 2: Jake Fey (i) vs. Devin Rydel Kelly

Result (>90% in): Fey 70.2%, Kelly 26.9% | Fey and Kelly advance to November

This election is another beauty pageant primary—only incumbent Jake Fey and progressive/socialist challenger Devin Rydel Kelly are on the ballot, meaning they will both advance to November, and the only value of the results here will be letting us know how the race is going.

LD-29 (Tacoma and suburbs)

House, Position 1: Melanie Morgan (i) vs. Richard Miller

Result (>90% in): Morgan 67.5%, Miller 26.9% | Morgan and Miller advance to November

This is also a beauty pageant primary, this time between staff-abusing incumbent Melanie Morgan, and Richard Miller, a realtor who promises to not do that.

LD-32 (Northern Seattle, Shoreline, Lynnwood)

House, Position 2: Lauren Davis (i) vs. Dunia Wabenga

Result (>90% in): Davis 69.9%, Theis (R) 23.4%, Wabenga 6.6% | Davis and Theis advance to November

State Rep. Lauren Davis faces a badly underfunded challenge from immigrant and military veteran Dunia Wabenga. She’ll likely clear 50% in this very blue district and face a Republican, not Wabenga, in November.

LD-38 (Everett)

House, Position 1: Julio Cortes (i) vs. Annie Fitzgerald vs. Bryce Nickel

Result (>90% in): Cortes 61.2%, Fitzgerald 20.0%, Nickel 13.5% | Cortes and Fitzgerald advance to November

Progressive state Rep. Julio Cortes faces no-budget challengers Annie Fitzgerald and Bryce Nickel, who each also position themselves on the left but lack the resources to pose a threat to Cortes.

LD-43 (Central Seattle)

House, Position 2: Daniel Carusello vs. Stephanie Lloyd-Agnew vs. Shaun Scott vs. Andrea Suarez

Result (>90% in): Scott 59.0%, Suarez 20.4%, Carusello 16.3%, Lloyd-Agnew 3.5% | Scott and Suarez advance to November

Five years after narrowly losing a Seattle City Council seat to moderate Alex Pedersen, socialist activist Shaun Scott is back in the electoral arena, and this time he looks like a solid favorite. LD-43 is one of the most left-leaning districts in the state (and in the whole country, for that matter); in 2020, a third-party leftist, Sherae Lascelles, managed to get a third of the general election vote against incumbent state Rep. Frank Chopp. Chopp is finally retiring after decades in office, and he’s backing Scott as his successor, as is LD-43’s other state rep, Nicole Macri. His main opponent is obvious right-winger Andrea Suarez, who is fundraising well but faces the likely insurmountable obstacle of pretty obviously being a Republican in all but name. Qualtrics employee Daniel Carusello is endorsed by the Seattle Times and isn’t terrible, but he’s clearly less progressive and less viable than Scott. Stephanie Lloyd-Agnew is a phantom candidate. Scott and either Suarez or Carusello should advance to November here; even if Republicans had managed to field a candidate here (they didn’t), this district is too blue to send a Republican to November unless they have no other choice.

LD-45 (Eastern Seattle suburbs)

House, Position 2: Larry Springer (i) vs. Melissa Demyan

Result (>90% in): Springer 49.7%, Demyan 47.0% | Springer and Demyan advance to November

This beauty pageant primary pits moderate charter school supporter Larry Springer against Melissa Demyan, who was endorsed by the King County Democrats, likely as a result of them finally having enough of his shit after 20 years.

LD-46 (Northeast Seattle)

House, Position 1: Gerry Pollet (i) vs. Ahndylyn Kinney

Result (>90% in): Pollet 83.2%, Daranciang (R) 10.2%, Kinney 6.5% | Pollet and Daranciang advance to November

Though not technically a beauty pageant primary, there are only two Democrats and one Republican running in a district where the Democratic vote share hovers around 90%. Incumbent Gerry Pollet is being challenged by Ahndylyn Kinney, a “MODERATE DEMOCRAT FOR A MORE AFFORDABLE AND SAFER SEATTLE”.

Seattle Council At-Large Pos. 8 [Special]

Tanya Woo (i) vs. Alexis Mercedes Rinck vs. Saunatina Sanchez vs. Tariq Yusuf

Result (>90% in): Rinck 49.9%, Woo 38.8%, Sanchez 4.3%, Yusuf 3.8% | Rinck and Woo advance to November

Tanya Woo was last seen losing an unexpectedly close race to progressive District 2 councilor Tammy Morales in 2023. The founder of the Chinatown-International District Community Watch impressed Seattle’s dominant moderate faction so much that when progressive at-large city councilor Teresa Mosqueda won a seat on the King County Council, the moderates on the Seattle City Council chose to appoint Woo to the vacant at-large seat. Woo, a business owner, is a moderate through and through, and eventually opted to recuse herself from a vote on rescinding the city’s minimum wage for gig workers after the city’s ethics director advised her that her father-in-law’s ownership of a restaurant which contracted with app-based gig work delivery companies created a conflict of interest. Progressives are still sore over Woo’s appointment and their rough 2023 cycle more generally, and they see Alexis Mercedes Rinck as their best shot at beginning to rebuild the council’s once-powerful progressive bloc. While Saunatina Sanchez and Tariq Yusuf also position themselves to the left of Woo (it’s not hard), Rinck is the only one who commits to progressive tax hikes to avoid cutting city services, and she’s the only one with widespread support from progressive Seattle politicians and organizations, including a handful of labor unions evidently dissatisfied with Woo.

Kansas

SD-02 (Lawrence)

Marci Francisco (i) vs. Christina Haswood

Result (>95% in): Francisco 57.2%, Haswood 42.8% | Francisco wins

State Sen. Marci Francisco has represented the college town of Lawrence in the Kansas Senate for the last 20 years, amassing a generally liberal voting record. State Rep. Christina Haswood is relatively new to the state capitol, serving as a state representative since her 2020 election to represent southeastern Lawrence and its more rural outskirts, and she’s an ardent progressive. As Francisco and Haswood are both members of powerless Democratic superminorities in their respective chambers, it’s not that easy for the two to differentiate themselves. Haswood, a member of the Navajo Nation who is only the third Native American woman to serve in the Kansas Legislature, has a particular focus on Native American issues; she has proposed a state-level counterpart to the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, which works to keep Native foster children in Native households. Francisco, meanwhile, is backed by a PAC supported by Gov. Laura Kelly which seeks to elect moderates of both parties—the PAC was originally intended to chip away at the GOP supermajorities, but we guess fighting with your own party is more exciting.

SD-04 (Kansas City)

David Haley (i) vs. Ephren Taylor III

Result (>95% in): Haley 57.6%, Taylor 42.4% | Haley wins

Ephren Taylor III is vague about his background, generally sticking to the generic line that he’s a Gen Z community organizer whose father is incarcerated. What his father is incarcerated for might make people recoil: Ephren Taylor II is serving a 19-year prison sentence for running a $16 million Ponzi scheme which preyed on predominantly Black churchgoers, convincing them to invest their life savings in what they believed was “socially conscious investing” but was in reality the personal slush fund of Taylor and his partner in crime Wendy Connor. (Unless there’s another Ephren Taylor II with connections to the Kansas side of the Kansas City metro who’s currently incarcerated, which seems doubtful.) But Ephren Taylor III is not Ephren Taylor II; Taylor II’s crimes were committed when Taylor III was just a child, and groups including the Kansas Young Democrats and a couple of local unions are willing to take a chance on this 20-year-old organizer. Ephren Taylor III wants to bring a more progressive perspective to Topeka, and he happily admits he’s to the left of incumbent state Sen. David Haley; Haley, like Francisco, is backed by Kelly’s Middle of the Road PAC as the governor looks to empower moderate Democrats in the last two years of her term, and he was the lone Senate Democrat to vote in favor of a school voucher bill last year. He argues that his opponent is too young to do the job, even though the minimum age to serve in the Kansas Legislature is 18. In our view, no age is too young to know that school vouchers are a bad idea that have been proven time and time again to gut public schools.

SD-19 (Topeka to Lawrence)

Vic Miller vs. Patrick Schmidt vs. ShaMecha King Simms

Result (>95% in): Schmidt 53.5%, Miller 34.0%, Simms 12.5% | Schmidt wins

Technically, this seat is held by a Republican. However, that’s the old SD-19. The newly drawn SD-19 is a heavily Democratic strip that follows the Kansas Turnpike from Topeka to Lawrence; Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the new SD-19 by over thirty points, and the winner of this primary should expect a similar margin in November. State House Minority Leader Vic Miller is looking for a promotion to the upper chamber, and it’s brought his feud with Gov. Laura Kelly out into the open—her Middle of the Road PAC is spending to attack Miller and support Navy veteran Patrick Schmidt, who has outraised and outspent Miller quite substantially. Topeka community activist ShaMecha King Simms is also in the running, but the nasty brawl between Miller and Schmidt—and, by proxy, Gov. Kelly—has attracted most of the attention, as Miller claims Kelly is just mad that he opposed a tax deal Kelly struck with legislative Republicans which included corporate tax cuts and other GOP priorities. Miller has also gotten in trouble for a comment about Simms, a Black woman, in which he dismissively said “your time’s another day, another place,” which he claims was a compliment in the context of a discussion about more women and people of color running for the Kansas Legislature, but…that context makes the comment sound worse.

HD-10 (Lawrence)

Zachary Hawkins vs. Suzanne Wikle

Result (>95% in): Wikle 90.8%, Hawkins 9.2% | Wikle wins

Healthcare advocate Suzanne Wikle, who frames herself as a progressive, is likely going to cruise to victory in Christina Haswood’s open Lawrence-area state House seat. Wikle focuses on affordability, Medicaid expansion, school funding, abortion rights, and LGBT rights. University of Kansas student Zachary Hawkins has virtually no money and a website dominated by AI-generated images, but he cites trans rights and abortion rights as top priorities.

HD-35 (Kansas City)

Marvin Robinson II (i) vs. Kimberly DeWitt vs. Wanda Kay Brownlee Paige vs. Michelle Watley

Result (>95% in): Paige 49.1%, Robinson 22.0%, Watley 20.2%, DeWitt 8.8% | Paige wins

State Rep. Marvin Robinson II crossed his party on a number of votes in his first term, voting to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a ban on transgender girls’ participation in school sports and following that vote with a vote against expanding Medicaid and a vote to override another Kelly veto of a bill tightening work requirements for food stamp recipients. Any one of those votes is enough on its own to warrant a primary challenge, but taken together, they’ve made Robinson’s ouster a top priority of many Kansas Democrats, who have taken Robinson’s betrayal quite personally. (Gov. Laura Kelly even vetoed a last-minute addition of funding for the restoration of the Quindaro Ruins, an Underground Railroad historical site in Robinson’s district, in what was seen as retaliation for Robinson’s vote on the trans sports ban, as many Democrats suspected Robinson had traded his votes for the funding.) Kelly’s PAC is supporting Wanda Kay Brownlee Paige, a member of the Kansas City, Kansas school board, and Paige has the most money of any Robinson challenger; political consultant Michelle Watley isn’t far behind, and business consultant Kimberly DeWitt also has a few bucks to spend. Any of them would make a better representative than Robinson.

HD-46 (Lawrence)

Logan Ginavan vs. Brittany Hall vs. Brooklynne Mosley

Result (>95% in): Mosley 67.4%, Hall 27.6%, Ginavan 5.0% | Mosley wins

Democratic operative Brooklynne Mosley is the fundraising leader for this open Lawrence-area seat, though her history as a party operative has earned her some detractors (she ran the statewide coordinated campaign for New Jersey Democrats in the disastrous 2021 cycle.) Brittany Hall, who moved to Lawrence to attend Haskell Indian Nations University and now serves as president of the university’s Board of Regents, is also running a spirited campaign with the backing of Run for Something and the Kansas Farm Bureau. University of Kansas student Logan Ginavan rounds out the field, and while he has the least money of the three, he gets some credit from us for having the most detailed platform.

HD-58 (Topeka)

Wendy Damman-Bednar vs. Alexis Simmons

Result (>95% in): Simmons 85.2%, Damman-Bednar 14.8% | Simmons wins

State House staffer Alexis Simmons is the clear favorite to succeed her boss, House Minority Leader Vic Miller. She has a large financial advantage, the support of other notable Topeka Democrats like former Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, and the backing of the Kansas arm of the National Education Association. State employee Wendy Damman-Badnar has some campaign experience of her own from Democratic campaigns in Florida and Kansas, but she’s strapped for cash and lacks the high-profile backers Simmons has in her corner. Damman-Badnar is somewhat more skeptical of tax cuts than Simmons, but both cite property tax relief as a priority; Simmons also wants to increase funding for Kansas’s underfunded local schools, and both candidates want to legalize cannabis.

Michigan

MI-13 (Detroit and Downriver suburbs)

Shri Thanedar (i) vs. Shakira Lynn Hawkins vs. Mary Waters

Result (>95% in): Thanedar 54.3%, Waters 34.3%, Hawkins 11.4% | Thanedar wins

Somehow unfamiliar with Shri Thanedar? Here, we’ve summed him up before; the following is taken from our January 7, 2022 issue and our 2022 Michigan primary preview:

Shri Thanedar is one of those characters you don’t forget. Thanedar was a totally unknown pharma millionaire who burst onto the Michigan political scene by desperately turning the money hose everywhere he could in an attempt to become governor. Despite claiming to be “the most progressive Democrat running for governor”, no one in Michigan actually bought that, especially given his animal-murdering corporate past, and the presence of Abdul El-Sayed in the race, the candidate who all the progressive groups were actually excited about. Mid-campaign revelations that he enthusiastically attended a Marco Rubio rally in 2016 were surprising but not shocking given how obvious a political act this was for him. Thanedar came in third with 18%, doing best near Detroit, possibly because he’d been secretly buying off local radio hosts during the primary. It’s hard to describe Shri’s odd stage presence, his deluge of ads, or how damn weird that whole campaign was. (If you don’t have the phrase "Shri is me" lodged permanently in your brain, consider yourself lucky).

In 2020, he set his sights lower, running for an open state house seat in Detroit. The local establishment, figuring there was no reason to piss off the rich guy over a single house seat, put up only half-hearted opposition to him, and he won 35% to 20%. He's done little of note with his year in the House, except, evidently, plan a run for Congress. Thanedar first made noises about challenging Tlaib in November but no one took that bluster too seriously. Until now.

[from our Jan 7, 2022 issue]

Thanedar is the bad outcome—a wealthy self funder with no real allegiance to the Democratic Party, and some real questionable ethics. He’s spent at least $4 million of his own money on the race, and has high name recognition after his gubernatorial run. Normally, someone like Shri, who can buy himself some support but is off putting to a majority of voters, would be easy to dismiss. But, in a field this wide open, he could win.

[from our 2022 Michigan primary preview]

Well, win he did! Thanedar’s time in Congress has been messy, with his House colleagues, local elected officials, and former staffers all criticizing his job performance on non-ideological grounds, saying he neglects constituent services so badly that residents of his Detroit-based district go to neighboring Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Debbie Dingell for help with federal agencies. Thanedar also did a 180 on the issue of Israel, going from a target of AIPAC and harsh critic of Israel in his 2022 race to an ally of the organization in 2024. (The advisability of such a move in a Detroit-based district that takes in Hamtramck and part of Dearborn Heights is questionable, especially since AIPAC hasn’t actually spent on Thanedar’s behalf in return for his about-face on Israel policy.) Given the widespread dismay in Detroit political circles with the city’s lack of Black representation in Congress (and the popularity of Detroit’s other representative, Rashida Tlaib), Thanedar was always likely to face a primary, but his lackadaisical job performance only hardened the resolve of those seeking to make his congressional tenure a short one.

At first, it seemed like Thanedar was headed for a rematch with the second-place finisher from 2022: former state Sen. Adam Hollier, who was the AIPAC favorite in 2022 but was abandoned by the group in 2024. Hollier had widespread support from the Michigan Democratic establishment and was fundraising well. Everything seemed set for an expensive and competitive rematch between Thanedar and Hollier. Then Hollier got disqualified from the ballot due to problems with his nominating petitions, and the Detroit establishment was left to choose between Thanedar and the two challengers who had managed to secure spots on the ballot: Detroit At-Large City Councilor Mary Waters and attorney Shakira Lynn Hawkins. Hawkins doesn’t seem like a credible challenger to Thanedar this cycle, and Waters is pretty different from Hollier. Hollier was a strong fundraiser, whereas Waters is a fairly weak one; Hollier was a moderate, whereas Waters is a progressive; Hollier was once AIPAC’s candidate, whereas Waters has made a Gaza ceasefire part of her campaign message, which earned her the support of civic leaders in heavily Muslim Hamtramck; Hollier had a squeaky-clean record other than the petition troubles, whereas Waters pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false tax return for failing to report a gift of a Rolex watch in 2010 as part of a bribery scheme. But faced with a choice between Waters and Thanedar, Detroit’s political class barely even hesitated before throwing their support to Waters. Mayor Mike Duggan, who had clashed with Waters on the city council, promptly endorsed Waters upon Hollier’s disqualification from the ballot, and brought along a majority of Detroit’s city council as a show of force at the press conference announcing his endorsement. Wayne County Executive Warren Evans also backed Waters shortly after Hollier’s disqualification, headlining a rally in Detroit for Waters, Senate candidate Hill Harper, and Flint-area congressional candidate Pamela Pugh. And it’s not just the local establishment backing Waters—the UAW is also supporting Waters over Thanedar.

Thanedar will need a lot more than the 28% of the vote that earned him the Democratic nomination in 2022—in fact, for the first time in Thanedar’s career, he should probably be aiming for a majority of the primary vote. It’s got his allies scared: a mysterious PAC called Blue Wave Action is even sending out mailers falsely claiming Waters opposes same-sex marriage and boosting Hawkins as a spoiler candidate. Thanedar has spent quite a lot of money himself—as usual, he’s self-funding most of his campaign, and he’s spent well over a million dollars in the home stretch of this primary, most of it out of his own wallet. He should be able to hang on, based on the combination of incumbency and money working in his favor, but he’s pissed off a lot of people in Detroit politics over the years, and that provides an opening for Waters.

HD-01 (Southwest Detroit and suburbs)

Tyrone Carter (i) vs. Jay Lovelady

Result (>95% in): Carter 82.8%, Lovelady 17.2% | Carter wins

Backbencher Tyrone Carter is being challenged by Jay Lovelady, a man who appears to be a Bernie-supporting progressive based on his social media, but has no campaign to speak of.

HD-03 (Dearborn)

Alabas Farhat (i) vs. Ziad Abdulmalik vs. Gus H. Tarraf

Result (>95% in): Farhat 49.4%, Abdulmalik 40.0%, Tarraf 10.7% | Farhat wins

State Rep. Alabas Farhat faces a pair of challengers, and he’s taking them very seriously, spending about $100,000 so far on his reelection campaign. Farhat has the backing of organized labor and Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, while Ziad Abdulmalik is running a campaign targeted at Dearborn’s large and politically active Arab-American community; Gus Tarraf is an ex-Republican with conservative politics. Abdulmalik is delinquent on his campaign finance reports, and Tarraf has raised an amount that might not seem inadequate had Farhat not unloaded six figures in campaign spending.

HD-05 (Northwest Detroit and Oak Park)

Regina Weiss (i) vs. Crystal Bailey vs. Kevin Keys III vs. Eric Love

Result (>95% in): Weiss 48.4%, Bailey 39.9%, Keys 5.9%, Love 5.8% | Weiss wins

Regina Weiss got a tougher district in 2022 as a result of the regular round of redistricting, which turned her suburban district into one of many Detroit-to-suburbs strip districts. She held on to her seat in 2022 with 62% of the primary vote. The latest round of VRA redistricting only compounded her problems, giving her a compact district based mostly in northwest Detroit and also including the Oakland County suburb of Oak Park. Now Weiss has to win reelection as a white suburbanite in an 84% Black district located mostly in Detroit proper, and some (but not all) of Detroit’s Black establishment is weighing in for one of Weiss’s challengers, former Oak Park Board of Education member Crystal Bailey. Weiss was able to carry Detroit in her 2022 primary, but she did so with a 41% plurality against challengers lacking money and noteworthy backers; Bailey has kept pace with Weiss’s spending, though Weiss has a lot more to spend in the final days, and Bailey, unlike Weiss’s 2022 opponents, has a realistic hope of keeping Weiss’s margins down in Oak Park, their shared home where Weiss was once a city councilor. Given the example of Richard Steenland in 2022, we’d almost call Weiss the underdog here. Kevin Keys III and Eric Love probably help Weiss by splitting the anti-Weiss vote, but neither should have a serious chance here.

HD-06 (Detroit suburbs - Oakland County)

Natalie Price (i) vs. Joseph Fisher

Result (>95% in): Price 90.1%, Fisher 9.9% | Price wins

Low-key progressive state Rep. Natalie Price doesn’t have much to worry about in her primary with eccentric local man Joseph Fisher, whose issues page is one for the books, even if having a joke about pineapple on pizza is very Reddit and dated at this point.

HD-07 (Central Detroit, Highland Park, Hamtramck)

Ernest Little vs. Tonya Myers Phillips vs. Abraham Shaw

Result (>95% in): Phillips 67.5%, Shaw 16.5%, Little 16.0% | Phillips wins

In a loss for progressives, state Rep. Abraham Aiyash is retiring early. However, Aiyash has a successor in mind, Tonya Myers Phillips, and Phillips appears to be a solid favorite to succeed Aiyash. Phillips, an attorney, is supported by Rashida Tlaib, the UAW, the Detroit Free Press, and much of the Detroit city council; she also has a wide lead in fundraising over her two opponents, realtor Ernest Little and auto repair technician Abraham Shaw. Phillips’s platform is on the vague side but leans progressive; her leading priority is expanding the social safety net, and she also wants greater funding for alternatives to incarceration.

HD-08 (Northwest Detroit and Ferndale)

Helena Scott (i) vs. Chris Gilmer-Hill

Result (>95% in): Scott 73.3%, Gilmer-Hill 26.7% | Scott wins

Helena Scott is in her second term in the state house, and hasn’t had an easy primary yet. Scott, a Black Detroit politician, was given a totally redrawn district in 2022, and her reelection in what was then the 7th state house was only by a 53%-40% margin against a white suburban progressive. This year, she has a stronger challenger: Chris Gilmer-Hill, a recent Harvard graduate and the electoral chair of Detroit DSA. Though he doesn’t have the DSA’s endorsement in this contest, Gilmer-Hill is running on a very progressive platform and relentlessly attacks Scott for her corporate ties.

While it won’t matter too much in the election, we can’t not mention that Gilmer-Hill may have literally drawn this district—his citizen proposal for a remedial district map after the court-ordered redistricting was substantially similar to the map that was actually passed. Some people have read a lot into his role, but it’s kind of unknowable if he actually worked with any redistricting commissioners or not.

HD-09 (Downtown Detroit)

Joseph Tate (i) vs. Ryan M. Nelson vs. Lory Renea Parks

Result (>95% in): Tate 74.9%, Parks 18.9%, Nelson 6.2% | Tate wins

State House Speaker Joe Tate faces a pair of underfunded challengers, small businessman Ryan M. Nelson and community organizer Lory Renea Parks. Tate should coast.

HD-10 (Eastern Detroit and Grosse Pointes)

Veronica Paiz (i) vs. Justin Counts

Result (>95% in): Paiz 76.3%, Counts 23.7% | Paiz wins

Sales executive Justin Counts hasn’t filed any campaign finance reports and doesn’t seem to have a website, so first-term state Rep. Veronica Paiz should have an easy time this year after a narrow, hard-fought victory as the apparent progressive choice in 2022.

HD-12 (Eastern Detroit, Eastpointe, and St. Clair Shores)

Kimberly L. Edwards (i) vs. Patrick Biange vs. Angela McIntosh

Result (>95% in): Edwards 68.3%, McIntosh 21.2%, Biange 10.6% | Edwards wins

Kimberly Edwards unseated state Rep. Richard Steenland in a massive upset in 2022, running up the score in Detroit and carrying her home of Eastpointe with less than $1,000 in campaign funds and no publicly available information about the candidate at the time of her primary victory. Steenland, a white man from the mostly white suburb of Roseville, didn’t appreciate that he might be vulnerable to a Black challenger in a district redrawn to be about ½ Black, and Edwards, a social worker, was able to catch him napping. Now Edwards is up for reelection in a redrawn district that traded Roseville for St. Clair Shores and a bit more of Detroit proper, and she’s in a commanding position to win a second term—this time, she’s the incumbent with a large financial advantage over a pair of little-known challengers, perennial candidate Patrick Biange and businesswoman Angela McIntosh.

HD-13 (Detroit suburbs - Macomb County)

Mai Xiong (i) vs. Patricia Johnson Singleton vs. Richard Steenland

Result (>95% in): Xiong 71.4%, Steenland 19.1%, Johnson Singleton 9.5% | Xiong wins

Macomb County Commissioner Mai Xiong won a special election to succeed Lori Stone as the representative for a different HD-13, after the latter was elected mayor of the suburban city of Warren. Before Xiong was even elected to fill out the remainder of Stone’s term, however, a court approved a redrawn map after finding in favor of plaintiffs who had argued that Michigan’s redistricting commission had violated the Voting Rights Act’s requirements for majority-minority districts in more than a dozen legislative districts in metro Detroit. HD-13 was one of the districts affected by the redraw, and it transformed dramatically. The old HD-13 had been a narrow north-south strip from the northeastern edge of Warren to a point several miles deep into the city of Detroit that had voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump by close to 30 points in 2020, but the new HD-13 is a compact wedge of suburban Macomb County that voted for Biden by less than 2 percentage points. The redraw didn’t just make Xiong a potential GOP target—it also earned her a primary challenge from former state Rep. Richard Steenland. (See our HD-12 item above.) While Steenland did carry the portion of his old district which was absorbed into Xiong’s in the 2024 redraw, getting caught off-guard like that doesn’t inspire confidence in Steenland’s ability to unseat an incumbent fresh off a special election victory who’s outraised him more than 10 to 1.

HD-14 (Detroit suburbs - Macomb and Oakland counties)

Mike McFall (i) vs. Jim Fouts

Result (>95% in): McFall 71.1%, Fouts 28.9% | McFall wins

Jim Fouts served four terms as mayor of Warren (even withstanding public outcry over his reported use of ableist and racist slurs) and was aiming for a fifth when a series of court decisions held that the city’s recently-tightened mayoral term limits barred him from seeking that fifth four-year term in 2023. Fouts, 81, wasn’t ready to retire from politics, and redistricting handed him a new opportunity this year, when state Rep. Mike McFall’s 8th district was redrawn, trading its segment of Detroit for much of Warren and the enclave of Center Line and being renumbered as the 14th district. Fouts has been largely self-funding his campaign and has outspent McFall, but the Michigan Democratic establishment and organized labor, including the UAW, have stuck with McFall, a loyal and low-key member of the Democratic state House majority. And subjectively, candidates who spend their time arguing over yard signs tend to lose.

HD-16 (Northwest Detroit and suburbs)

Stephanie Young (i) vs. Keith Windham

Result (>95% in): Young 90.7%, Windham 9.3% | Young wins

Stephanie Young is a low-profile legislator who chairs the state House’s Committee on Families, Children and Seniors. She should easily dispatch phantom candidate Keith Windham.

HD-25 (Detroit suburbs - Wayne County)

Peter Herzberg (i) vs. Melandie Hines vs. Salif Kourouma vs. Lekisha Maxwell vs. Layla Taha

Result (>95% in): Herzberg 53.5%, Taha 31.6%, Maxwell 8.1%, Hines 5.9%, Kourouma 0.8% | Herzberg wins

Peter Herzberg won this seat in a special election earlier this year, defeating a crowded field that included former Westland School Board member Melandie Hines and Detroit DSA-endorsed Rashida Tlaib staffer Layla Taha, among others. Hines, who placed a distant fourth with 8%, and Taha, who managed a respectable third with 22%, are back for another try, but after losing the special, this is now an uphill battle to defeat Herzberg, a more moderate Democrat who was favored by much of the local establishment in that special election. Taha has emerged as Herzberg’s main challenger for the full term, but the incumbent has outspent Taha by a significant margin (though Taha has spent a good chunk of change on her own campaign.) Taha is still backed by Detroit DSA and her boss Rashida Tlaib, but that wasn’t enough to secure a plurality in a crowded field with no incumbent, and it’s hard to see that being enough to retire an incumbent who now has unified establishment support.

HD-26 (Detroit suburbs - Wayne County)

Dylan Wegela (i) vs. DeArtriss Coleman-Richardson

Result (>95% in): Wegela 73.8%, Coleman-Richardson 26.2% | Wegela wins

Dylan Wegela was first elected by a plurality victory last cycle, and has spent his time in office as the lone dissenting vote from the Democratic strategy of mixing corporate giveaways into their bills to peep off Republican votes. While in many legislative chambers that would be a symbolic protest, in Michigan's one-vote Democratic majority it's a serious attempt to kill bills he doesn't think should become law. Given that he can't not be pissing off state leadership, you’d think that there’d be a serious attempt to unseat the thorn-in-the-side DSA member after courts redrew his district. But Inkster City Councilmenber DeArtriss Coleman-Richardson has had to do without any outside support, as well as any money, at all.

HD-33 (Ann Arbor and suburbs)

Morgan Foreman vs. Rima Mohammad

Result (>95% in): Foreman 66.9%, Mohammad 33.1% | Foreman wins

State Rep. Felicia Brabec is retiring and backing her constituent services director, Morgan Foreman, to succeed her. Foreman has a lot of advantages, including the backing of most of the local establishment and the UAW, but she’s been outraised and outspent by Ann Arbor Board of Education member Rima Mohammad, who is backed by prominent Michigan progressives like Rashida Tlaib, Dylan Wegela, and Abdul El-Sayed. Nothing in Foreman’s platform is objectionable—we like her mention of building decarbonization and her focus on consumer protection—but Mohammad goes further on most issues, calling for an assault weapons ban, universal pre-K, stronger tenant protections, and lifting the state’s ban on rent control, among other noteworthy stances. If Wegela and Tlaib are both backing her, we think it’s safe to assume Mohammad would back up that rhetoric in her voting record, further empowering progressives in the event that Democrats keep their majority.

HD-40 (Kalamazoo suburbs)

Lisa Brayton vs. Matt Longjohn

Result (>95% in): Longjohn 70.4%, Brayton 29.6% | Longjohn wins

Lisa Brayton and Matt Longjohn are both best known for previous failed runs for office. Longjohn was the Democratic nominee for southwestern Michigan’s 6th congressional district in 2018, raising good money and holding moderate GOP Rep. Fred Upton to a much closer than usual 4.5-point victory. Brayton was a candidate for mayor of the Kalamazoo suburb of Portage last year, but her mayoral bid was derailed when it turned out she had falsified an affidavit certifying her residency, and therefore her eligibility to run for mayor, by listing a since-demolished home as her current residence. Brayton ended up resigning and pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge over the falsified affidavit, and she’s struggled to bring in campaign funds and endorsements; the local establishment clearly prefers Longjohn, a physician and healthcare executive who acquitted himself well in his 2018 congressional run.

HD-70 (Flint)

Cynthia Neeley (i) vs. Michael Clack

Result (>95% in): Neeley 60.8%, Clack 39.2% | Neeley wins

Cynthia Neeley took over for her husband Sheldon in 2020 after he was elected mayor of Flint in 2019. Since then, she’s been a low-profile legislator, though she has risen to chair the state House’s Tax Policy committee. Neeley and her opponent, Flint Board of Education Vice President Michael Clack, both want to bring more state money to Flint and attract more major employers to the city. Neeley has raised and spent a reasonable amount on her reelection campaign, while Clack, who previously ran unsuccessfully against Neeley in the 2020 special primary, is delinquent on his campaign finance reports.

HD-77 (Lansing and suburbs)

Emily Dievendorf (i) vs. Angela Mathews

Result (>95% in): Dievendorf 66.3%, Mathews 33.7% | Dievendorf wins

LGBT rights activist and bookstore owner Emily Dievendorf didn’t even want to run for office in 2022—but, spurred on by other activists unhappy with their options, they did, and they won the Democratic primary for a seat representing the northern half of the state capital and some surrounding suburbs by just 26 votes. Now seeking their second term, Dievendorf faces a somewhat easier path than in their last election, when business groups backed a self-funding local businessman. This time, Dievendorf’s only opponent is Lansing Community College Trustee Angie Mathews, who currently chairs the community college’s board of trustees; Mathews has failed to file campaign finance reports in this race and has faced legal scrutiny for deficient campaign finance filings before. Mathews is an elected official, not a nobody, but Dievendorf has establishment and labor backing plus the power of incumbency, and Mathews’s campaign isn’t showing the signs of life normally associated with a competitive primary.

HD-84 (Grand Rapids and suburbs)

Carol Glanville (i) vs. Justin Rackham

Result (>95% in): Glanville 93.5%, Rackham 6.5% | Glanville wins

Carol Glanville flipped a solidly Republican state House seat in a 2022 special election after the Republican nominee said rape victims should “lie back and enjoy it” and shared social media posts calling feminism a “Jewish program to degrade and subjugate white men.” She then got very lucky with that year’s redistricting, as her suburban West Michigan district absorbed the northwestern quarter of Grand Rapids and went from solidly Republican to leaning Democratic. The Grand Rapids area was unaffected by the 2024 Voting Rights Act redraw, and so Glanville is favored for another two years in the state House; all she has to do is make it past phantom candidate Justin Rackham in the Democratic primary.

Wayne County Sheriff

Raphael Washington (i) vs. Joan Merriewether

Result (>95% in): Washington 64.5%, Merrieweather 35.5% | Washington wins

Raphael Washington, appointed to the sheriff office after the previous sheriff died of COVID, managed to avoid drawing any strong challengers, a state of affairs that likely only happened because the four sexual harassment lawsuits against him dropped after the filing deadline. Washington prevailed by a 48% to 28% margin against retired deputy Joan Merriewether, who is now running again. Washington, who is now clearly selling reserve deputy positions in the department, doesn’t deserve another term, but we don’t know what Merriewether is doing differently from last cycle that could put her over the top.

Steve Cohen (i) vs. Kasandra Smith vs. Corey Strong vs. M. LaTroy Williams

Steve Cohen gets challengers every year, but none of them could really be described as “of note” since 2014. This year he faces three retreads: Memphis cop Kasandra Smith (2018), former Shelby County Democratic Chair Corey Strong (2022), and perennial candidate M. LaTroy Williams (2016/2024) have all lost badly to Cohen before. The results here will mostly be useful to see whether Cohen’s vote share is declining as he ages.

SD-30 (Memphis and suburbs)

Sara Kyle (i) vs. Erika Stotts Pearson

Sara Kyle, a two term state senator, more or less inherited the office from her husband after he resigned mid-term and the party nominated her to replace him in 2014. In that last decade she’s done a serviceable job in the office, but Tennessee has only five or six Democratic districts, and that means each senator has to really count. Erika Stotts Pearson, who runs a healthcare services company and has run for Congress twice before, could potentially be a more engaged senator, but it’s hard to say. She’s running on a boilerplate Democratic platform and doesn’t appear to have any grassroots or activist backing. The stakes of this election feel like a giant shrug.

HD-15 (Knoxville)

Sam McKenzie (i) vs. Dasha Lundy

Pro-school voucher PACS have spent over $50,000 to elect Dasha Lundy - $10,000 in direct contributions and $42,000 in independent expenditures - the only Democratic recipient of that money in the state. It doesn’t sound like they have some special bone to pick with incumbent physicist Sam McKenzie, which means they must really, really like physical therapist and Knox County Commissioner Dasha Lundy. Lundy, though she claims she supports “education equity”, plainly doesn’t. She’s publicly only “open” to expanding school vouchers in the state, but you don’t get $50,000 for fence-sitting; it’s obvious what she’s been telling people in private. This year, Tennessee nearly gutted their public education system in favor of a $145 million voucher system, but legislative gridlock prevented it from passing in the time constraints of the legislative term. Private school advocates were pushing for a much more ambitious $800 million program, and might get it next year, which is why they’re trying to buy as many allies as possible in the legislature, and installing a Democrat would be a huge win for them.

HD-28 (Chattanooga)

Yusuf Hakeem (i) vs. Demetrus Coonrod

Chattanooga City Councilmember Demetrus Coonrod is challenging incumbent Yusuf Hakeem, claiming to be a more vocal and proactive progressive, willing to fight the Republican supermajority in the legislature instead of just rolling over. If there’s anyone up to the job of defeating Yusuf Hakeem, it’s her - Coonrod entered the council after unseating Hakeem, then an incumbent, in 2016. We have to admit the image of Coonrod chasing Hakeem around from office to office, waiting until he’s elected to something new so she can take it from him, is pretty funny. 

We’re just not sure if we actually want her to succeed, given that Hakeem is already the vocal progressive Coonrod claims she would be. Justin Pearson, known nationally as part of the Tennessee Three - Democrats expelled from the state house for taking part in a gun control protest, is campaigning for Hakeem, citing how he took the lonely position of standing up for UAW during their failed unionization drive. Coonrod’s big issue in this race appears to be reparations, which is a good cause, just clearly something that’s not going to happen in the ultra-Republican state house. And then there’s the fact she’s currently being investigated by the FBI. Though so far all the information released about the investigation is that an anonymous email alleged falsified records at the nonprofit she runs, the FBI taking an interest in the case clouds the entire election.

HD-56 (Nashville)

Bob Freeman (i) vs. Nick Forster-Benson

Bob Freeman narrowly flipped a southern Nashville state house district blue in 2018, and won by a wider 8% margin in 2020. In an attempt to win it back, the Republicans gerrymandering the state split his district in half, and put him in the much more Democratic half. Freeman's new district is much more urban, and includes Vanderbilt University. The former swing district moderate didn’t face a primary in 2022, but he will this year, thanks to Nick Forester-Benson, a senior at Vanderbilt. School may not be in session, but university neighborhoods are hotbeds of progressive activism regardless. The 22 year-old is endorsed by Middle TN DSA, and has run his entire campaign on a budget of about $1,500. He’s the underdog against monied and establishment-back Freeman, but Nashville has shown a willingness to vote more progressively recently, as neighboring district Reps. Aftyn Behn and Justin Jones show.

HD-60 (Nashville)

Tyler Brasher vs. Shaundelle Brooks

This district only voted for Joe Biden by a 9% margin in the 2020 election, a bit below what we traditionally call a safely Democratic district. But it’s zooming left and Republicans don’t appear to be bringing their A game to this one, so we’re including it. Mostly that’s because Shaundelle Brooks is running. Brooks, a gun control activist supported by the Tennessee Three who sounds very much in line with their vocal, confrontational line of politics in the face of Republican extremism. Her opponent, accountant and Chamber of Commerce member Tyler Brasher, is the more passive type of Democrat that some in the party think is their path to expanding the majority. He nominally says he doesn’t have any disagreements with Brooks, but also wants to avoid “the big cultural issues”, which is a bigger tell than anything else. The race has turned into an internal party battle, with Black politicians largely supporting Brooks, who is Black, while the white establishment is (unofficially) backing Brasher, who is white.

Navy veteran John Parrish will also be on the ballot, but has unofficially withdrawn from the race.

HD-80 (rural West Tennessee)

Johnny Shaw (i) vs. Shelia Godwin vs. Jonathan Joy

Johnny Shaw is unambiguously the most conservative Democrat in the legislature now that all the rural white Demosaur politicians have finally washed out. His record of voting for Republican priorities includes everything from anti-trans bills to anti-immigrant bills, to pro-charter school bills, and some Democrats have finally had enough. His opponents are Bolivar (pop. 5,000) City Councilmember Jonathan Joy, twice indicted but never convicted for overbilling done by his HVAC installation company; and Madison County Commissioner Shelia Godwin, who previously attempted to run for Congress as an independent. Unfortunately, in addition to weak opponents, there are two of them, and Tennessee doesn’t have runoffs. A poor showing from Shaw could still convince another, stronger candidate to enter in 2026, or for him to just retire. And, honestly, one of them could even win - low turnout, retail politics elections like this can be hard to predict.

HD-84 (Memphis)

Joe Towns Jr. (i) vs. Vernell Williams

We can’t find any trace of Vernell Williams online, and he’s raised literally no money. It looks like Joe Towns will enter his fourth decade in the house essentially unimpeded.

HD-86 (Memphis)

Justin Pearson (i) vs. David Page

As mentioned above, Justin Pearson is now one of the most prominent Democrats in Tennessee after Republicans in the House expelled him and two colleagues for attending a protest in support of gun control. He won the special election to replace himself, and is now facing for reelection only David Page, a man running on an anti-crime message who Pearson defeated 95% - 5% in the aforementioned special election to succeed himself. 

HD-93 (Memphis)

G.A. Hardaway (i) vs. Lashanta Rudd 

Longtime lawmaker G.A. Hardaway is being challenged by political campaign staffer Lashanta Rudd. Rudd has raised no money and has no website, but her Facebook indicates she’s been campaigning with enough money for yard signs (hmmm…), and that she’s a supporter of TN-09 candidate M. LaTroy Williams. That association puts her on the fringes of Memphis politics, but for the life of us we can’t figure out if she’d actually govern any differently from Hardaway, who is very much an average legislator.

HD-96 (Memphis)

Eric Dunn vs. Telisa Franklin vs. Gabby Salinas vs. Orrden Williams Jr. vs. David Winston 

This rare open seat in Memphis has turned into a legitimate four-way contest (party-agnostic perennial candidate Orrden Williams can be safely ignored) that may end up with a socialist in office. Gabby Salinas won primaries for SD-31 in 2018 and HD-97 in 2020 with the help of Memphis-MidSouth DSA, but lost both general elections by margins of 1%. Redistricted into HD-96, she’s now running for office for a third time, and has the support of retiring incumbent Dwayne Thompson, as well as a fundraising advantage. She would, incredibly, be the first Hispanic member of the legislature, as well as the first out LGBTQ woman. One potential obstacle on her path to victory is that this is a majority Black district, and she’s the only non-Black candidate.

Also running are Eric Dunn, a janitorial services company owner who has very successfully run for Memphis Council and Shelby County Commission before; motivational speaker and voiceover actor Telisa Franklin, who is primarily self-funding her campaign but has caught the attention of some Memphis progressives with her equity-focused campaign; and “Influencer in Cinema and Culture Education” David Winston, who doesn’t seem likely to win, but is at least seriously campaigning and could lower the threshold for victory even further.

-Opinion Haver

FEC Week

AZ-03: Aided by cryptocurrency money, Yassamin Ansari is enjoying the fruits of previous strong fundraising quarters, and overwhelming progressive pick Raquel Terán in the home stretch.

CA-12: We were wondering whether wealthy Bay Area donors were going to throw money at whoever was running against Lateefah Simon in a moonshot to prevent her election, and now we have our answer: no.

CA-16: How did Silicon Valley darling Evan Low manage to let himself get out-raised by former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo to the tune of a full million? Maybe because the legislature was in session for nearly the full quarter, and maybe because he expects cryptocurrency money to swoop in and save him.

CA-34: We kind of say the same thing about this election every quarter: David Kim’s a ground game-only candidate, never raises any money, etc. But he pulled in almost $100,000 this quarter. That’s still not great, but it’s a lot better than anything he raised the last two cycles.

DE-Sen: This is all kind of academic now that filing’s closed and all her opponents are total nobodies, but that’s still a lot of money.

DE-AL: See above.

MI-13: We really, really, hope the Detroit establishment slowly lining up behind Mary Waters counts for some votes, because she sure doesn't have the money to campaign any other way.

MN-05: Don Samuels is on track to spend almost exactly the same $1.4 million on this election as he did on the last, just without the outside spending on his behalf. Ilhan Omar has more than doubled her spending, from $2 million, to $4.5 million as of the second quarter FEC filing. The result has been moving from spending parity in 2022 to Omar spending nearly three times as much as Samuels this year. 

MO-01: Cori Bush has managed to start raising heavily, and is even able to keep up her spending pace at roughly the same as Wesley Bell’s, with both of them dropping just over $1 million in the final quarter. What we don’t like is the look of those cash-on-hand figures. Bell has been buying himself a truly massive ad blitz with that in the closing 5 weeks of the campaign, whereas Bush practically needs to fundraise in real time to pay her bills.

WA-06: Hilary Franz *feels* like the favorite here, coming from a statewide office raising more money than her opposition. But state Sen. Emily Randall isn’t actually raising that much less, and Randall’s the one with support from labor, county parties, and Patty Murray. 

WA-08: This district is on the edge of what we talk about. It’s only Biden+7. But it’s comprised of suburbs that are moving left, the Republican candidate is a joke with $4,000 on hand, and we couldn’t entirely ignore the amazing quarter from state CAIR director Imraan Siddiqi, who is running against incumbent Kim Schrier’s support of Israel’s continued assault on Gaza. $335,000 isn’t quite enough to fund a full campaign on, but, if spent properly, is enough to get his name out to a substantial portion of the electorate.

Outside $ Tracker

AZ-03

• $1.4M in ads (presumably TV) for Yassamin Ansari from crypto group Protect Progress, which is functionally a front for Fairshake, the PAC funded by, and essentially acting as an arm of, Coinbase, one of the largest crypto companies. Hey look, here’s a letter Ansari signed calling for the government to replace the SEC chair with someone friendlier to crypto. What a coincidence!

• $400K in TV ads attacking Raquel Terán and supporting Yassamin Ansari from Mainstream Democrats PAC. Mainstream Democrats PAC is run by billionaire tech mogul Reid Hoffman, currently attempting to remove antitrust champion Lina Khan from the FTC. They played in a few primaries in 2022 but were overshadowed by DMFI and AIPAC. Most of the money comes from Hoffman and oil billionaire Stacy H. Schusterman.

• $130K in TV ads, $35K in digital ads, $3K in texts, and $1K in mailers for Raquel Terán from the Working Families Party.

• $63K in mailers in two batches for Raquel Terán from the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC.

• $30K of digital ads opposing Yassamin Ansari from Nuestro PAC. Nuestro PAC is run by Chuck Rocha, a Bernie Sanders 2020 alum, though its candidate choices have been more mercenary than ideological. The ad highlights that donors to Donald Trump and Kari Lake have also contributed to Ansari.

MO-01

• $1.4M in ads attacking Cori Bush from crypto industry PAC Fairshake.

• $200K in aggregated TV and digital ads and $41K in mailers for Cori Bush from the Working Families Party.

• $124K in mailers in two batches and $75K in TV ads supporting Wesley Bell, as well as $61K in mailers attacking Cori Bush and supporting Bell, from Mainstream Democrats PAC. 

• $100K in TV ads for Cori Bush from Emgage Federal Action. 

• $85K in mailers in two batches supporting Cori Bush from the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC.

• $57K of mailers in two batches supporting Cori Bush from Medicare for All PAC, which is run by Pramila Jayapal.

MI-13

• $1.4M in TV ads and $159K of mailers attacking Mary Waters and promoting Shakira Hawkins from Blue Wave Action. The ads primarily exist to attack Waters and secondarily to prop up a seemingly random other candidate on the ballot in a transparent attempt to split the anti-Thanedar vote. The funders of the group are a mystery, but they clearly want Thanedar reelected. It could even conceivably be Thanedar himself.

• $1.0M in ads (presumably TV) for Shri Thanedar from Protect Progress (see AZ-03 for more).

MN-05

• $63K in paid canvassing for Ilhan Omar from Take Action MN.

WA-06

• $1.5M in ads (presumably TV) for Emily Randall from Protect Progress (see AZ-03 for more). Randall is also a signatory on that letter.

• $421K of mailers in five rounds, and $27K of texting for Emily Randall from Equality PAC.

• $30K in “advertising” supporting Hilary Franz from Tomorrow’s Jobs PAC. The PAC was created early this year to funnel about $30K in medical industry funds to support Jeremy Gray in AL-02. They’ve been basically dormant (and out of money) since then, so we don’t really know who’s funding this. 

  ---

MO-01

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch endorsed Wesley Bell this week. It’s a largely expected endorsement coming from the moderate-leaning Post-Dispatch, which has always endorsed against Cori Bush, aside from 2022, when her opponent was credibly accused rapist Steven Roberts. The Post-Dispatch sat that one out. Unlike the fiery NY-16 primary, the MO-01 contest, which is next week, has been almost bereft of surprise. Progressives lined up on one side with Bush, white moderates and AIPAC money lined up with Bell, and both campaigns since then have been diligently on-message.

DMFI released a final poll from its president’s personal polling form showing Bush down 48% - 42% to Bell, a slight expansion of the 43% - 42% lead they had Bell at last month. The lack of independent polling in this race is frustrating, but we do know where Bell and his allies see the race - Bell in the driver’s seat but not quite pulling away. 

DE-Gov

Delaware has spent most of the year suffering through a polling drought, but there are finally some publicly released toplines to look at. Citizens for a New Delaware Way, a PAC set up to oppose LG Bethany Hall-Long in early July, released a poll from Slingshot Strategies showing Hall-Long tied with New Castle County Exec. Matt Meyer at 27% apiece, with former Delaware Department of Natural Resources head Collin O'Mara at 7%. The Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association, which is supporting Hall-Long, then released, potentially in response, a poll fielded by Public Policy Polling showing Hall-Long ahead 31% to Meyer’s 19% and O’Mara’s 9%.

Hall-Long is tied or leading in the polls, and has just been officially endorsed by the state party, which makes her the nominal favorite in this contest. However, as of this week, her campaign is officially in trouble. The state Department of Elections, after an extended forensic audit of her campaign’s records, concluded that, after beginning her campaign with a personal loan to the campaign, she “repaid” herself and her husband $30,000 more than the initial loan, despite publicly claiming that the campaign still owed her about $100,000. All in all, nearly $300,000 of campaign payments have been omitted from records filed to the state. Despite that being a crime under Delaware Law, State Elections Commissioner Anthony Albence—appointed by Gov. John Carney, who is Hall-Long’s most notable supporter—is choosing not to recommend Hall-Long for prosecution, or even a simple fine.

MN-05

Rep. Ilhan Omar released an internal poll from Lake Research Partners, showing her leading former Minneapolis City Councilmember Don Samuels 60%-33%. The Samuels campaign responded by pointing out that Omar put out a poll showing her leading Samuels 60%-21% before winning by a narrow 50%-48%. That poll, from Change Research, was one of the biggest whiffs of the cycle, and is perhaps a reason why Omar switched pollsters, but that poll was in the field in late May/early June, more than two months before the election, and before Samuels had begun advertising. This poll was in the field July 17-21, after three weeks of early voting have already happened. 

The Omar campaign by all accounts was caught off-guard in 2022, basically assuming Samuels was a protest candidate until way later than they should have, and responded by organizing a field and mail operation, but opting out of TV advertising, as well as any substantial negative campaigning against Samuels. This time around, they took the threat seriously from the beginning. They're currently airing their third TV ad, and the way Samiels’s sexist comments earlier in the summer received heavy media attention suggests the Omar campaign was actually ready to pounce on his mistakes this time around.

Put another way, the 2022 poll was a statement that they didn't need to do the work to stop Samuels, and the 2024 poll was a reassurance that they have been doing the work. Though both polls found Omar leading with 60% of the vote, her favorability is strikingly different: in 2022, Lake Research found her favorability among primary voters a healthy if not spectacular 65%, with 33% holding unfavorable opinions. In the Change poll, the figures were 70% to 24%. While that’s somewhat better than the Lake poll, it’s substantially better than her numbers were in another, until-now unreleased May poll that had her favorability at 61% - 34%. Either the 2022 election took a major toll on the impression voters had of Omar, or the Change poll was simply bad.

TX-18

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee passed away on July 19. Though a cause of death has not been released by her family, the 74 year-old political veteran was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer only last month. Lee won renomination to Congress in March, meaning that the Harris County Democratic Party will need to hold a vote of precinct chairs to pick her replacement for the general election ballot. AS of now, it remains unclear when (or whether) a special election for the remainder of her term will be held, but, as it would have to happen after the selection of a new nominee, the new nominee would be overwhelmingly likely to win it as well. Houston is home to a million ambitious politicians, but no meaningful primary will be held in TX-18 until the regularly scheduled on in March of 2026.

LA-06

Louisiana political journalist Jeremy Alford reports that the Congressional Black Caucus is slowly coalescing around former Rep. Cleo Fields in the race for LA-06. The news isn’t shocking given how deeply the CBC reveres experience, but Fields served one term three decades ago—he’s hardly a creature of DC serving temporary exile in Louisiana.

Albany County DA

Incumbent DA David Soares, recently ousted by reformist challenger Lee Kindlon by a solid 55%-45% margin, isn’t giving up. The anti-bail reform, pro-child imprisonment prosecutor is now launching a write-in campaign in the general election. Undoubtedly inspired by Byron Brown’s victory as a softly GOP-aligned write-in candidate in Buffalo after losing his primary in 2021, and Allegheny County DA Stephen Zappala, who lost the Democratic Primary for renomination in 2023, switched parties, accepted the GOP nomination, and narrowly won in the general election that year. Given that there is already a Republican candidate in the race (Ralph Ambrosio), Soares has a tough climb ahead of him, but his goal might not be to win, just to drag Kindlon down.

Arizona Primary Preview

AZ-03 (West Phoenix)

Yassamin Ansari vs. Raquel Terán vs. Duane Wooten

For months, the speculation over this race was about AIPAC. The money hose they turned on other districts altered election after election in 2022, and for a while they seemed poised to jump in here too. Confusingly, the usual pattern was reversed: AIPAC seemed to be interested in Phoenix City Councilmember Yassamin Ansari, generally regarded as a progressive, in order to stop Raquel Terán, a woman so establishment she has served as both the Arizona Democratic Party Chair and Senate Minority Leader. The distinction was clearly about Israel, but both candidates only seemed to breach the issue behind closed doors in meetings and questionnaires the public never got to see. It turned out to all be meaningless anyway: it turns out this election isn’t about Israel after all; it’s about cryptocurrency.

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Okay, fine, that’s us being glib, but the truth is that AIPAC wound up staying out of the race (at least officially), and a last minute seven figure ad buy for Ansari happened anyway, courtesy of the Protect Progress Super PAC, which is derives its funding from all the biggest worst names in cyrpto, chief among them Ripple and Coinbase, which has been open about pumping tens of millions into political contests to secure a more favorable regulatory environment for the Sam Bankman-Frieds of the world, a goal Ansari has officially signed onto. We’ve said this a few times, but we hope she’s merely bought and paid for, because arriving at that conclusion sincerely would somehow be worse.

That’s enough negativity about scam business shill Yassamin Ansari. We don’t want to give the impression we’re interested in this election merely out of desire to stop her when Raquel Terán is legitimately exciting. Terán was an organizer for People First Future who cut her teeth fighting anti-immigrant legislation before winning an election to state legislature in 2018 and party chair in 2021. During her tenure running the AZ Dems, the party censured Kyrsten Sinema (before Sinema bailed on the party entirely). Terán was endorsed by Bernie Sanders in 2020, an endorsement he renewed this week. She’s laid out in her campaign a detailed policy platform that includes the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and national rent control. Progressives around the state, who have had years to get to know her, are excited by her candidacy, and she’s turned national progressives, such as the Working Families Party and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, into believers as well. 

Now she just has to actually win the damn thing, a challenging prospect after Ansari outraised her $1.8 million to $1.2 million and benefitted from much more in outside spending: the aforementioned $1.4 million from Protect Progress, and another $400,000 from tech billionaire Reid Hoffman’s Mainstream Democrats PAC far outstrip the spending from progressives. Terán has her grassroots supporters, as well as organized labor (mostly - building trades endorsed the moderate, again). We shall see if it’s enough.

Pediatrician Duane Wooten is also in the race and will have a minimal impact.

SD-22 (Southwest Phoenix and suburbs)

Eva Diaz (i) vs. Leezah Sun

In 2022, the Democratic nominee and only candidate running for safely Democratic SD-22 dropped out of the race. Democrats needed to unite behind a write-in candidate, and chose teacher Eva Diaz, who won easily, and has since made little news in the Senate. That stands in contrast to her opponent, Leezah Sun, who was elected to the state house in 2022 but resigned halfway through her term in order to head off what was going to be a near-unanimous expulsion vote. As AZMirror summarized, Sun had “used her position to influence the outcome of a child custody arrangement, intimidated a school superintendent and threatened to kill a Tolleson city lobbyist by throwing her off of a balcony”. Sun’s Senate campaign has consisted of he refusing to talk to the press, and stealing Diaz’s lit.

SD-24 (Phoenix suburb of Glendale)

Mario Garcia vs. Analise Ortiz

State Rep. Analise Ortiz, a former reporter and ACLU state campaign director, is looking to move into an open state senate district, and we support her ambitions. Her voting record is progressive, her background is extremely promising, and her opponent is a business owner who really seems to like wingnut GOP politician Kari Lake. Much like SD-24, just about everyone is supporting Ortiz, while Garcia is going it alone.

HD-05 [Top 2] (North Phoenix)

Sarah Liguori (i) vs. Charles Lucking (i) vs. Aaron Marquez vs. Dorri Thyden

Arizona may be known for its high rate of legislative turnover, but both of the representatives for the 5th district resigning within a few days of each other last year was just goofy. The result is a pair of appointees - financial advisor Sarah Liguori and attorney Charles Lucking - facing off against a pair of old political hands - ex-Ruben Gallego staffer Aaron Márquez and campaign consultant Dorri Thyden. Thyden is so proud of the time she led a successful neighborhood crusade to shutter a drug detox facility that she highlights it on her website before any of the political campaign she’s worked on, and Marquez gives off alarmingly centrist vibes, perhaps because he runs a political group with predatory hedge fund manager/centrist former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. It looks like Lucking and Liguori, who have proven themselves to be normal Democrats, are the right picks here. The Arizona political establishment, aside from a handful of old party apparatchiks who seem to personally know Thyden, agree.

HD-06 [Top 2] (Rural northeast)

Mae Peshlakai (i) vs. Myron Tsosie (i) vs. Angela Maloney

This district covers the state’s extensive Navajo, Hopi, and Apache Indian Reservations, and as such, the politics of its elections tends to be far more local than other districts. None of the candidates are raising any money, and this is the one election the AFL-CIO is totally punting on. We just don’t know what the contours of this election are.

HD-08 [Top 2] (Tempe)

Janeen Connolly vs. Brian Garcia vs. Juan Mendez

Like HD-05, both of the incumbents in HD-08 are appointees. Unlike that district, both candidates have opted against running for full terms, resulting in a race where three candidates vie for two open spots. In theory. In reality, state Sen. Juan Mendez is probably getting one of them. We welcome Mendez, who is termed out of the upper chamber, to his new office. Mendez is one of the few open atheists in government, a staunch progressive, and always willing to lend a hand to other progressive causes or politicians. One of those other politicians is attorney Brian Garcia, currently running for the other seat. Garcia and Mendez are running as the Clean Elections Team, promising to reject fossil fuel money, support public education funding, end cash bail, and propose Medicaid buy-in legislation, among other promises. The Working Families Party and most of organized labor is behind this slate, which, though she’s less involved in the campaign itself, does include the state senator for the district, Lauren Kuby.

The odd candidate out in all this is Janeen Connolly, retired lobbyist (okay, technically not a registered lobbyist as she repeatedly stresses, but that’s what a “government relations” position means) for electric cooperative Salt River Project. Connolly is a self-funder who has given no indication she’d be a terrible legislator, but is clearly not going to be the progressive champion that the Mendez/Garcia team is promising to be.

HD-11 [Top 2] (South Phoenix)

Junelle Cavero (i) vs. Oscar De Los Santos (i) vs. Izaak Ruiz

Political consultant Junelle Cavero is an appointed incumbent who managed, the last time she ran for something, to lose to party pariah Catherine Miranda. On paper she could be in trouble here, but her only opponent (aside from incumbent Oscar De Los Santos who is definitely getting reelected) is recent Catholic University of America grad Izaak Ruiz, who hasn’t raised any money or put together a website.

HD-21 [Top 2] (Tucson and Mexican border)

Consuelo Hernandez (i) vs. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton (i) vs. Briana Ortega 

Last cycle, Consuelo Hernandez easily secured for herself one of the primary spots with 43% of the vote, while the other was decided by a tight 30%  - 27% margin in favor of Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, a state representative who was finishing up serving a partial appointed term in the state senate. HD-21 is a majority Hispanic district that combines part of Tucson with the border towns of Nogales and Bisbee, but Stahl Hamilton, who is not Hispanic and represented a white majority district in another part of Tucson, was able to win anyway. It’s an electorally tenuous position, and for reasons we’re not privy to, wasn’t something she managed to patch over. Hernandez is taking the unusual step of endorsing against her seatmate, and is supporting Briana Ortega, a lawyer running a largely self-funded campaign. 

This is, to be clear, a bad thing. Consuelo is one of the conservative Hernandez siblings, and much like her sister Alma and brother Daniel, have an unbroken perfect record of taking the wrong side on every party issue and primary. Stahl Hamilton has retained support from organized labor and progressive groups in Tucson, but this is a very real threat to her, and to normal liberal Democrats being able to pass legislation if they ever get a majority. 

HD-22 [Top 2] (Southwest Phoenix and suburbs)

Lupe Contreras (i) vs. Elda Luna-Nájera (i) vs. Betsy Munoz vs. Jen Wynne

HD-22 has two incumbents, but only one of them was elected. Lupe Contreras, a former state senator, placed first in the 2022 primary, and is a strong favorite for reelection. Contreras is a standard-issue Arizona Democrat, and was the Minority Leader during his last term in the Senate; we have totally neutral opinions about him getting another term. We can say much the same about our opinion of social worker and school board member Elda Luna-Nájera, appointed this year, who seems totally fine? She hasn’t been governing for long, and the political establishment seems to have coalesced around her, so she’s probably a reliable vote, at least. Betsy Munoz is a bit riskier. Running a low-budget, grassroots campaign and talking less about policies than how she doesn’t take corporate money, Munoz managed to secure the AFL-CIO endorsement, in lieu of Contreras, which we assume has to be payback for something he did in the senate. She’s also endorsed by the Abeytia/Jaramillo team, which is a good indication that progressives in the state like her.

Jen Wynne is a total ghost candidate with no website, social media presence, or even willingness to respond to basic media inquiries. 

HD-24 [Top 2] (Phoenix suburb of Glendale)

Lydia Hernandez (i) vs. Anna Abeytia vs. Hector Jaramillo

The rule of thumb in contests like these, with only one incumbent running, is that it’s all a contest for the other slot, because they have their renomination locked up. However, Lydia Hernandez, the final remaining anti-choice Democrat in the legislature, is on the worst possible terms with the rest of the party, and only narrowly squeaked back into the house amidst a split field in 2022. Her two challengers have taken the unusual step of cross endorsing and campaigning together - practically running as a slate - in an attempt to make the election a referendum on her. Cartwright school board president Anna Abeytia and immigration attorney Hector Jaramillo both ran in 2022, and were defeated by Hernandez, who took 21% to their 19% and 9%, respectively. However, most voters in that election made progressive Analise Ortiz at lease one of their choices, and a fourth non-Hernandez candidate took another 9% of the vote. In one respect, voters who didn’t want Hernandez agreed on one candidate to back, but split their votes four ways for the other choice, though voter behavior is rarely actually that clean.

The Abeytia/Jaramillo campaign has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO and Reproductive Freedom For All, providing them with a base to organize from. Jaramillo has also received much more attention than he did in 2022, securing endorsements both from mainstream party sources like Raquel Teran, Phoenix DSA, and both the current and previous state senator for the district.  No matter what, one of these two will be elected to the legislature, but  going two for two would majorly clean up the caucus.

Pima County DA

Laura Conover (i) vs. Mike Jette

In 2020, Laura Conover, then a defense attorney and former public defender won a solid 56% of the vote in a three candidate contest to run the DA’s office for Pima County, home to Tucson and over a million residents. She’s stuck by her progressive prosecutor promises, established a conviction integrity unit, not sought the death penalty, and diverted low-level crimes like drug use. As predictable as the sun rising, that means there’s yet another cop-funded tough-on-crime opponent trying to unseat her over it. This one goes by the name Mike Jette. Jette, a former federal prosecutor, has been greatly aided by local media’s relentless focus on crime and sudden belief that Conover caused it all.

The case most central to Jette’s campaign is the homicide of teenager Isaac Benitez, dragged behind a car driven by two other teenagers. The Da’s office offered negligent homicide and manslaughter plea deals to two defendants out of fear that they wouldn’t be able to secure a guilty verdict, and Jette, with Benitez’s family in tow, has been hammering Conover over the plea deal ever since a judge opted to grant both defendants probation over further jail time roughly a month ago.

The candidates have raised roughly even amounts of money, but the Pima County Democratic establishment has mostly stuck with Conover. The famously conservative Hernandez siblings are a glaring exception. It’s nice to see Tucson Mayor Regina Romero and even Rep. Ruben Gallego stick up for Conover when she’s in a tough reelection.

Pima County Sheriff

Chris Nanos (i) vs. Sanford Rosenthal

Chris Nanos took over the job of Sheriff four years ago, and quite frankly just doesn’t appear to have known what he was in for. The previously managed jail is now in “full blown crisis”, one of the corrections workers is now suing the department for racial discrimination, the alleged sexual assault of one officer by another was so poorly run the county Board of Supervisors had to step in, and morale is so low a group of 86 deputies are now engaging in public dissension. Even still, we don’t know if retired deputy Sandy Rosethal would be an improvement. Rosenthal has signaled not just a willingness to work closer with border patrol, but has made it something of a campaign promise to enter a federal program that pays sheriff departments to aid in deportations. On top of which, Rosenthal has said he’ll be supporting the Republican candidate if he loses. Overall, he sounds much more like a conservative attempting to exploit dysfunction for campaign reasons than a man who legitimately wants to solve it.

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Derek Armstead vs. Brittany Claybrooks vs. John J. Flora vs. Darryl Godfrey vs. Alberta Gordon vs. Eugene Mazo vs. LaMonica McIver vs. Shana Melius vs. Sheila Montague vs. Debra Salters

Normally, special elections are expensive and heated, but the July 16 special election to represent a chunk of urban and suburban North Jersey has turned out to be the opposite. While Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has credible opposition from a handful of local politicians, this seat is clearly hers to lose, and nobody seems too interested in trying to change that. McIver’s fundraising has been poor (less than six figures as of her pre-primary report), and yet she’s the fundraising leader. McIver has unified establishment support in Essex County, which makes up a slim majority of this seat, and near-unified establishment support in Union County, which makes up another third of the seat (Linden Mayor Derek Armstead has some loyalists in his home base and nearly won party support in Union County.) For a frontrunner, McIver’s campaign is a low-key affair, but she can afford that.

Only Hudson County’s machine seems interested in a non-McIver candidate. Craig Guy, the Hudson County Executive and the newly-christened Hudson County Democratic Organization chairman, endorsed Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker, who hasn’t even filed a report with the FEC, and headlined a fundraiser for Walker’s campaign. Guy isn’t alone; other Hudson County pols such as Assembs. Barbara McCann Stamato and William Sampson are also backing Walker. The statewide Democratic establishment is also fully behind McIver, up to and including Gov. Phil Murphy. National groups have mostly sat this race out, evidently seeing low stakes; the exception is the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, which has endorsed McIver. (Though McIver is the establishment pick here, that’s not a shock; McIver is closely aligned with progressive Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, and the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. was a CPC member himself.)

Most candidates are running entirely outside the machine apparatus, but only two of those candidates are running campaigns that could conceivably leave a mark on July 16. Former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks, the North Jersey political director for Andy Kim’s Senate campaign, is strapped for cash but has some connections and a better claim to the outsider lane than any other candidate running; former state economic development official Darryl Godfrey, meanwhile, is just another wealthy, politically-connected self-funder, and he’s only self-funded about $50K in addition to some okay fundraising—not enough to break through in the ultra-expensive NYC media market.

The July 16 special primary is technically only for the remainder of Payne’s term, which will be filled in a September 18 special election. However, because Payne died after the filing deadline had passed for the regular primary, he won the nomination for the full term posthumously, meaning Democrats have to pick a replacement nominee for the full two-year term in a special convention; the convention is scheduled for July 18, and McIver is expected to win—possibly even if she loses the special primary, which would be a brazenly undemocratic move (so, par for the course in New Jersey.) Since she’s such an overwhelming favorite, it’s likely to be a moot point at the convention.

Outside $ Tracker

AZ-03

• $73K of digital ads, $38K of mailers and $3K of texts supporting Raquel Terán from the Working Families Party

• $38K of mailers opposing Yassamin Ansari from the Working Families Party

• $105K of digital ads and $125K of mailers supporting Raquel Terán from the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC

• $70K in radio ads and $58K in canvassing and phone banking supporting Raquel Terán from the National Education Association Advocacy Fund

• $87K in ads supporting Raquel Terán and opposing Yassamin Ansari from ProgressNow AZ

• $43K in mailers supporting Raquel Terán from Planned Parenthood Votes

• $73K in canvassing supporting Raquel Terán from Votar es Poder PAC

• $2400 in digital ads and $9000 in lawn signs supporting Yassamin Ansari from the Professional Firefighters of Arizona

• $91K in digital ads supporting Yassamin Ansari from Democratic Majority for Israel

• $193K in mailers, in 5 batches, supporting Yassamin Ansari from Save America Fund

MN-05

• $193K of mailers, in 5 batches, supporting Ilhan Omar from the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party

MO-01

• $363K of TV ads supporting Cori Bush and attacking Wesley Bell, $55K of mailers attacking Bell, and $50K of digital ads both supporting Bush and attacking Bell, all  from Justice Democrats

• $88K of “digital & tv ads”, $50K of canvassing, $10K of texts, and $3400 of phone banking for Cori Bush from the Working Families Party

• $61K of mailers for Cori Bush from National Nurses United

• $27K in digital ads supporting Wesley Bell from the National Association of Realtors PAC

• $214K in digital ads and $246K in TV ads supporting Wesley Bell from Democratic Majority for Israel

• $888K in ads, $158K in mailers, and $52K in phone banking supporting Wesley Bell from United Democracy Project (AIPAC)

• $1.54M in ads, $307K in mailers, and $42K in phone banking opposing Cori Bush from United Democracy Project (AIPAC)

WA-06

• $144K of mailers supporting Emily Randall from Equality PAC

Results

You’re probably aware that since we last wrote, Rep. Jamaal Bowman went down in the face of a primary challenge from Westchester County Executive George Latimer, marking the first defeat for an incumbent Squad member in a primary. Bowman was ultimately doomed by redistricting, which after the 2020 Census cost him most of his Bronx base and replaced it with wealthier suburbs, but the tens of millions spent by and donated through AIPAC (and some other PACs, but mostly AIPAC) on Latimer’s behalf certainly didn’t help. Colorado progressives also had a rough primary season, losing state Reps. Tim Hernández and Elisabeth Epps to business-backed challengers Cecelia Espenoza and Sean Camacho. Meanwhile, New York progressives held their own outside of the Bowman race, with every member of the state legislature’s DSA-anchored progressive bloc cruising to renomination; additionally, progressive Gabriella Romero picked up an open Assembly seat representing the city of Albany, DSA’s Claire Valdez ousted disgraced Queens Assemb. Juan Ardila, and conservative, anti-reform Albany County DA David Soares was trounced by WFP-backed defense attorney Lee Kindlon.

News

MO-01

St. Louis Mayor Tish Jones endorsed Cori Bush for reelection. While Jones was the progressive choice for mayor, she also entered politics through her politically connected father, was on good terms with the old political establishment for many years, and has had some friction with other progressives in city government in the past. Many saw her public turn against then-Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner as what pushed the progressive prosecutor to resign amidst pressure from the state government. While we had expected Jones to support Bush over St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, it wouldn’t be crazy to imagine the reverse, and the countdown she gave to announcing who she would be endorsing in the election raised some eyebrows. Though St. Louis only contributes around 40-45% of the Democratic primary vote in the district, Jones is one of the biggest Democratic names in the region. She joins House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other caucus leadership in endorsing Bush.

Democratic Majority for Israel has produced polling from the firm owned by its president, Mark Mellman, which shows Bush trailing Bell by 1%, 42%-43%, with 11% undecided, which they claim is down from a 45%-29% lead she held in a January poll DMFI commissioned but didn’t release until now. No crosstabs were given.

NYC Mayor, Comptroller

After months of behind-the-scenes maneuvering, politicians in New York City are finally talking more about their plans for 2025, and the result could be an enormous game of musical chairs.

Mayor

In:

• Eric Adams: Adams might be polling poorly (a recent poll found his favorability among Democrats underwater 29%-64%) but he’s given no indication he’s planning on anything other than trying to win reelection.

• Scott Stringer: Ex-Comptroller Stringer became the default non-Adams choice early in the 2021 election until an allegation of sexual harassment derailed his campaign. While subsequent reporting poked enormous holes in the initial accuser’s account - so much so that he is currently suing accuser Jean Kim for defamation - no one, including Stringer, has pushed back on the second accusation, from a waitress who used to work for Stringer. Stringer is technically only in the exploratory phase right now, which he’s been in since January, but he’s been talking more an more like just a regular candidate, including the campaign sending text messages saying “I’m running to be the next Mayor of New York City”, so we’re calling him a real candidate.

Actively exploring:

• State Sen. Zellnor Myrie: Myrie, of Brooklyn, is one of the original IDC slayers, and a progressive legislator, though not to the extent of his the leftist movement leader neighbors Jabari Brisport and Julia Salazar. On paper Myrie is the perfect anti-Adams candidate: able to eat in Adams’s base while turning off few other voters. However, he has little name recognition or clear loyal allies in NYC politics and risks getting squeezed out of the race. Myrie formed an exploratory committee in May and not much has changed since.

• Comptroller Brad Lander: Lander hasn't officially announced anything, even an exploratory committee, but he's begun acting a whole lot like a candidate. Politico’s New York team points out that he's fundraising aggressively, and has gotten key progressives allies on board, but for all the preparations he’s making he does have the option of just running for reelection and waiting until 2029 to go for mayor, even if recent reporting from Michael Gartland at NY Daily News says that a formal announcement is imminent within the next few weeks. Lander is on great terms with the left in the city and has emerged as the leading Adams critic, but there's also some concerns about how he’d fare against Adams. Adams won in 2021 with a coalition of Black voters and outerborough conservatives of all races. Lander doesn't necessarily chip away at any part of that, and could risk large defections from wealthy voters in Manhattan.

• Andrew Cuomo: We’re just doing our best to pretend this isn’t happening.

Considering:

• Everyone else in New York City politics: sure, everyone wants to be mayor, and many are even outright saying as much to the press. But no one else has taken the concrete fundraising steps, or has been reported as making overtures to organized labor and other key groups, that a serious mayoral run would necessitate. There's still time to start doing those things, but talk is cheap and we're not going to parse every scrap of speculation.

Comptroller

Actively exploring:

• Comptroller Brad Lander: Lander can't run for mayor and comptroller simultaneously, so any doubt he has about running for mayor is functionally consideration for the comptroller office

• Assemb. Jenifer Rajkumar: Rajkumar, of Queens, is the most prominent ally of Eric Adams in the Assembly. Though initially the partnership may have been a marriage of convenience from two politicians with few friends in the city, they clearly genuinely like each other at this point, and see Rajkumar running for Comptroller as a way to serve both their goals. Rajkumar would obviously love an office this prominent and Adams would like to finally have a friend in city government instead of waging lonely crusades against progressives. Rajkumar is the only candidate who would likely stay in the race if Lander does.

• Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso: Reynoso, a progressive and natural politician who just won boroughwide, would be an ideal mayoral candidate in our opinion, but he evidently couldn’t get the behind-the-scenes support he needed, so he’ll have to settle for Comptroller, provided Lander winds up making the jump. Reynoso would almost certainly be the choice of progressives if he ran.

• Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine: Levine is a boring Manhattan liberal, far from the worst or the best the island has ever produced. He’d be a strong fundraiser and has support from organized labor, but isn’t an exciting campaigner.

Of course, if Reynoso and Levine run for Comptroller, that would mean that Manhattan and Brooklyn would be electing new borough presidents, likely attracting large fields of candidates, which will almost certainly include council members, who will have to leave their council seats to run. The game of musical chairs has only just begun.

WA-06

The Seattle Times reports that Department of Natural Resources (DNR) head Hilary Franz has been leaning on DNR employees who work in Democratic politics to help her secure endorsements for her congressional run. Though there were no accusations of retaliation in the article, that behavior obviously crosses an ethical line, and her general behavior in the role was described by other employees as self-promotional and self-centered, even implying she it was bad enough to cost her the endorsement of public employee unions, including the Washington Public Employees Association, whose president cited both worker morale and safety as the reason they endorsed progressive state Sen. Emily Randall instead.
While the article makes serious accusations, so far it doesn’t appear to have been acknowledged by either campaign or other news outlets. Randall has pledged not to negatively campaign in this election.

Colorado

SD-18 (Boulder)

Judith Amabile vs. Jovita Schiffer

Result (>95% in): Amabile 76.5%, Schiffer 23.5% | Amabile wins

We’re happy to report that Boulder has two strong candidates for senate. Equity and inclusion consultant Jovita Schiffer may carry the Colorado WFP endorsement, but even Judith Amabile, a two-term state representative and “establishment” choice, is far more progressive than the average Democrat, especially when it comes to housing and criminal justice. Schiffer’s endorsements ultimately mainly come not from progressive groups but from local politicians, who are more familiar with her, whereas state politicians and unions know Amabile better and support her. Whoever wins, Boulder will continue to have some of the best representation in the state.

SD-19 (Northwest Denver suburbs)

Lindsey Daugherty vs. Obi Ezeadi

Result (>95% in): Daugherty 64.0%, Ezeadi 36.0% | Daughtery wins

The ideological divisions here are a bit sharper than in the 18th. Lindsey Daugherty, a member of the state house, and Obi Ezeadi, a Westminster City Councilmember, say very similar things about policy, and tend to talk about what they’ll bring to the statehouse in terms of their personal experiences. Daugherty argues the state Senate needs more women, while Ezeadi argues his experience as a first-generation immigrant is needed in the legislature even more. What betrays their intentions in office, however, are their backers. Daugherty may be “proud to be endorsed by” the Chamber of Commerce, but she’s less excited to talk about some of her fellow endorsers like landlord group Colorado Apartment Association and charter school PAC Better Schools For A Stronger Colorado. Labor unions, the WFP, and YIMBY Denver are among Ezeadi’s biggest supporters. 

This campaign has gotten negative, with large amounts of outside money being spent on mailers attacking Ezeadi for votes he took on the council that put him on the opposite side of worker rights (according to the mailers at least—we haven’t actually been able to track down the listed votes to see how accurate the descriptions are). Daugherty, who bills herself as “a unifying voice,” put out a statement in the final week pointing out that her campaign wasn’t responsible for sending out the mailers, but not distancing herself any further from them.

SD-28 (Aurora)

Idris Keith vs. Mike Weissman

Result (>95% in): Weissman 53.2%, Keith 46.8% | Weissman wins

State Rep. Mike Weissman is running for a promotion, and some rich people out there really, really don’t want him to get it. Weissman suspects it’s because he’s been leading efforts to alter Colorado’s notoriously rigid tax structure to benefit lower earners at the expense of higher earners, but whatever the reason, someone out there is dropping over $500,000 to stop him from entering the Senate. Representation Matters, which doesn’t have to disclose its donors, is boosting business attorney Idris Keith. Keith, to his credit, isn’t trying to pass himself off as similar to the incumbent. He’s candid about his disagreements with Weissman, finding him, as well as the party as a whole, to be insufficiently pro-business. Weissman, despite being a progressive in most respects, represents the party mainstream here. It’s really only business groups like the Chamber of Commerce that are backing him, which would normally pale in comparison to the weight of most of the party, but that money being spent could go a long way.

HD-04 (Northwest Denver)

Tim Hernández (i) vs. Cecelia Espenoza

Result (>95% in): Espenoza 53.2%, Hernández 46.8% | Espenoza wins

Tim Hernández is an incumbent of the appointed variety. He sat on the board of the Denver teachers’ union and was the subject of a groundswell of student and parent support in 2022 after he was let go from his job as a Denver Public Schools teacher in. He landed on his feet, finding a teaching job in Aurora, and another in the state House in 2023. Hernández won an appointment convention for the seat vacated by the election of Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez to the Denver city council. Not long after being seated, Hernández, a socialist and the most junior DSA member in the state house, found himself in an unwanted spotlight because he attended a pro-Palestinian rally on October 10, refused to explicitly condemn Hamas when badgered by a right wing reporter, and liked a few posts on Twitter suggesting the October 7 attacks were a result of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. The uproar was immediate and House leadership even suggested he resign. 

Hernández realized pretty quickly he wasn’t going to last long in the House this way, and has changed his tone. He apologized for not condemning Hamas and for liking those posts, and appears to have attempted to personally reassure various Colorado politicians that he doesn’t support Hamas. Hernández hasn’t kept his support of Palestine a secret, but he has acted like a man who wants to get reelected, and hasn’t had any other moments like the October 10 rally. Given time, the anger over Hernández’s comments has died down, and now the majority of his Democratic colleagues (25/45) have endorsed him for reelection.

But of course that controversy will never fully go away, and moderates are foaming at the mouth to get rid of him. Former federal prosecutor Cecelia Espenoza is running full tilt at Hernández, flanked by massive amounts of outside money, and a somewhat unexpected supporter: state senate Pres. Steve Fenberg. However, Hernández is on good terms with his colleagues now, and the total weight of the state establishment is more on his side than hers. In addition, labor unions have been going blow-for-blow with Espenoza’s outside money supporters. In a world where Hernández remained a consistent bomb thrower, Espenoza might have been a good foil to him, but he didn’t, and the amount of scrutiny placed on Espenoza as a real candidate and not just not-Hernández hasn’t been good for her. Most notably, her ties to anti-trans activists have been difficult to explain away.

HD-06 (Central Denver)

Elisabeth Epps (i) vs. Sean Camacho

Result (>95% in): Camacho 61.1%, Epps 38.9% | Camacho wins

State Rep. Elisabeth Epps, a socialist and prison abolitionist, narrowly won the hardest-fought primary in all of Colorado in 2022, overcoming a well-funded opponent with the support of Denver DSA and a dedicated base of volunteers. Unlike her colleague Tim Hernández, she has not adjusted her tone nor made friends with many of her colleagues; instead, she’s sued state House leadership for violating the state’s open meetings law, joined pro-Palestinian protests on the House floor, and gotten into numerous fights with her colleagues. (She’s also pushed for a lot of progressive legislation that died despite Democrats’ oversized majorities due to moderate Democratic opposition, including a bill to lift the state’s ban on rent control and a bill to ban semi-automatic rifles.) State Democratic leaders are pushing hard to get rid of Epps, and they’ve coalesced around attorney and Air Force reservist Sean Camacho, a nominal moderate who was a registered Republican until 2017. Camacho, despite his GOP past, is backed by everyone from Gov. Jared Polis on down, including state House Speaker Julie McCluskie and state Senate President Steve Fenberg. He also beat Epps handily at the local county party’s convention, winning 68% of the vote to Epps’s 32%; Tim Hernández won 60% to Cecelia Espenoza’s 37% at that same convention. And he has a massive financial advantage as Epps’s fundraising has dried up.

HD-10 (Boulder)

Junie Joseph (i) vs. Tina Mueh

Result (>95% in): Joseph 59.0%, Mueh 41.0% | Joseph wins

First-term state Rep. Junie Joseph also sits on the Boulder City Council, where she recently voted to repeal the city’s archaic occupancy limit, which had capped the number of unrelated roommates who could live in a single dwelling, exacerbating the city’s already-severe housing crisis. After two tries, the state of Colorado preempted local occupancy limits earlier this year through an act of the legislature that was signed into law by Gov. Polis. (Joseph voted yes.) Occupancy limits are the biggest substantive disagreement we could find between Joseph and her opponent, Tina Mueh, who opposes the state’s preemption law and gets very, very amped about the necessity of local control. Joseph is backed by a broad coalition from Polis to members of the state House’s left flank like Javier Mabrey and Lorena Garcia, and she’s an elected incumbent, not an appointed one—generally much harder to oust.

HD-30 (Lakewood)

Kyra deGruy Kennedy vs. Rebekah Stewart

Result (>95% in): Stewart 58.0%, Kennedy 42.0%% | Stewart wins

Kyra deGruy Kennedy is a bit of a nepotism case; she’s running to succeed her termed-out husband, state Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy. She also seems like the right choice. While both deGruy Kennedy and her opponent, Lakewood City Councilor Rebekah Stewart, present themselves as progressives, only Stewart is backed by the business PACs that are also spending in other races on behalf of moderate Democrats. They’ve spent hundreds of thousands on independent expenditures for Stewart, and deGruy Kennedy has gone hard after Stewart for the influx of dark money. Stewart is skeptical of rental housing and thinks that the reason for Colorado’s housing crisis is the state’s construction defects laws, which place liability on builders for shoddy work in home construction, and if that combo isn’t a surefire tell of a real estate candidate we don’t know what is. deGruy Kennedy thinks the state has a housing shortage and an especially acute shortage of low- to moderate-income affordable housing, and she’s correct on both counts. She’s also backed by organized labor and the Working Families Party, having once served as a state committee member of the Colorado WFP. deGruy Kennedy would keep this seat in progressive hands, while Stewart would hand it over to the Colorado Democratic Party’s business-backed moderate faction.

HD-31 (Thornton)

Julia Marvin (i) vs. Jacque Phillips

Result (>95% in): Phillips 54.2%, Marvin 45.8% | Phillips wins

When a vacancy needed to be filled for the 31st District, a committee of local Democrats chose former Thornton City Councilmember Julia Marvin by a vote of 9 to 6. The woman she beat was Jacque Phillips, also a Thornton City Councilmember until 2022 when the rest of the council decided by a vote to remove her from office because they believed she’d moved out of the city. Believing actual voters would choose differently, Phillips has decided to run in the primary. She has a few local unions and politicians in her corner, including the Thornton firefighters’ union, and she’s outraised and outspent Marvin. Both Marvin and Phillips are fairly standard Democrats on paper, but the Colorado WFP feels there’s enough of a difference that they endorsed Marvin, and some centrist super PACs that have waded into other, more clearly ideological primaries are backing Phillips.

HD-36 (Aurora)

Michael Carter vs. Bryan Lindstrom

Result (>95% in): Carter 61.4%, Lindstrom 38.6% | Carter wins

Bryan Lindstrom, an Aurora schoolteacher, is running to join the progressive bloc in the Colorado House. Lindstrom wants to revamp the state’s regressive tax code to fully fund public schools, explore a state-level single-payer system, and begin developing state-owned social housing, and he’s backed by Denver DSA, Colorado WFP, and like-minded groups. He’s also backed by most of organized labor, probably in part because Lindstrom is a leader within the Aurora Education Association. Realtors, landlords, and the Chamber of Commerce love his opponent, Aurora Public Schools board member Michael Carter; Carter bristles at Lindstrom’s charge that he’s not a progressive, but business interests seldom invest in progressives the way they have invested in Carter’s campaign. Lindstrom’s campaign hasn’t been without stumbles; he lost the endorsement of the gun control group Colorado Ceasefire over some tweets that indicated he was way more pro-gun than he let on in the group’s endorsement questionnaire. He’s skeptical of gun control because of racial disparities in the criminal enforcement of gun laws—but if that’s you, maybe don’t present yourself to a gun control group as being simply pro-gun control.

HD-49 (Boulder and ski towns)

Lesley Smith vs. Max Woodfin

Result (>95% in): Smith 71.8%, 28.2% | Smith wins

Lesley Smith is easy to figure out—she’s a member of the Board of Regents and previously served on Boulder’s local board of ed. Her politics line up strongly with the party mainstream, though if that’s mainstream for Boulder is an open question. It’s Max Woodfin we have a harder time figuring out. On one hand, a pretty reliable rule of thumb is that if a candidate’s issues page is vague and noncommittal right up until they start talking about cutting taxes, then they’re a moderate, and that is absolutely the case with Woodfin. His “plan” for housing is to “bring creative and realistic solutions to the table” - come on man. But he’s also endorsed by the Colorado WFP. He also does get more specific when asked about policy and says some promising things about the need to expand transit services outside of urban hubs, as well as giving a barely-prompted long explanation of his belief that Israel is committing war crimes and its leaders should be prosecuted for them. But he’s also the kind of candidate who likes to complain about polarized politics and extreme views. On the whole, we’d take him over Smith, but we wouldn’t be too disappointed if she won, either.

HD-52 (Fort Collins)

Ethnie Treick vs. Yara Zokaie

Result (>95% in): Zokaie 64.4%, Treick 35.6% | Zokaie wins

Fort Collins is an often-ignored but very real hub of growing progressive organizing in Colorado. Surprisingly, the city of roughly 170,000 hasn’t seen a contested house primary since the early 2000s, and it’s only natural that the first one in two decades would be a clash between the moderate old guard and newer progressive groups. Larimer County tax accountant Yara Zokaie is running on a platform of single payer healthcare, ending cash bail, and enacting rent control. She has the support of DSA and WFP, but also organized labor groups like SEIU and the teachers unions, and both of the Democrats currently representing Fort Collins in the house. Surprise—the reason this is a major battle isn’t because progressives want to topple the establishment, but because the establishment has gotten more progressive, and business money wants to reverse that.

Energy industry lobbyist Ethnie Treick would normally have a tough time getting elected against a broadly accepted progressive, but that’s where hundreds of thousands of outside money comes in, with a pair of super PACs dropping massive sums into advertising and a field program boosting Treick. Zokaie has super PACs on her side, too—one a labor-affiliated PAC and another funded by a shadowy Portland nonprofit. Zokaie’s campaign committee has fundraised almost as well as Treick’s has, so she’s not without resources to get her own message out even absent the outside help. Hopefully it’s enough to get her over the finish line.

Denver DA

Leora Joseph vs. John Walsh

Result (>95% in): Walsh 58.1%, Joseph 41.9% | Walsh wins

This primary is kind of depressing, and reflective of the rightward turn many wealthier cities out West have taken on the issue of criminal justice. Both John Walsh and Leora Joseph are career prosecutors who want to focus on car thefts, gun violence, and fentanyl; it’s only from taking a closer look at their rhetorical styles that one can discern that Walsh isn’t quite as harshly carceral as Joseph, who wants longer sentences for repeat offenders. (Walsh only specifically calls for longer sentences in regards to fentanyl distributors.) Walsh also talks at length about police accountability—which isn’t worth much given prosecutors’ tendency to renege on promises of holding police accountable, but is worth something given how conspicuously Joseph avoids the issue. Joseph is backed by the police union, which would be enough on its own to steer us towards Walsh; in combination with the differences in rhetoric and policy commitments, it makes Walsh a clear choice, if not an exciting one.

Utah

HD-23 (Northeastern Salt Lake City)

Jeff Howell vs. Hoang Nguyen

Result (>95% in): Nguyen 56.3%, Howell 43.4% | Nguyen wins

Outgoing House Minority Leader Brian King is running a thankless campaign for governor, leaving his Salt Lake City district open. King’s pick, tech sales manager Jeff Howell, has most area politicians in his corner, though Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson and organized labor are backing entrepreneur and former Vietnamese refugee Hoang Nguyen. Both tout standard Democratic priorities—defending public schools from GOP interference and culture-war bullshit, supporting abortion rights and LGBTQ rights, and so forth. Our tiebreaker is Howell’s repeated mentions of bipartisanship and civility—while bipartisanship is essential for a Democrat in a GOP supermajority to get boring-but-necessary legislation passed, it’s a means to an end, not a goal, and civility isn’t coming back as long as Republicans use their unchecked legislative power to target vulnerable Utahns.

HD-24 (Eastern Salt Lake City)

Joel Briscoe (i) vs. Ramón Barthelemy vs. Grant Miller

Result (>95% in): Miller 49.4%, Briscoe 32.7%, Barthelemy 17.9% | Miller wins

State Rep. Joel Briscoe faces a spirited challenge from public defender Grant Miller, whose work with homeless populations and low-income tenants has spurred him to push for more funding for homeless services, a “Homeless Bill of Rights,” and tenant protections. Miller, who is Palestinian-American, also expresses concern for the First Amendment rights of pro-Palestinian protesters, who were targeted by police and Gov. Spencer Cox at the University of Utah recently. Briscoe has outspent Miller and doesn’t have any glaring vulnerabilities to speak of, but Miller beat Briscoe 73%-27% at the Salt Lake County Democratic Party’s nominating convention; had the incumbent not also gathered petitions to guarantee a slot on the ballot, the race would have ended there. Astronomy professor Ramón Barthelemy is also running, but has skipped debates and has not filed campaign finance reports.

NY-10 (Lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn)

Dan Goldman (i) vs. Bruno Grandsard vs. Evan Hutchison

Result (>95% in): Goldman 65.0%, Hutchison 23.1%, Grandsard 10.% | Goldman wins

Rep. Dan Goldman has no business representing one of the most progressive districts in America, but he’s going to get a second term anyway. The New York left’s failure to field a serious challenge here is almost as embarrassing as the New York left’s failure to figure out what the hell they’re going to do about Eric Adams next year. Goldman is a centrist who used his fortune as an heir to Levi’s Jeans to purchase this district in 2022, and his membership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus serves as a reminder that the CPC’s membership standards are meaningless. Local organizer Evan Hutchison is staking his low-budget campaign on a Gaza ceasefire, and climate activist Bruno Grandsard is an earnest policy wonk who seems to just bristle at the way Goldman got his seat in Congress; they’ll serve as outlets for protest votes.

NY-14 (Parts of the Bronx and Queens)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (i) vs. Marty Dolan

Result (>95% in): Ocasio-Cortez 81.8%, Dolan 17.8% | Ocasio-Cortez wins

After winning her 2022 primary uncontested, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a primary from insurance professional Marty Dolan. Dolan has raised a modest amount of money and self-funded nearly $300,000, and he’s running as an eccentric version of your usual conservative backlash candidate: he wants to undo New York’s landmark bail reforms and bring back the widespread use of cash bail, and he wants to “refund, not defund” the police, but he’s also a big proponent of a value-added tax to replace many current taxes and he wants to federalize Medicaid (that last one is actually a good idea.) He’ll get votes from more conservative voters in the whitest, wealthiest parts of AOC’s district; he might even win some precincts in Throggs Neck or College Point, as ex-Republican CNBC host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera did in 2020. He will not win, nor will he come close. The most interesting thing about this race is the potential it has to impact the AD-82 primary.

NY-16 (Westchester County and Co-Op City, Bronx)

Jamaal Bowman (i) vs. George Latimer

Result (>95% in): Latimer 58.4% Bowman 41.5% | Latimer wins

Paradoxically, we sometimes find ourselves with little to say about the biggest elections in these previews. There are state assembly elections in this preview with tons of details we wanted to share, but NY-16? You already know.

Jamaal Bowman defeated long-in-the-tooth incumbent Eliot Engel in an absolutely triumphant 2020 primary election. However, New York lost a congressional district almost immediately after, and the domino effect was that Bowman had to be drawn a much whiter district that was nearly all Westchester County and almost no Bronx. (The previous district had been about ⅔ in Westchester and ⅓ in the Bronx.) A Black leftist was never going to have an easy time in those wealthy, whiter new towns, and Bowman indeed did quite poorly with his new voters in 2022, taking only 55% of the vote against a pair of badly underfunded challengers. So AIPAC set their sights on him.

There’s no need to rehash the details: AIPAC recruited moderate County Executive George Latimer, who used his influence to keep NY-16 as white as possible in the 2024 redistricting, and after he got his wish, AIPAC began to dump millions upon millions into the district. They spent over $14 million on independent expenditures alone, an amount that might as well be $140 million or $140 billion—in a congressional primary race, it all becomes something approaching infinity at that point. (Some other PACs, including Democratic Majority for Israel and the cryptocurrency industry front Fairshake, threw down a couple million more.) Bowman and his allies on the left, like Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party had nowhere near that amount of money, and, even after a fundraising like hell for months, could only put together about $4 million to back him up. Polling has been ugly for Bowman, with the only independent poll of the race coming from Emerson in early June, and putting Latimer’s lead at 48% to 31%. Latimer has spent the closing stretch of the race making racist statement after racist statement, but they hardly seem to matter to the white voters of Westchester County, which is why Latimer fought so hard to keep them in the district, to give himself an “ethnic benefit”, as he puts it.

Progressives and the left, including NYC-DSA, who voted to re-endorse Bowman after pulling their support in 2022 over Israel-Palestine issues, are fighting like hell to pull off a miracle here, but are universally braced for a loss, and a painful one. AIPAC is funneling ludicrous amounts of Republican money to elevate a white grievance candidate in the suburbs of diverse, progressive city, and it all appears to be working. Bleak. The early voting numbers are even bleaker: Scarsdale, Mamaroneck, and Rye, all white majority towns that hate Bowman based on their previous voting patterns, have cast more early votes than majority-Black Mt. Vernon, despite Mt. Vernon being somewhere from two to five times their size. Bowman has to hope for an improbable surge of election day voters, something on par with the kind of turnout you would see in a contested presidential primary, or even greater. Again, bleak. We promise the legislative races have more reasons for optimism.

SD-06 (Hempstead, Long Island)

Siela Bynoe vs. Taylor Darling

Result (>95% in): Bynoe 53.2%, Darling 46.3% | Bynoe wins

A few years ago, New York State Democratic Chair and Nassau County Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs (he holds both titles) grew tired of then-Assemb. Earlene Hooper, and he backed challenger Taylor Raynor to unseat her. Raynor won, got married, changed her name to Taylor Darling, and, apparently, stopped answering Jacobs’s calls. Jacobs is supporting Darling’s opponent, Nassau County Legislator Siela Bynoe; Darling claims it’s because she wouldn’t bow to “special interests,” but, as Politico notes, she’s the one benefiting from a flood of charter school money in this race. (There are also a couple of donations from conservative PACs sitting in Darling’s bank account, like the tough-on-crime PAC Fair Just and Safe NY. Bynoe is almost entirely reliant on individual donations, unions, and public matching funds.) It seems like more of a personal beef, because Jacobs is normally quite moderate; he donated the federal maximum to George Latimer, for example. A candidate like Darling isn’t out of character for him, while Bynoe seems honestly a little too normal for Jacobs’s tastes. (Plus she ran as a less conservative alternative to Jacobs’s preferred NY-04 candidate in 2022 before dropping out.) Bynoe isn’t backed by progressive groups, but organized labor is with her and she has done quite well with matching funds; hopefully it’ll be enough to overcome Darling’s name recognition and cushion of conservative money.

SD-59 (Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan)

Kristen Gonzalez (i) vs. Gus Lambropoulos

Result (>95% in): Gonzalez 85.0%, Lambropoulos 14.7% | Gonzalez wins

Democratic socialist state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez’s primary is basically a formality—Gonzalez mopped the floor with a well-funded, establishment-backed opponent in Elizabeth Crowley (Joe’s cousin) two years ago, and the People’s Republic of Astoria is not changing course anytime soon. Moderate businessman and congestion pricing opponent Gus Lambropoulos might be able to collect some votes from Astoria’s Greek community and disgruntled rich voters in this district’s slice of Manhattan, but a district based in Astoria and Greenpoint will absolutely be reelecting its scandal-free DSA legislator.

AD-18 (Hempstead, Long Island)

Noah Burroughs vs. Lisa Ortiz

Result (>95% in): Burroughs 51.5%, Ortiz 48.2% | Burroughs wins

This incredibly low-key primary pits Hempstead village trustee Noah Burroughs, a former New York Jets player, against childcare business owner Lisa Ortiz. Almost nothing has been written about the race, and the two are both vague on policy, but Ortiz is running with the backing of moderate Rep. Tom Suozzi, while Burroughs is endorsed by the Working Families Party, which is enough to say Burroughs is clearly the superior choice.

AD-34 (Jackson Heights and Astoria, Queens)

Jessica González-Rojas (i) vs. Ricardo Pacheco

Result (>95% in): González-Rojas 82.6%, Pacheco 17.1% | González-Rojas wins

Retired cop and community activist Ricardo Pacheco is best known for raising a fuss about the city’s Open Streets program, though he swears on his website that he’s not anti-Open Streets. While he has a reasonable amount of money to work with, Pacheco stands little chance against progressive Assemb. Jessica González-Rojas, especially after redistricting added a large piece of ultra-progressive Astoria to this already quite progressive Jackson Heights district.

AD-35 (East Elmhurst and Corona, Queens)

Larinda Hooks vs. Hiram Monserrate

Result (>95% in): Hooks 59.1%, Monserrate 40.5% | Hooks wins

Corrupt domestic abuser Hiram Monserrate just won’t stop making comeback attempts, and the retirement of longtime Assemb. Jeffrion Aubry gives Monserrate the kind of opening he hasn’t had in years. Monserrate has been losing (or getting thrown off the ballot) in campaigns against Aubry and local CM Francisco Moya on and off since 2017, but the 76-year-old Aubry is retiring this year after more than three decades representing Corona and East Elmhurst. And Monserrate doesn’t just have an open seat to run for—he also has a wedge issue to exploit. Monserrate opposes Mets owner Steve Cohen’s proposal for a casino on a disused parking lot at Citi Field, a hot-button issue in Queens; Larinda Hooks, a nonprofit executive backed by a broad coalition of people who don’t want to see Monserrate return to power, supports the proposal, taking at face value the billionaire Mets owner’s promise of 23,000 union jobs. While taking Steve Cohen at face value is probably not a great idea, electing Hiram Monserrate is a worse one (and the proposal faces dim prospects anyway due to the opposition of other local figures like state Sen. Jessica Ramos.) Hooks has outraised Monserrate comfortably, and she’s seen a last-minute flood of donations from unions and business PACs alike. As with her endorsement list—which includes everyone from the Working Families Party to Ramos to Aubry to Eric Adams ally Jenifer Rajkumar—the campaign finance filings reflect the fact that certain things, such as disliking Hiram Monserrate, transcend ideology and the other usual fault lines.

AD-37 (Long Island City, Sunnyside, Ridgewood, and Maspeth, Queens)

Juan Ardila (i) vs. Johanna Carmona vs. Claire Valdez

Result (>95% in): Valdez 58.5%, Carmona 31.5%, Ardila 9.8% | Valdez wins

This will, of course, never be proven, but it’s pretty obvious to us that when open Senate and Assembly seats both appeared in the same part of western Queens in 2022, DSA and WFP struck a compromise to avoid fighting each other. DSA got the Senate seat and WFP got the Assembly seat. DSA chose Kristen Gonzalez for SD-59, and WFP chose Juan Ardila, a former City Council candidate, for AD-37, both of whom won with ease. While Gonzalez looks like she’ll have a long career ahead of her, Ardila’s freshman term was almost immediately derailed by revelations from multiple women that he was a sex pest. Ardila initially apologized for his behavior, before pivoting to claiming it never happened, and paying for an “independent” investigation to clear himself of wrongdoing. Ardila remains on the ballot and is kind of running for reelection, but all of his allies have abandoned him and he should place a distant third.

Naturally, other politicians are moving in after that went down. DSA immediately targeted the seat, and organizer Claire Valdez was the candidate they eventually endorsed. Moderates obviously weren't going to just allow DSA to grab a seat, but also saw the writing on the wall for Ardila, which is where Johanna Carmona, an ex-prosecutor and staffer to City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, comes in. Carmona has done her best to present as a viable, progressive alternative to Ardila that merely doesn’t have the “socialist” label like Valdez does, and has potentially even tried to confuse voters into thinking she’s endorsed by the Working Families Party. The actual WFP has endorsed Valdez, as has AOC, Brad Lander, Jumaane Williams, and Make the Road Action. Carmona is benefitting from a big centrist outside money push, but the whole thing feels kind of perfunctory—there’s not even the same level of energy for her that there was for Elizabeth Crowley in SD-59 last cycle.

AD-40 (Flushing, Queens)

Ron Kim (i) vs. Yi Andy Chen vs. Dao Yin

Result (>95% in): Kim 54.0%, 39.8%, Yin 5.9% | Kim wins

For a couple years now, Assemb. Ron Kim has been fighting against the rightward trend of Flushing, a bustling neighborhood that serves as a hub of Queens’s large Chinese and Korean communities. While Flushing was once lopsidedly Democratic, it has lurched to the right post-2020; in 2021, Eric Adams narrowly lost AD-40 to Republican Curtis Sliwa, and in 2022 Lee Zeldin also carried AD-40. (Joe Biden carried AD-40 by more than 20 points, a sharp drop from previous Democrats’ performances but still a comfortable margin.) That rightward lurch has shown in primaries as well as general elections. In 2022, Kim survived a challenge from conservative Democrat Kenneth Chiu by a margin of just 51%-49%, then held on to his seat in November’s general election by about the same margin while Zeldin carried AD-40. This time around, Yi Andy Chen is hoping to accomplish what Chiu almost did; he’s backed by police unions and a lot of Chinese-American business associations, and he’s posting fundraising numbers so high (with significant internal discrepancies) that they seem unbelievable, far outstripping Kim’s healthy fundraising. After Kim’s near-miss in 2022, we’d be extremely pessimistic about his chances of beating an even better-funded challenger were it not for the presence of a second conservative Chinese candidate in the race, Dao Yin. (We still are pessimistic to an extent.) Yin, much like Chen, has some issues with his campaign funding, but Yin’s are more serious: it seems an awful lot like Yin’s campaign forged some of the donation records that it used to qualify for public matching funds.

AD-41 (Flatlands, Midwood, and Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn)

Kalman Yeger vs. Adam Dweck

Result (>95% in): Yeger 70.1%, Dweck 29.0% | Yeger wins

The next member of the Assembly from District 41 will be City Council Member Kalman Yeger. Yeger, a popular politician in the conservative Jewish neighborhood of Midwood, is backed by outgoing Assemb. Helene Weinstein and just about everyone else who’s bothered endorsing in this race; Solidarity PAC, an anti-left, pro-Israel group that seeks to be a “mini-AIPAC,” added Yeger to their slate late, we think to juice their win rate by adding a basically uncompetitive race. But this is still a bluish district thanks to the overwhelmingly Democratic, mostly Black neighborhood of Flatlands, not a lopsidedly conservative white enclave like Yeger’s city council district. Yeger is conservative enough that he already has the Republican and Conservative ballot lines in the general election; in a district as blue as this one, those are the only ballot lines a politician as conservative as Yeger should be running on. Yeger might be able to get enough crossover support to win a general election on those lines alone, but Democrats should be trying to make him work for it instead of agreeing with Republicans to simply hand Yeger the seat. Yeger’s primary opponent, former government and campaign staffer Adam Dweck, is a moderate, but at least he’s only seeking the Democratic nod.

AD-50 (Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn)

Emily Gallagher (i) vs. Andrew Bodiford vs. Anathea Simpkins

Result (>95% in): Gallagher 75.4%, Simpkins 20.7%, Bodilford 3.5% | Gallagher wins

Honestly, it’s very funny that the campaign of Anathea Simpkins has attracted as much money as it has, given her opponent and given the district. Assemb. Emily Gallagher is a democratic socialist who won without the support of DSA or WFP, the two most powerful engines of progressive primary challenges in NYC; to do it, she unseated Assemb. Joe Lentol, the incumbent since 1973. She was able to pull it off because this district takes in most of Williamsburg—a punchline and shorthand for lefty hipster Brooklyn for decades now—and the neighborhood of Greenpoint, which somehow votes even more left-wing than Williamsburg itself. Since her upset victory, DSA and all the progressive groups that counted her out in 2020 have become strong supporters, and she has become a prominent member of DSA’s bloc of state legislators as well as a leading voice in Brooklyn politics on urbanist issues like public transportation and street safety. Gallagher turned back a challenge from firefighter Paddy O’Sullivan 80%-20% in 2022, but her continued advocacy for street safety earned her the ire of local studio owner Anthony Argento, whose family owns dozens of soundstages where many well-known shows and movies are shot. For over a year, the Argento family has been fighting against a proposed redesign of McGuinness Boulevard, a Greenpoint thoroughfare which is the site of dozens of serious accidents each year, including the 2021 hit-and-run killing of a local schoolteacher. The redesign would add bike lanes and pedestrians at the cost of some lanes currently reserved for auto traffic, saving lives along the dangerous road and easing the commute of the many residents who walk or bike. Gallagher is a vocal supporter of the redesign and has criticized the Adams administration for hesitating, then eventually shelving, the plan, and that made the Argentos mad enough to donate a lot of money to Simpkins, who also drew Lentol to her campaign launch. (He’s still bitter about 2020.) Simpkins is pretty clearly a down-the-line centrist and not just a bike lane hater; the Real Estate Board of NY backs Simpkins as revenge for Gallagher’s strong support for good cause eviction protections, and Solidarity PAC has directed a good chunk of change to Simpkins as well.

Simpkins has been raising a lot (it helps that she’s an executive at the gun control nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise) and benefiting from a lot of outside expenditures, but it all seems so…silly. This is Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Gallagher is a democratic socialist incumbent backed by the overwhelming majority of organized labor, local elected officials, and influential political clubs. Most people in this part of Brooklyn walk, bike, or use public transit, putting her on the right side of the local wedge issue. She should win resoundingly.

AD-52 (Gowanus, Cobble Hill, and DUMBO, Brooklyn)

Jo Anne Simon (i) vs. Scott Budow

Result (>95% in): Simon 79.1%, Budow 20.3% | Simon wins

Jo Anne Simon would be an acceptable, even above-average, member of the Assembly in most of the state, but this district is on the periphery of the most progressive parts of Brooklyn, making her replacement level at best. The place where the need for an upgrade is clearest is housing—Simon, who lives in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, has been an ardent opponent of every upzoning or redevelopment project in the boro, and ran for Borough President as the NIMBY homeowner candidate in 2021. Even with that history, this year marks the first time someone’s actually challenging her on housing politics: attorney Scott Budow. Budow is centering his campaign on increasing housing supply to make New York more affordable, while making it as clear as he can that he’s not going to be any less progressive than Simon in any area. The only red flag we see is that he works in employment law…for employers. (Yikes, dude.) Simon, a well-known figure in the district by this point, is likely going to trounce Budow, who has only raised about $30,000 for this campaign, but an unexpectedly strong showing from Budow would indicate that housing is a compelling issue in the district.

AD-56 (Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn)

Stefani Zinerman (i) vs. Eon Tyrell Huntley

Result (>95% in): Zinerman 52.8%, Huntley 46.9% | Zinerman wins

This election is the biggest legislative contest of the night, carrying a symbolic significance about the health of the Brooklyn establishment, the reach and audience of the left in New York City, the importance of Palestine in local elections, and whether the AIPAC model of flooding the zone with outside money works at the assembly level. 

In 2020, the left struck a body blow to the Brooklyn machine when Jabari Brisport won the open 25th Senate district 58%-34% against establishment-backed Tremaine Wright, then the Assemblymember representing AD-56. It was a tremendously ugly campaign, exemplified by the time a gaggle of Wright supporters, organized by the city councilmember for the area, Laurie Cumbo, showed up outside of Brisport’s house to yell racial slurs at him. Brisport’s victory came from winning towering 30+% margins in the whiter west side of the district, while the eastern, more heavily Black side was essentially a draw. Wright actually lost AD-56 to Brisport 50-47. 

Since then, DSA has found victory mainly in districts that lie along the East River and are full of young renters, the left’s base, which has led many in the NYC establishment to take their original “white gentrifiers” understanding of the left and conclude that the left is limited to a single corridor in the city, and that that corridor is large enough to be an annoyance, but small enough to be ignored. Cumbo even got her chief of staff elected to succeed her on the Council, defeating a DSA-endorsed candidate. In this election, DSA is once again moving inland in Brooklyn to prove that their message can be successful everywhere. 

Ultimately, elections are run between actual human beings, and the two competing here are second-term incumbent Stefani Zinerman, a nonprofit consultant who entered politics as a staffer to City Councilmember Robert Cornegy, and Eon Huntley, a fashion retail worker who went from excited by Bernie Sanders in 2016 to joining DSA in 2018. If there’s a single issue Huntley would like voters to know separates the two, it’s housing. Zinerman, a homeowner, inserted herself into the legislative battle over the Good Cause Eviction bill (giving tenants default ability to renew their leases and capping rent increases), a legislative priority of progressives this year, publicly begging Gov. Kathy Hochul to block it. Zinerman was protested a few times, and she had a Cumbo-esque response, repeatedly accusing state Sen. Jabari Brisport of “political violence”, though she at least had the common sense not to show up to his house to yell racial slurs at him. Thanks to the work of the landlord lobby and legislators like Zinerman, the initial proposal for the bill was watered down so badly it only covered New York City, and only about a quarter of the apartments in the city.

On Huntley’s website, Housing is the first issue listed. Four of the other five are expected—Education, Labor, Healthcare, and Transit—but the sixth has raised eyebrows: Ceasefire. NYC-DSA has repeatedly said that “Palestine is on the ballot” this election, and Huntley, more than any other candidate, is putting that into practice. From a joint campaign canvass/rally for the Not On Our Dime bill to campaign mailers on the issue of a ceasefire and ending military aid to Israel, Huntley has put Palestine front-and-center in a way no legislative candidate in the country is doing. 

Zinerman, by contrast, has been listless in campaigning and rudderless on what her actual message to voters is, with the vacuum being filled by negative messaging against Huntley and the DSA. This isn’t to say Huntley hasn’t gone negative—even if nothing will top 2020, this is still a gloves-off campaign on both sides—but the lack of anything else coming from the Zinerman camp is noticeable. When the New York Times profiled contested Assembly elections over the weekend, every moderate candidate spoke to their own goals and accomplishments, except for Zinerman; the NYT had to go to state AG Letitia James for a quote. Intentionally or not, Zinerman is making the same argument that Cumbo and Wright made in 2020, that the Brooklyn establishment is the single greatest source of Black power in the state, and the left, in their telling, is a white movement hellbent on tearing down Black power. Unlike Cumbo, she’s stayed away from terms like “lynch mob”, but her insistence that protests are “political violence” originates in the same vein.

In fairness to Zinerman, if she wasn’t willing to make the election a referendum on the Brooklyn political establishment, seemingly everyone else has been willing to do it for her. Brooklyn machine chair Rodneyse Bichotte is a key Zinerman backer, as is Congressmember and Speaker-in-waiting Hakeem Jeffries. André Richardson, a staffer of both his and Zinerman’s, gave a statement to Politico calling Huntley’s campaign “The virtue signaling crowd and the carpetbaggers who work for them” (Huntley is a third-generation Brooklynite.) District Leader and failed council candidate Henry Butler called Huntley “a puppet for others”. Rev. Conrad Tillard, who challenged Brisport in 2022 with establishment support including Eric Adams, has said that “If [Huntley] wins with this team in the heart of Black Brooklyn with this team. Black politics is dead in NYC.” The stakes of this race are clearly being noticed outside of Brooklyn. Solidarity PAC, a “mini-AIPAC” launched this year for New York legislative races; New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany, funded entirely by $2.25 million from billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Jim Walton; charter school PAC Moving New York Families Forward; and zombie PAC, New York Women Lead, resurrected this year with real estate money, have all come to Zinerman’s aid, which Zinerman readily accepts, refering to the spending on her behalf as “reparations”. In all of the flood of mailers, the most solid hit they’ve landed on Huntley is that he lives a few blocks outside the district. By this point voters are probably wise to the reality that this primary is about preserving the Brooklyn machine, but no one’s sure what fate voters will decide for the machine, and absolutely everyone is treating this election as close. If Matthew Kassel’s anonymous source is to be believed, a recent poll showed Zinerman up by “just a couple of points'', but things were “not going in the right direction” for her.

AD-68 (East Harlem, Manhattan)

Eddie Gibbs (i) vs. Tamika Mapp vs. Xavier Santiago vs. William Smith

Result (>95% in): Gibbs 42.5%, Santiago 33.6%, Mapp 16.9%, Smith 6.4% | Gibbs wins

Assemb. Eddie Gibbs won this seat in heavily Latino East Harlem, also known as El Barrio, via a party convention after his predecessor Robert Rodriguez was appointed to serve as New York’s Secretary of State. Gibbs made history as the first formerly incarcerated New Yorker elected to the legislature; he has been admirably open about his journey after he spent years in prison on a manslaughter charge for fatally shooting a man who had attacked him. His position in the legislature is tenuous for reasons wholly unrelated to Gibbs’s past.

It was clear from the time of Gibbs’s installment that a non-Latino Black man would have trouble overcoming the intense racial polarization of Upper Manhattan, and that only became more evident when results for Gibbs’s first contested primary rolled in: two Latino candidates who Gibbs had defeated at the party’s replacement convention, Wilfredo López and John Ruiz-Miranda, combined for a little over 43% of the vote, more than Gibbs’s 37%. (The remaining 19% went to Tamika Mapp, a district leader and perennial candidate who is on the ballot again this year.) Gibbs did that poorly in 2022 despite the lack of a concerted effort to oust him by anyone other than the candidates themselves, and he doesn’t have that luxury this time around. Local Community Board chair Xavier Santiago is Gibbs’s leading opponent this year, and he’s backed by titans of Manhattan politics including Reps. Adriano Espaillat, the boss of a powerful political operation spanning northern Manhattan and the western Bronx, and Jerry Nadler, by far the most prominent white Democrat left standing in Manhattan politics. (Gibbs recently got himself in hot water by arguing with a constituent who took him to task for claiming endorsements he didn’t have; he responded by…falsely claiming he had Nadler’s endorsement.) The handful of predominantly white precincts in this district were strong for Gibbs in that 2022 primary, but we could easily see them following the Nadler endorsement this time around.

While Gibbs has been faking endorsements, he does have some real backers as well; Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and organized labor are coming to Gibbs’s defense, and the charter school PAC New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany paid for $69,000 in mailers in support of Gibbs. (Gibbs is supportive of charter school expansion.) Further complicating things is another district leader, William J. Smith, who has very little in the way of money but has been present at community forums and could further split the base of Black voters that Gibbs desperately needs.

AD-69 (Upper West Side and Morningside Heights, Manhattan)

Jack Kellner vs. Micah Lasher vs. Eli Northrup vs. Carmen Quinones vs. Melissa Rosenberg

Result (>95% in): Lasher 52.8%, Northrup 34.3%, Quinones 5.8%, Rosenberg 4.8%, Kellner 2.0% | Lasher wins

Upper West Side power brokers are excited for Kathy Hochul administration staffer Micah Lasher. He has the support of the area’s congressmembers (Jerry Nadler and Adriano Espillat), Councilmembers (Shaun Abreu and eternal god-emperor of the UWS Gale Brewer), Borough President (Mark Levine), and state senators (Robert Jackson and Brad Hoylman-Sigal). That really should be the end of the story, but Lasher is struggling to close the deal. It could be that this is the wrong moment to be traffic enthusiast Kathy Hochul’s Director of Policy, or that the 69th district, which includes Columbia University and the rapidly growing neighborhood of Morningside Heights, is getting more progressive than the political class currently supported by the UWS, but the reality is he doesn’t have this locked up. 

Public defender Eli Northrup is giving Lasher a tough challenge with the support of the Working Families Party and other progressive groups, as well as outgoing incumbent Danny O’Donnell. While Northrup’s overall haul is dwarfed by Lasher’s—it turns out you can raise a lot when you’re backed by the local establishment in an affluent and politically engaged district—he has managed to leverage the new public financing system to keep things respectably close (both he and Lasher maxed out under the program; Lasher’s advantage is from large donors) and put a scare into Lasher. Northup understands he’s an underdog and has come out swinging. A large part of his campaign messaging is tying Lasher to special interests, especially the real estate industry. It’s an entirely fair attack, but one that is making some people very, very angry. Lasher’s closing message has been about how unfair and unsportsmanlike it is of Northrup to go negative at all.

AD-70 (Harlem and Manhattanville, Manhattan)

Shana Harmongoff vs. Maria Ordoñez vs. Craig Schley vs. Jordan Wright

Result (>95% in): Wright 48.3%, Ordonez 29.7%, Harmongoff 16.8%, Schley 4.9% | Wright wins

After nearly 20 years representing Harlem, first on the City Council and then in the state Assembly, Inez Dickens is retiring from elected office. The candidate with the inside track to replace her is Jordan Wright, the son of Manhattan Democratic Party boss Keith Wright, and Wright is enjoying a unified front from the normally fractious Upper Manhattan establishment. Councilman Yusef Salaam is backing Wright, who ran his successful 2023 campaign; so are Assembs. Dickens and Al Taylor, the two candidates Salaam (and Wright) defeated in 2023. Even Adriano Espaillat is staying out of this race, and Espaillat seldom passes up the chance to antagonize Harlem’s Black establishment. He’s staying out because the only Latino candidate in the race is Maria Ordoñez, a leftist Columbia grad last seen running for a city council seat that overlaps with AD-70 in Ordoñez’s lifelong home of western Harlem. Ordoñez has fundraised well, benefiting immensely from New York’s new public matching funds program, which gives candidates matching funds for their small, in-district donations; as a result, she has the resources to run a campaign operation as professional as Wright’s. A third candidate, Shana Harmongoff, ran unsuccessfully for Harlem’s state Senate seat in 2022; while she has less money to work with than either of her opponents, she is by no means broke, she’s been making the rounds at community events and local churches, and she’s backed by some mildly prominent local figures like District Leader Corey Ortega and former candidate Joshua Clennon, who Wright’s team successfully sought to disqualify from the ballot.

In racially polarized Harlem, the optics of backing a non-Black candidate are dicey, and it’s clearly kept some progressive groups from taking sides in this race. The ones that have gotten involved, like New York Progressive Action Network and Tenants PAC, are backing Ordoñez. Ordoñez’s path to victory likely involves winning a plurality with a coalition of white, Latino, and Asian voters as Wright and Harmongoff, who are both Black, split Black voters in a district that’s just about ½ Black. It’s enough of a possibility that Solidarity PAC felt the need to steer around $40,000 to Wright this spring.

AD-71 (Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights, and Hudson Heights, Manhattan)

Al Taylor (i) vs. Julien Segura

Result (>95% in): Taylor 70.8%, Segura 28.3% | Taylor wins

Al Taylor could, theoretically, be vulnerable. His weak third-place performance in the 2023 primary for Harlem’s city council seat didn’t inspire confidence, especially considering he lost his own Assembly district to eventual winner Yusef Salaam. However, political consultant Julien Segura, who is running as a progressive, is probably not going to be the one to exploit Taylor’s vulnerability, though a late infusion of $42,000 in public matching funds could be enough for Segura to make a dent.

AD-72 (Washington Heights, Hudson Heights, and Marble Hill, Manhattan)

Manny De Los Santos (i) vs. Francesca Castellanos

Result (>95% in): De Los Santos 79.8%, Castellanos 18.8% | De Los Santos wins

Manny De Los Santos’s only opponent is perennial candidate Francesca Castellanos, so this member of the famed Squadriano is headed for another term.

AD-77 (West Bronx)

Landon Dais (i) vs. Leonardo Coello

Result (>95% in): Dais 58.6%, Coello 40.9% | Dais wins

After Assemb. Latoya Joyner resigned to take a private-sector job, the local party committee selected attorney Landon Dais to replace her—and Adriano Espaillat saw an opportunity.

Due to disparities in turnout and citizenship rates, Black voters have always been able to elect the assemblymember in AD-77, but AD-77 is heavily Latino and specifically Dominican, which is Espaillat’s base. Dais, additionally, was an unexpected pick to replace Joyner; a local district leader, Yves Filius, had been expected to get the nod, not Dais, a former Harlem city council candidate who’s relatively new to the Bronx. Put together, it was enough to convince Espaillat that AD-77 was worth targeting next in his attempts to expand his Dominican-American political empire, already a dominant force in the politics of upper Manhattan and the west Bronx. Adams administration aide Leonardo Coello is Espaillat’s pick here—and Espaillat’s intervention has ruffled some feathers as Assembly leaders and other Bronx Democrats view it as an unjustified attempt to oust a Black assemblyman. Apparently, that’s why Coello isn’t endorsed by the full Squadriano—Speaker Carl Heastie reportedly was able to pressure Manhattan Assemb. Manny De Los Santos and Bronx Assemb. Yudelka Tapia, Coello’s former boss, into staying neutral against Espaillat’s wishes. State Democrats have also steered a good chunk of change Dais’s way, and he has a healthy financial advantage—but Espaillat’s candidates have ousted incumbents and beaten better-funded opponents before, so there’s always the chance it happens again.

AD-82 (Throggs Neck, Pelham, and Co-Op City, Bronx)

Michael Benedetto (i) vs. Jonathan Soto

Result (>95% in): Benedetto 62.1%, Soto 37.7% | Benedetto wins

This corner of the Bronx may be tired of voting in high-stakes battles for the soul of the Democratic Party. Parts of it have hosted AOC’s first election, one of the 2018 IDC primaries, Jamaal Bowman’s first election versus Eliot Engel, and now Jamaal Bowman’s challenge from George Latimer. Jonathan Soto is giving voters here yet another chance to change the course of Democratic politics in New York.

Soto ran against incumbent Michael Benedetto in 2022, losing the Democratic primary by a respectable 56%-36% margin with the support of WFP and AOC, who is still the local congresswoman. Soto won the precincts along the district’s heavily Latino western border, but faltered in Co-op City and got crushed in its whiter, Trumpier waterfront neighborhoods to the east. Benedetto didn’t take Soto particularly seriously in 2022, and he doesn’t seem to be taking him that much more seriously now, though the universe of centrist dark money PACs is treating Soto as a threat. There’s reason to think things will be different from 2022, too: in 2022, turnout was poor, and the state had a bifurcated primary due to a court-ordered redistricting—primaries for statewide offices and the Assembly were held in June, while primaries for Congress and state Senate were held later in August under court-drawn maps. In 2024, all non-presidential primaries are being held at once, and Soto is sharing the ballot with AOC and Bowman, who both have contested primaries of their own. Additionally—and we really buried the lede here—Soto is backed by NYC-DSA and its volunteer army this time around. DSA canvassers have fanned out across the Bronx for Soto, and on the doors those canvassers can now make the association between Soto and the applicable DSA-endorsed congressional incumbent—Bowman in Co-op City and AOC everywhere else. Bowman won Co-op City by nearly 30 points against Eliot Engel and is counting on a much larger margin this time, and AOC won her portion of AD-82 in her last primary (also in 2020) by an even wider margin.

As for the candidates themselves, Benedetto is an endangered species: a white Democrat in the Bronx. Well, white Democrats still exist in the Bronx, but they’re not numerous and concentrated enough for white candidates to routinely win Democratic primaries anymore outside of the very whitest districts, and Benedetto, who was first elected in 2005, is an artifact of an era when this part of the Bronx was a lot whiter. He also reflects the generally conservative politics of those white voters—there’s a strip of Trump precincts along the Bronx side of the Long Island Sound, and that’s where Benedetto did best in 2022. (Soto has, coincidentally, been attacking Benedetto for previously accepting donations from Trump, back when he was just a clownish racist real estate developer and not an aspiring fascist strongman.) Soto is a public school parent-activist who has been fighting mayoral control of NYC public schools for years, and he also organized for AOC’s campaign in 2018. Getting Jonathan Soto in office would transform the politics of the Bronx, and tonight we’ll find out whether Bronx voters are in a transformative mood.

AD-84 (Mott Haven, Hunts Point, and Highbridge, Bronx)

Amanda Septimo (i) vs. Hector Feliciano

Result (>95% in): Septimo 72.7%%, Feliciano 26.3% | Septimo wins

Amanda Septimo made it into office after the incumbent was disqualified from the ballot in 2020, but she held on to her seat in 2022 with just shy of 50% of the vote against two challengers, attorney Alberto Torres and Democratic District Leader Hector Feliciano. Though Septimo is continually delinquent on her campaign finance reports, she’s favored to get a third term in a one-on-one rematch with Feliciano, whose campaign barely seems to exist. Septimo is a consistent progressive vote who has always run on the Working Families Party’s ballot line, which she will once again have in this year’s general election regardless of tonight’s outcome.

AD-92 (Greenburgh and Mount Pleasant, Westchester County)

MaryJane Shimsky (i) vs. Thomas Abinanti

Result (>95% in): Shimsky 59.7%, Abinati 40.1% | Shimsky wins

MaryJane Shimsky, a low-key liberal legislator, unseated anti-vax centrist Thomas Abinanti in 2022 by a 9-point margin, backed by the Working Families Party and some of her friends in Westchester County politics. Abinanti, who was pretty high up in seniority before his ouster, isn’t ready to retire yet, and he’s leveraging his many connections for a comeback run, which we hope goes as well as his last election. He’s raised and spent a considerable amount, and he’s hoping to exploit a hyper-local wedge issue: the wealthy unincorporated village of Edgemont has been trying to incorporate for years, but the Town of Greenburgh, which contains Edgemont, vociferously opposes Edgemont’s incorporation because it would be damaging to Greenburgh’s finances. A piece of legislation Shimsky recently sponsored would make it harder for wealthy villages like Edgemont to break away from their larger towns—but the law contained an exemption for villages like Edgemont that are already considering incorporation, inserted by state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who represents the area in the state Senate, and Edgemont’s Assemblymember Amy Paulin. (Edgemont is located within Greenburgh’s southeastern corner; this district takes in all of Greenburgh except for Edgemont.) Shimsky publicly opposes Edgemont’s incorporation, but Abinanti and his backers blame Shimsky for the Edgemont exemption.

AD-103 (Kingston area, Hudson Valley)

Sarahana Shrestha (i) vs. Gabi Madden

Result (>95% in): Shrestha 66.3%, Madden 33.7% | Shrestha wins

The election of climate organizer Sarahana Shrestha was the New York left’s biggest victory in 2022. Yes, Kristen Gonzalez’s victory in SD-59 was pretty consequential too, but the state Senate isn’t the conservative obstruction it once was—the state Assembly plays that role now, and Shrestha knocked out a leading opponent of one of the left’s legislative priorities. Assemb. Kevin Cahill was a key opponent of the Build Public Renewables Act, which set up a state agency to build out publicly-owned renewable energy generating capacity; the BPRA is not unreasonably compared to a state-level Green New Deal, or at least the beginnings of one. (Shrestha is also symbolically significant as the first DSA-affiliated New York state legislator elected outside of New York City; while Kingston and New Paltz are quite left-leaning themselves, they’re not New York City, and much of this district is rural.)

After Shrestha narrowly unseated Cahill, New York Assembly Democrats conceded defeat and included a version of the BPRA in the next state budget, and as the administration of Gov. Kathy Hochul has dragged its feet on implementing the BPRA’s transformative objectives, Shrestha has become a dogged advocate for greater oversight and frequent public reports by the New York Power Authority, the agency selected to build out New York’s public renewables. She’s also been pushing for a bolder vision of public power—rather than stopping at a public option for renewable development, she’s taken the fight straight to her district’s beleaguered utility monopoly, joining with the area’s state senator to introduce a bill which would force a state takeover of Central Hudson. Central Hudson is one of New York’s smaller utility companies, and just this past Thursday the company agreed to eat a $65 million fine for billing mishaps that led to thousands of customers being overcharged. (The company is, however, confident enough in its new billing system to resume shutoffs for unpaid bills.) Suffice it to say that Sarahana Shrestha has made a lot of powerful people mad, and they’re trying to get back at her for it. Gabi Madden is a staffer for state Sen. James Skoufis who formerly worked as Cahill’s chief of staff, and she’s outraised and outspent Shrestha while running on a boilerplate centrist platform (with an entire page of word salad about Central Hudson.) Many of the outside groups helping Benedetto, Zinerman, and other moderate candidates are also helping Madden. Her basic problem is that Cahill had most of the advantages she does, and he still lost to Shrestha with the power of incumbency on his side.

AD-106 (Rural eastern Hudson Valley and Poughkeepsie suburbs)

Didi Barrett (i) vs. Claire Cousin

Result (>95% in): Barrett 57.1%, Couson 42.9% | Barrett wins

Sarahana Shrestha’s win demonstrated that progressive and even socialist candidates could win in the Hudson Valley. In the district next door, progressives are trying to follow in her footsteps and upset another incumbent. While DSA isn’t involved in this race, another progressive who wants to join the Assembly’s growing left-wing bloc of loyal DSA and WFP members is running, Claire Cousin. Cousin is in her second term on the Columbia County Board of Supervisors, representing a piece of the small town of Hudson, and she was recruited by the Working Families Party to challenge Assemb. Didi Barrett. For The Many, a local progressive group that ran a field program in support of Shrestha’s successful 2022 campaign, is also backing Cousin. This district is a bit of a tougher lift than Shrestha’s: while AD-103 is based in the Hudson Valley’s most eccentric and left-leaning towns, including the city of Kingston, the college town of New Paltz, and the artists’ colony of Woodstock (the namesake, though not the location, of the famed music festival), most of AD-106 lives in the suburbs of Poughkeepsie. Granted, the town of Poughkeepsie (which is in the district and not to be confused with the city of Poughkeepsie, which is not in the district) is home to Vassar College and Marist College, but that would be a lot more helpful to Cousin if classes were still in session. (On the other hand, Shrestha swamped Cahill in Kingston’s Black and Latino neighborhoods, and AD-106 is less white—and more Black and Latino—than AD-103; additionally, Cousin is the first Black woman elected to the Columbia County Board of Supervisors, while Barrett, like Cahill, is white.)

Cousin is seeking to define the race on her own terms—while she’s running to add another vote to the progressive bloc, and doesn’t shy away from that, she has Barrett on the defensive for specific legislative actions she’s taken. Environmentalists and climate activists were furious when Barrett, in coordination with Gov. Kathy Hochul, proposed a slate of changes to the 2023 state budget which would have gutted the state’s landmark climate law and allowed far greater emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, by measuring methane’s warming impact on a 100-year timescale instead of a 20-year one. (After progressives and environmentalists balked, Hochul thankfully backed down.) Barrett’s repeated votes against extending pandemic eviction moratoriums drew protesters to her office. Her continued lack of support for the NY HEAT Act, which would end subsidies for gas hookups and cap utility bills for low-income New Yorkers, led some environmental advocates to launch an ad campaign opposing Barrett, independent of Cousin’s campaign. The coalition of centrist groups which assembled to fight DSA primaries is treating this race like one of them, too: Solidarity PAC has sent more than $40,000 Barrett’s way, and New York Women Lead has spent $22,000 on phonebanking for Barrett. Barrett probably wishes she was getting even more help, because Cousin has brought in more in public matching funds than all but five legislative candidates in the entire state, allowing her to blanket the district with mailers and digital ads. (It’s harder to tell what Barrett is spending her money on, because she’s routing nearly every expense through a consulting firm, Hamilton Campaign Network, run by Luis Miranda, the father of Lin-Manuel and a New York Democratic power player in his own right.)

AD-109 (Albany and suburbs)

Owusu Anane vs. Ginnie Farrell vs. Jack Flynn vs. Andrew Joyce vs. Dustin Reidy vs. Gabriella Romero

Result (>95% in): Romero 29.7%, Farrell 21.1%, Reidy 17.0%, Anane 14.3%, Joyce 9.0%, Flynn 8.0% | Romero wins

This race is a crowded affair. All six candidates hold elected office: Owusu Anane, Gabriella Romero, Ginnie Farrell, and Jack Flynn are members of the Albany Common Council, and Andrew Joyce and Dustin Reidy are Albany County Legislators. Anane distinguishes himself by supporting conservative DA David Soares for reelection, and Farrell has the support of outgoing Assemb. Pat Fahy, who is running for state Senate, as well as Albany’s local paper, the Times-Union. However, the top two candidates in terms of both endorsements and financial capacity appear to be Romero and Reidy. Reidy, who has the bulk of organized labor backing him along with a good chunk of the local establishment, has served as a Democratic campaign staffer and volunteer for years, most recently as the campaign manager for area Rep. Paul Tonko, and is running mostly on being a generic Democrat. Romero, a public defender, stands out from the field as a progressive: originally elected to the Albany Common Council with the support of her local DSA chapter, Romero carries the WFP endorsement and supports policies like tuition-free public college and tenants’ right to counsel.

AD-137 (Rochester and suburbs)

Demond Meeks (i) vs. Willie Lightfoot

Result (>95% in): Meeks 66.4%, Lightfoot 33.5% | Meeks wins

Like their counterparts in many Northern cities, Rochester Democrats have a decaying party machine helmed by a centrist old guard that increasingly struggles to win primary elections. In 2020, the Monroe County Democratic Committee picked a fight with progressive Assemb. Harry Bronson while simultaneously trying to win a pair of open Assembly seats and lost all three races. Four years later, they’ve narrowed their approach, targeting just one legislative race: Assembly District 137, where progressive Demond Meeks beat them four years ago. Meeks won his 2020 primary against the Monroe County Democratic Committee’s endorsed candidate by a comfortable 44%-33% margin, but Rochester City Councilman Willie Lightfoot is hoping he can turn that around in a one-on-one race. Lightfoot, whose main focus is crime (and undoing or weakening the state’s landmark 2020 bail reforms, which ended cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent offenses), will have to overcome Meeks’s incumbency and his financial advantage if he wants to compete.

Albany County DA

David Soares (i) vs. Lee Kindlon

Official Result: Kindlon 54.8%, Soares 44.6% | Kindlon wins

Albany County DA David Soares has always been a tough-on-crime type in a way that sets him apart from his fellow Democrats in law enforcement, but it’s something other than his obnoxious conservatism and opposition to criminal justice reform that finally crossed a line for many mainstream Democratic elected officials in the Albany area. Local TV station CBS6 discovered that Soares used state grants to boost his salary for years—state grants that were meant for junior prosecutors and long-tenured county employees. Local media seized on the scandal, and so did local Democrats; Assemb. Phil Steck called for Soares’s resignation, and the Albany County Democratic Committee pulled its endorsement. Soares eventually returned $23,000 to the state, but the damage was done. Defense attorney Lee Kindlon, who ran unsuccessfully against Soares in 2012, jumped into the race and began collecting endorsements: WFP, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, County Executive Dan McCoy, ¾ of Albany County’s Democratic state legislators, and the leading local newspaper, the Times-Union. Kindlon supports and promises to actually implement all of the criminal justice reforms Soares opposes and obstructs: the state’s bail reforms, which eliminated the practice of jailing people before trial based on their ability to pay; discovery reforms, which require prosecutors to share more evidence with defense attorneys to ensure a fair trial; and a new law called Raise the Age, which raised the age at which defendants can be charged as adults for serious felonies from 16 to 18. Soares is especially animated by Raise the Age; apparently, the only way to prevent Albany County from eventually slipping into The Purge is giving David Soares the ability to charge high school sophomores as adults.

Westchester County DA

Susan Cacace vs. William Wagstaff III

Result (>95% in): Cacace 60.5%, Wagstaff 30.1% | Cacace wins

Mimi Rocah went through all the trouble of ousting an incumbent DA in 2020, only to retire after a single term, meaning the suburban county of 1 million is going to choose a new DA yet again. We hope that choice winds up being civil rights attorney William Wagstaff III, who would be the first Black DA of the county and, despite not really identifying himself as a progressive prosecutor, is skeptical of “the traditional path of incarcerating people regardless of the underlying drivers of crime”. He has the support of various politicians and organizations associated with New York's recent successful criminal justice reform efforts. The county party, outgoing DA, and police unions, by contrast, all agree on Susan Cacace, a former prosecutor running as a continuity candidate with Rocah’s administration. Cacace might be worse than Rocah—her ties to Republicans are a red flag that Rocah, who ousted an especially atrocious incumbent, never had—but she remains the favorite.

VA-10 (Loudoun County, DC exurbs and rural outskirts)

Jennifer Boysko vs. Marion Devoe vs. Eileen Filler-Corn vs. Dan Helmer vs. Krystle Kaul vs. Mark Leighton vs. Michelle Maldonado vs. Travis Nembhard vs. Adrian Pokharel vs. Atif Qarni vs. David Reid vs. Suhas Subramanyam

Result (>95% in): Subramanyam 30.4%, Helmer 26.7%, Qarni 10.6%, Filler-Corn 9.3%, Boysko 9.1%, Reid 3.2%, Maldonado 3.2%, Pokharel 2.3%, Kaul 2.2%, Nembhard 1.6%, Devoe 0.9%, Leighton 0.5% | Subramanyam wins

This is a very crowded field of candidates, but as per usual, a few have risen to the top while the rest have fallen behind. The three candidates with the best chance tonight are Del. Dan Helmer, a Washington Post-endorsed centrist military veteran whose prior run for this seat is responsible for the memorably awful “You’ve Lost That Centrist Feeling” ad; former state House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, a lobbyist who was deposed as the leader of the Democratic caucus a few months after Democrats lost their majority in 2021; and state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam, the endorsed candidate of outgoing Rep. Jennifer Wexton and the only one of the top three who is a basically normal Democrat. This has become a very expensive race, and all of the top three have benefited from significant PAC expenditures; Filler-Corn and (at the last minute) Helmer have been the targets of negative PAC spending, while Subramanyam has escaped negative attacks because anything negative that could be said about him could also be said about most of his Democratic legislative colleagues, including Helmer, Filler-Corn, and three of the other candidates in this race (state Sen. Jennifer Boysko and Dels. Michelle Maldonado and David Reid.)

The biggest beneficiary of outside spending by far has been Helmer, who has seen millions in ad support and mailers from the cryptocurrency PAC Protect Progress and the centrist veterans’ PACs VoteVets and With Honor Fund II; he’s only seen negative PAC spending in the closing days, with a $5K digital ad buy highlighting an allegation that Helmer groped a woman. (A number of prominent Loudoun County Democratic activists have vouched for the unnamed accuser and confirmed that they knew of this allegation before Helmer launched his congressional campaign.) Filler-Corn has seen a more balanced mix of positive and negative spending, with Democratic Majority for Israel and a new PAC called Virginians United for Progress spending a mid-six-figures total sum to promote her on the air and on the web while a PAC funded primarily by liberal Virginia megadonor Sonjia Smith has hammered Filler-Corn with negative digital ads and mailers, with a modest assist from the Working Families Party in the form of more negative digital ads. Subramanyam has benefited from a high-six-figures campaign of ads and mailers, especially mailers, from the Indian American Impact Fund, which seeks to elect South Asian Americans to public office. Boysko has benefited from a last-minute mid-five-figure push from Repro Rising Virginia, but that’s likely not enough to break into the top tier of this race, much less win it.

As we referenced above and in our last regular issue, the race has been rocked in its final days by an allegation of groping against Helmer; allegedly, at a 2018 event, Helmer groped a woman, and the incident led to the Loudoun County Democratic Committee instituting its first-ever sexual misconduct policy. Helmer is calling it a hit job, but his opponents and some local officials are deeply concerned, with some calling for him to drop out. (He has refused.)

VA-11 (Fairfax County)

Gerry Connolly (i) vs. Ahsan Nasar

Result (>95% in): Connolly 85.8%, Nasar 14.2% | Connolly wins

Former federal prosecutor Ahsan Nasar may get a lot of protest votes for his stance and focus on Gaza (he has been calling for an immediate ceasefire), owing to this district’s substantial Muslim population, but Rep. Gerry Connolly is not in much danger of actually losing. One, because Nasar’s campaign doesn’t have much money; two, because Connolly doesn’t seem to be sleeping on this race. Connolly’s susceptibility to Gaza-based protest votes may also be blunted by the fact that he signed on to a letter along with 87 other House Democrats calling on the White House to suspend military aid to Israel. Nasar also gives off some conservative vibes with his background focus on crime in Fairfax County, which has a drastically lower violent crime rate than the nation as a whole.

Georgia

As we often do with runoffs, we give you the context of what we originally said in Round 1, then add anything major that’s changed. (Little has changed in the Georgia runoffs we’re tracking.)

SD-34 (South Atlanta metro, Clayton County)

Valencia Stovall vs. Kenya Wicks

Round 1: Stovall 44.2% - Wicks 15.2%

Result (>95% in): Wicks 65.8%, Stovall 34.2% | Wicks wins

This race is likely headed to a runoff between Valencia Stovall, a former state representative who left the Democratic Party in 2020, and Kenya Wicks, an Army veteran and local Democratic activist backed by retiring state Sen. Valencia Seay. Army veteran Herman “Drew” Andrews is the only other candidate who even managed to raise and spend over $1,000. Both Stovall and Wicks stick to generalities on policy for the most part, but Wicks is more detailed, clearly opposing Republican efforts to restrict abortion and remove sex ed from schools.

Stovall is a clear favorite in the runoff owing to how close to 50% she finished (and how far behind Kenya Wicks was.)

SD-38 (Long strip from South Fulton to Sandy Springs)

Rashaun Kemp vs. Ralph Long III

Round 1: Kemp 24.3% - Long 22.9%

Result (>95% in): Kemp 59.7%, Long 40.3% | Kemp wins

This race seems to have a frontrunner in Rashaun Kemp—who is a professional charter school advocate, which is an automatic “no” from us. Kemp leads the field in fundraising and has a number of valuable endorsements; there will likely be a runoff, and Kemp will very likely be in it. CPA Richard Wright, Atlanta City Council staffer Darryl “DJ” Terry II, and serial political staffer Nate Green probably won’t make the runoff, but that leaves two more potential runoff candidates. Former state Rep. Ralph Long III has the backing of some of his former colleagues and the Georgia Federation of Public Service Employees, while attorney Nkoyo Effiong Lewis is the only woman in the race. Both stress standard Democratic priorities, but Long gets extra credit from us for clearly spelling out his opposition to school vouchers.

In the runoff, Georgia’s Democratic establishment seems truly split between Long and Kemp, who now both oppose vouchers—but Kemp only opposes “unfair voucher bills” for “families who can already afford a private education for their children,” while Long simply wants to “defend public education from vouchers and other privatization efforts.” The simpler answer is the better one.

SD-55 (Eastern Atlanta metro)

Randal Mangham vs. Iris Hamilton

Round 1: Mangham 31.2% - Hamilton 22.6%

Result (>95% in): Mangham 54.2%, Hamilton 45.8% | Mangham wins

Former Obama campaign staffer Robin Biro has the inside track for retiring state Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler’s seat, but he’s probably headed to a runoff with one of his two top opponents. Former state Rep. Randal Mangham, who is running to “fight for property value protections,” is backed by some former colleagues, while self-funding healthcare executive and former nurse Iris Hamilton is supported by progressive state Sen. Nabilah Islam; that’s more than enough for us to hope Hamilton and not Mangham advances to a runoff with Biro. Verdaillia Turner hasn’t filed any campaign finance reports or touted any big endorsements, as far as we can tell—which is surprising, because she’s the president of the Georgia Federation of Teachers.

Well, Robin Biro missed the runoff somehow, so now we have to root for Hamilton to defeat Mangham. Luckily, Hamilton was quickly endorsed by Gloria Butler as her successor once runoff results came in.

HD-96 (Northeast Atlanta suburbs)

Arlene Beckles vs. Sonia López

Round 1: Beckles 39.2% - López 30.5%

Result (>95% in): Beckles 65.2%, López 34.8% | Beckles wins

Pedro Martinez is retiring after more than two decades in the house, leaving one of the most diverse districts in the state up for grabs. Norcross City Councilmember Arlene Beckles is a small favorite, and she hasn’t given us much information to go off of, but we have a general suspicion of suburban local politicians, especially ones who talk about their time on something called the “Norcross Police Appreciation Committee”. Neva Thompson is running a low budget campaign, leaning in on her opposition to school vouchers, which is fine by us, and Sonia López is a former Norcross City Council candidate who does not seem to have gone to the effort of putting together an actual campaign the second time.

Maybe Sonia López can surprise us again after unexpectedly making a runoff with Arlene Beckles. Who knows.

DeKalb County CEO

Lorraine Cochran-Johnson vs. Larry Johnson

Round 1: Cochran-Johnson 46.3%, Johnson 34.3%

Result (>95% in): Cochran-Johnson 60.0%, Johnson 40.0% | Cochran-Johnson wins

Three DeKalb County Commissioners are fighting for the top job in county government, which is annoyingly named CEO as if DeKalb County is a business. Lorraine Cochran-Johnson has a few advantages: she’s the only woman in the race, she represents half of the county (her opponents each represent 20% of it), and she’s the least averse to making specific policy commitments. Steve Bradshaw and Larry Johnson are engaged in a platitude-off that doesn’t give us much to work with, though Johnson is at least supportive of rail transit expansion. (Cochran-Johnson also specifically highlights mass transit as a priority.) According to Atlanta DSA, Cochran-Johnson also has the best working relationship with metro Atlanta’s left-wing activists, even if her platform is pretty standard liberal fare.

According to a recent poll, Cochran-Johnson has maintained a healthy lead over Johnson in the runoff; the candidates have disagreed most sharply on whether to raise water rates to pay for infrastructure upgrades in light of DeKalb’s aging water infrastructure and Atlanta’s water crisis. (Cochran-Johnson says yes, Johnson wants to explore other options first without saying what those are.)

Oklahoma

SD-11 (Tulsa)

Regina Goodwin vs. Joe Williams

Result (>95% in): Goodwin 83.7%, Williams 16.3% | Goodwin wins

According to the nonprofit Oklahoma news outlet NonDoc, former Tulsa City Councilman Joe Williams “does not have a campaign website or social media page, but said he has been sending potential voters a two-minute video outlining his priorities.” However, he has been paying for yard signs, business cards, and canvassers; his is just a low-tech campaign. State Rep. Regina Goodwin has outraised him more than 5 to 1 and outspent him more than 3 to 1, but she also does not appear to have a website. Goodwin, a five-term state representative and the descendant of survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, does have the endorsements of the Tulsa World and the Black Wall Street Times. Both laud her experience in the state capitol and her long record of advocating for the descendants of the survivors of the 1921 white supremacist terror attack, which leveled the neighborhood of Greenwood, at the time known as “Black Wall Street,” and left dozens of Black Tulsans dead. She has fought for reparations when she’s not busy proposing legislation to protect the rights of renters and voting against the latest horrid far-right policy passed by the state’s GOP supermajorities, and she seems like she’ll make a fine member of an otherwise horrendous legislative body.

HD-72 (Tulsa)

Adam Martin vs. Michelle McCane

Result (>95% in): McCane 72.6%, Martin 27.4% | McCane wins

Adam Martin, a local businessman who ran for Congress last cycle, doesn’t send up any red flags and has every indication of being a reliable Democrat. However, school librarian and teachers union rep Michelle McCane has a more inspiring message and record of activism, including testifying against Oklahoma’s cruel, draconian anti-LGBTQ forced outing policy, pushed by far-right state Superintendent Ryan Walters.

HD-73 (Tulsa)

Darrell Knox vs. Ron Stewart

Result (>95% in): Stewart 52.8%, Knox 47.2% | Stewart wins

Tulsa’s other open house seat is also a contest between two qualified candidates, and a contest where one of them has just acquitted themselves better in small but clear ways. Firefighter Ron Stewart, who is endorsed by the AFL-CIO, talks about issues, such as overincareration and the Medicaid gap, in specific terms, while cafe owner Darrell Knox’s issue’s page is so vague and noncommittal that we’d be willing to believe that either a high school freshman or Chat-GPT wrote it.

HD-88 (Downtown Oklahoma City)

Nicole Maldonado vs. Ellen Pogemiller vs. Paula Sophia

Result (>95% in): Pogemiller 53.6%, Maldonado 30.8%, Sophia 15.7% | Pogemiller wins

Mauree Turner, Oklahoma’s first ever nonbinary legislator, was elected in 2020, defeating an incumbent and setting up a real political future for themselves. Unfortunately, they had to retire this year, owing to health concerns, which opened up their district. Nicole Maldonado, an aide to Rep. Turner, wants to carry on Turner’s work of forcefully opposing the GOP supermajorities’ attacks on LGBTQ Oklahomans and defending the state’s beleaguered public schools from far-right state Superintendent Ryan Walters; so do local PTA mom and former food bank worker Ellen Pogemiller and former OKC police officer Paula Sophia. Sophia, who is trans, would be the first trans or nonbinary state legislator to succeed a trans or nonbinary incumbent. She has previously run for the state House, barely losing in a 2014 runoff to fellow Democrat Jason Dunnington, who held the seat until Turner defeated him in 2020. If no candidate wins a majority, the top two will advance to an August runoff.

HD-99 (Oklahoma City suburbs)

Ajay Pittman (i) vs. Brittane Grant

Brittane’ Grant may be about to set a precedent, but not in the way she hoped. The Chamber of Commerce executive and business consultant is the subject of a genuinely novel legal battle in Oklahoma: does a felony conviction which has been expunged from a potential candidate’s legal record prevent that felony from running for office? In 2016, Brittane was convicted of a felony for false representation when applying for food stamps, which she then had expunged at some point. The State Election Board allowed Grant to make the ballot, and incumbent Ajay Pittman sued. Evidently, the question of whether Grant should have been allowed to run will be settled after the votes are actually counted.

It’s an ironic twist that Pittman is pursuing this line of attack considering that she was also convicted of a crime in 2016, but her legal transgression—shoplifting $28 of makeup—only rose to the level of a misdemeanor citation, not a felony, meaning it can’t keep her off the ballot. Pittman has always been in trouble electorally—she barely won in 2018 and 2020 and now this year she’s running under the cloud of an ethics investigation that just wrapped up with her paying $35,000 to settle up the charge of using close to $18,000 of her campaign funds for personal use.

Grant, if she’s allowed to run, is a real, serious candidate, but if she doesn’t even come without the benefit of not being ethically challenged, we can’t imagine how a Chamber of Commerce candidate could be an improvement on Pittman, herself a moderate.

AZ-03

• $60K in canvassing and $3,500 in texting supporting Raquel Terán from the Working Families Party

• $65K in digital ads supporting Raquel Terán from Medicare for All (Pramila Jayapal’s PAC)

• $100K in digital ads supporting Raquel Terán from the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC

• $39K in mailers supporting Yassamin Ansari from the Save America Fund

MN-05

• $1,628 in literature and $30K in canvassing supporting Ilhan Omar from TakeAction MN

MO-01

• $10K in digital ads supporting Cori Bush from the Working Families Party

• $1.03M in advertising supporting Wesley Bell from United Democracy Project (AIPAC). The ad focuses on Bell’s record as a prosecutor and argues that he’s a progressive reformer who could be trusted to act the same way in Congress.

NY-10

• $140K in ads supporting Dan Goldman from Protect Progress

NY-16

• $3.97M in TV ads, $545K in mailers, and $46K in phone banking opposing Jamaal Bowman from United Democracy Project (AIPAC). One of the new ads features the son of the late Elie Weisel accusing Jamaal Bowman of antisemitism, and telling voters to stand up to his antisemitism by voting for George Latimer. Total spending so far by UDP: $11.4M.

• $708K in TV and digital ads and $111K in mailers supporting George Latimer from Democratic Majority for Israel. The TV version of this ad begins with Latimer’s record of cutting taxes before saying he’ll get results on Democratic priorities in Congress, and the digital-only version focuses on a single bill he signed protecting abortion clinics

• $2.07M in TV ads opposing Jamaal Bowman from Fairshake, a cryptocurrency PAC. The ads do not mention cryptocurrency, but instead focus on Bowman’s dabbling in conspiracy theories.

• $351K in TV ads and $55K in digital ads opposing George Latimer from the Working Families Party. One ad focuses on Republican and lobbyist support for Latimer, and another does much the same, but includes a clip of Latimer saying he’s “not worried about who gives me donations”. Total spending so far by WFP: $569K

• $220K in digital ads and $40K in mailers opposing George Latimer from Justice Democrats PAC. The digital ads appear to be a joint effort with WFP.

• $235K in ads supporting Jamaal Bowman from Courage to Change PAC (AOC’s leadership PAC). The ad highlights Bowman’s accomplishments and mentions he is endorsed by AOC.

• $90K in TV ads opposing George Latimer from Emgage

• $1,500 in phonebanking supporting Jamaal Bowman from Emgage

• $33K in mailers and $2,800 in texting supporting Jamaal Bowman from the Working Families Party

• $27K in lodging for canvassers supporting Jamaal Bowman from Progressive Victory PAC

VA-10

• $171K in mailers and $1.2M in ads supporting Dan Helmer from Protect Progress; the ads all open with Helmer’s Washington Post endorsement and promote his military background

• $350K in TV ads and $100K in digital ads supporting Dan Helmer from VoteVets; unsurprisingly, VoteVets’s ads also promote Helmer’s military background (and the Post endorsement, too)

• $130K in digital ads and $266K in mailers supporting Suhas Subramanyam from The Impact Fund

• $82K in mailers supporting Dan Helmer from With Honor Fund II

• $5K in digital ads opposing Dan Helmer from Virginians Against Sexual Assault PAC

• $55K in digital ads and $73K in mailers opposing Eileen Filler-Corn from Virginia Democratic Action PAC, which has so far been funded primarily by Clean Virginia funder and liberal megadonor Sonjia Smith

• $30K in digital ads supporting Eileen Filler-Corn from Virginians United for Progress

• $30K in digital ads opposing Eileen Filler-Corn from the Working Families Party

• $28.5K in TV ads supporting Eileen Filler-Corn from Democratic Majority for Israel

• $25K in digital ads supporting Jennifer Boysko from Repro Rising Virginia PAC

NY & VA Pre-Primary FEC Reports

Results

In DC, progressive, DSA-affiliated Councilwoman Janeese Lewis George cruised to the Democratic nomination for a second term, defeating Washington Post-backed, Muriel Bowser-aligned challenger Lisa Gore in Mayor Bowser’s own Ward 4. In New Mexico, progressives seeking revenge for the state House’s narrow defeat of a paid family medical leave program got three of their targets, with challengers Jon Hill, Michelle “Paulene” Abeyta, and Anita Gonzales defeating state Reps. Willie Madrid, Harry Garcia, and Ambrose Castellano, respectively. State Sens. Bill O’Neill and Daniel Ivey-Soto also lost renomination to more progressive challengers Debbie O’Malley and Heather Berghmans, though Ivey-Soto’s landslide defeat was clearly the result of sexual misconduct allegations made by numerous women, including one of Ivey-Soto’s own state Senate colleagues. In open races in both chambers of the legislature, progressives also fared well; the next New Mexico legislature should be far friendlier to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s priorities and perhaps to even bolder policy proposals like the Green Amendment. In New Jersey, the machine largely held, and saved Rep. Rob Menendez from a strong challenge by Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla—but Menendez’s atrocious performance in Jersey City should concern party bosses hoping to elect machine loyalists in the city’s nonpartisan municipal elections next year. In Maine, one of the state’s last anti-abortion Democrats, state Rep. Bruce White, lost by double digits to Planned Parenthood-backed challenger Cassie Julia. And finally, in Nevada, the battle between the powerful Culinary union and their usual allies the Nevada Democrats ended in a draw, as Culinary’s candidates—including member and leader Linda Hunt, a longtime food server and union shop steward at a Las Vegas casino—won a pair of Assembly races while Nevada Democrats’ preferred candidates won the four state Senate races where Culinary picked an opposing candidate, including SD-03, where state Sen. Rochelle Nguyen fended off Culinary-recruited priority candidate Geoconda Hughes.

News

DE-AL

There’s one less contested House primary to watch this year. State Sen. Sarah McBride was already a strong favorite to take Delaware’s lone House seat, but after state Housing Secretary Eugene Young Jr. suspended his campaign, the path is completely cleared for McBride. After Young’s withdrawal, McBride was endorsed by Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, Delaware’s likely next senator; in the very likely event that McBride wins the general election, she will become the first openly transgender member of Congress.

FL-HD-14

Jacksonville state Rep. Kim Daniels is one of the Democratic Party’s worst elected officials at any level. An evangelist by trade, she bills herself as an exorcist and “demonbuster.” She has pushed for Bible study in public schools; she has purported to exorcise gay people of their demons; she is lukewarm at best on abortion rights; she has said the deadly hurricanes which regularly strike Florida are divine retribution; she is an ethical mess; she has said “Jews own everything.” She’s actually been primaried out once before already; in 2020, union organizer and Bernie Sanders alum Angie Nixon unseated Daniels, beating her 60%-40%. Unfortunately, redistricting gave Daniels another chance in 2022, and she won an open seat with 48% of the primary vote. In 2024, she’ll thankfully face a primary again, and it might be harder than her last two due to a quirk of Florida election law. In Florida, if all candidates for a given office are of the same party, that party’s primary for that office is opened to voters of all parties, but once a candidate of any other party files, only voters registered with a party may vote in that party’s primary. In Daniels’ last two primaries, no other candidates filed, allowing Republicans and independents to vote in the primary (presumably for Daniels, the conservative candidate); this time around, independent write-in candidate Briana Hughes has filed for the November general election, which closes the August Democratic primary and means that Daniels will have to convince an all-Democratic electorate to choose her over pastor Lloyd Caulker or retired teacher turned entrepreneur Theresa Wakefield-Gamble.

Jersey City Mayor and Council

In Jersey City, the 2024 primary showed a machine out of touch with its constituents. While Rep. Rob Menendez won by about 15 percentage points districtwide, he lost Jersey City by a painful 61%-30% margin, and he even lost outside of the normal progressive hub of downtown Jersey City. In particular, Menendez decisively lost the normally machine-friendly Jersey City Heights, contained within Ward D on the city council; Ward D voted for Ravi Bhalla by more than 20 points, and had a higher-than-average share of its voters vote Uncommitted in the presidential primary. In 2025, North Jersey DSA is looking to capitalize on the machine’s weakness, which they already demonstrated four years ago by coming close to winning Ward B’s council seat. Union organizer Jake Ephros announced for Ward D with the DSA chapter’s support shortly after the primary, and he’ll likely be challenging incumbent Councilman Yousef Saleh. (Saleh quietly supported Menendez this year.)

Menendez’s weakness in Jersey City—and Joe Biden’s, for that matter—are a warning sign for the Hudson County Democratic Organization’s chosen mayoral candidate, former Gov. Jim McGreevey. (Yes, the one who left office in disgrace amidst a gay sex scandal.) McGreevey—or someone aligned with him, as it’s unclear who paid—is out with a poll attempting to project strength, but look under the hood and you notice McGreevey is actually in quite a poor position. The former governor sits at 32% of the vote, well ahead of Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea (19%), Ward E Councilman James Solomon (16%), Council President Joyce Watterman (9%), At-Large Councilman Daniel Rivera (8%), and Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker (7%), which is a strong lead…but Jersey City has runoffs, and McGreevey has a measly 29%-26% favorable/unfavorable split, which makes him better known and less liked than the competition. Additionally, of the candidates polled (the poll left out former Jersey City Board of Education president Mussab Ali, another declared candidate) only O’Dea and Watterman have actually announced campaigns (though Solomon is seen by many as a likely candidate.)

MI-13

The Detroit political class’s dissatisfaction with Rep. Shri Thanedar runs deep. That’s the only possible takeaway from the way so many Detroit politicians endorsed At-Large Councilwoman Mary Waters shortly after their first pick, former state Sen. Adam Hollier, was disqualified from the ballot. Waters, a progressive with a spotty ethical record who has put a ceasefire in Gaza front and center in her congressional campaign, couldn’t be more different from Hollier, a polished moderate who was supported heavily by AIPAC in his 2022 bid for this seat. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan endorsed Waters’s congressional campaign shortly after Hollier’s disqualification, and brought along a majority of Detroit’s city council as well as a handful of state legislators to show support at his endorsement press conference. Waters and Duggan have historically butted heads, meaning Duggan views ousting Thanedar as more important than settling scores in municipal politics. Support for Waters also remains strong in the Muslim-majority city of Hamtramck, where there is anger with Thanedar’s support for Israel, and Hamtramck city officials allege that Thanedar pulled a pair of promised infrastructure grants from the city in retaliation for Mayor Amer Ghalib’s endorsement of Waters.

NJ-Gov

In a move that mostly prompted bewildered chuckles in New Jersey political circles, Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller announced his entry into the 2025 gubernatorial race. Spiller also heads the New Jersey Education Association, and the NJEA has been promoting Spiller with millions in ads for over a year now. On paper, the president of a powerful union with a mayoral term under his belt should be a strong candidate for statewide office, but Spiller has his own weaknesses. Along with most of Montclair’s council, Spiller bowed out of his reelection race earlier this year after a whistleblower accused the mayor and council of improperly taking state-funded health benefits, which are normally reserved for full-time government employees. (Montclair’s elected offices are part-time jobs.) The whistleblower’s lawsuit ended up costing the town over $1 million, and the town’s response reeked of a coverup—Spiller and several others pleaded the Fifth, and the town’s lawyers tried to keep the entire case as secret as possible, even seeking to hide a memo from a previous township attorney in which the attorney expressed a belief that the town officials were ineligible for the benefits. Compared to better-known opponents with less lurid baggage like Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, former state Senate President Steve Sweeney, and potentially Reps. Mikie Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer, it’s very hard to see Spiller going far even if the NJEA goes all in for him. (As an aside, it’s wild for NJEA to be spending more money and political capital on Spiller than on taking a hard line against recent Democratic proposals to introduce school vouchers in New Jersey.)

NJ-10

After surviving a challenge to her nominating petitions, Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver continues to consolidate establishment support as she seeks the seat of the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr., rolling out endorsements from state Sens. Teresa Ruiz and Renee Burgess and Assembs. Eliana Pintor-Marin, Shanique Speight, Cleopatra Tucker, and Garnet Hall. All six legislators represent parts of Newark, which anchors this congressional district.

NY Assembly

New York’s primary elections have officially begun, with early voting opening around the state today. The big news of the cycle is once again NYC-DSA (and the broader left coalition) being on the offensive, making plays against three incumbents: embattled sex pest Juan Ardila in AD-37 (Queens), establishment cog Stefani Zinerman in AD-56 (Brooklyn), and old-school outer borough Democrat Michael Benedetto in AD-82 (Bronx). The Democratic establishment in New York, like in the last two election cycles, is fighting back through big-money PACs. While PACs are generally known for independent expenditures, this year’s big player is being a little more direct.

The hilariously-named Solidarity PAC, founded in late March as a joint venture between a GOP operative, a Democratic operative, and a random real estate investor, and termed “a State-Level Mini-AIPAC”, has chosen their targets in a predictable way—targeting DSA and WFP-affiliated candidates specifically because of those organizations’ position on Palestine—but is trying something unique: dancing around campaign limits by reaching a small collection of mega-donors who stand to personally benefit if progressive economic policy is blocked, and convincing them to split their contributions between several candidates Solidarity PAC has identified as important to defeating the left, thereby avoiding the normal contribution limit for PACs.

While the actual endorsement list of Solidarity PAC includes a few candidates running in open races against WFP-but-not-DSA-endorsed candidates, and a couple random candidates who are strong favorites against no-name opponents (itself another AIPAC tactic), the bulk of their weight is being thrown against seven candidates. As of last week, Solidarity PAC had sent around $40,000 each to:

• Johanna Carmona: AD-37, Queens, running against DSA/WFP-endorsed Claire Valdez (and incumbent Juan Ardila)

• Anathea Simpkins, AD-50, Brooklyn, running against DSA/WFP-endorsed incumbent Emily Gallagher

• Stefani Zinerman (i), AD-56, Brooklyn, running against DSA-endorsed Eon Tyrell Huntley

• Micah Lasher, AD-69, Manhattan, running against WFP-endorsed Eli Northrup

• Jordan Wright, AD-70, Manhattan, running against tenant organizer Maria Ordoñez

• Gabi Madden, AD-103, Hudson Valley, running against DSA/WFP-endorsed incumbent Sarahana Shrestha

• Didi Barrett (i): AD-106, Hudson Valley, running against WFP-endorsed Claire Cousin

The outside-spending IE committee-fans in the audience shouldn’t worry that this election season is leaving you out. New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany, funded entirely by $2.25 million from two billionaires, Michael Bloomberg and Jim Walton, is playing in primaries too, primarily focused on reelecting Stefani Zinerman, but also spending on the open 6th Senate district in Long Island, attempting to elect moderate Assemblymember Taylor Darling over less moderate County Legislator Siela Bynoe. Left out of both groups’ focus is Michael Benedetto, who, though he is endorsed by Solidarity PAC, is clearly not their focus, as he received only about $20,000 from them. His big money benefactor is instead charter school PAC Moving New York Families Forward, which is also spending considerably on Zinerman and Simpkins. A zombie PAC, New York Women Lead, resurrected this year with an infusion of real estate money, is boosting Zinerman and Barrett to the tune of tens of thousands each.

Centrists obviously have their hands full trying to stop the left’s advance on multiple fronts while also trying to flip a couple of seats back. While the latter attempts sound futile to us (at the state legislative level, at least—the millions AIPAC is spending every week in NY-16 is obviously making an impression), the former is what led to a disappointing 2021 and 2022 for the left, who picked some tough battles and only managed to win a couple of the easier ones. It also doesn’t escape our notice that every PAC we’ve mentioned is making saving Zinerman a top priority. The Huntley-Zinerman contest has clearly taken top symbolic priority for the center. 

NY-16

It’s been a rollercoaster for Rep. Jamaal Bowman since we last wrote. The embattled Squad member received some good news: he was re-endorsed by NYC-DSA, which had withdrawn its support for him in 2021, once again giving him access to the organization’s dedicated volunteer base to knock doors in the Bronx. He also raised an objectively impressive $1.6 million from April 1 to June 5, with a full million coming just in the month of May. And a collection of allies have shown up to defend him on TV, at the doors, in mailboxes, and online, from the Working Families Party to AOC to Justice Democrats and many more. Then there was the bad news: Westchester County Executive George Latimer still easily outraised Bowman by half a million dollars, AIPAC (and a few other PACs, including the cryptocurrency PAC Fairshake) poured millions more into negative ads and mailers, an Emerson poll showed Bowman trailing Latimer 48%-31%, and former Rep. Mondaire Jones surprised just about everyone by betraying his former progressive allies to endorse Latimer. (That endorsement set into motion a chain of events that included the withdrawal of WFP and Congressional Progressive Caucus support for Jones in his race for NY-17, the revelation that Jones was never actually pushed out of NY-17 in 2022 as many had thought, the revelation that Jones had considered a primary to Bowman in 2022, and the revelation that Jones’s first choice in 2022—or his second, after a Bowman challenge which he decided was unviable—had been to move to Brooklyn and hope nobody in NY-10 noticed he was the congressman for Rockland County, which remains one of the most baffling things we’ve seen in five years of this newsletter.) Things look dire for Bowman, and he’s looking like an underdog in his own reelection. If there’s hope for him, it’s because of Latimer’s flaws as a candidate—or, really, just the one flaw. George Latimer simply cannot stop saying racist shit in public.

The worst Latimer comment is probably an old one—one where he compared calls for Andrew Cuomo’s resignation to the lynching of Emmett Till. That was posted to Facebook in the midst of the wave of sexual misconduct allegations against Cuomo which ultimately brought him down in 2021 (allegations which were later found to be credible after an exhaustive investigation by the office of New York Attorney General Tish James.) He tepidly kind of apologized for that one eventually, saying it had been “offensive to some,” only after much backlash. There was also the time he said Bowman only won his 2020 primary against then-Rep. Eliot Engel because the murder of George Floyd “galvanized” Black voters. And the time he blew up unprovoked at a local Black blogger and journalist at a Black History Month event. There were several eyebrow-raising comments at a recent debate, too: Latimer claimed Bowman only cares about constituents who are Black or brown, and said his base is “Dearborn and San Francisco.” (Love the little side helping of homophobia! Get bent, George.) And when he went on WNYC reporter Brian Lehrer’s radio show, he blew up at a caller who asked him about the Till comment, claiming she was targeting him because he’s white and touting his unrelated endorsements from local Black politicians. (Lehrer actually had to intervene to keep Latimer in check. It was a disastrous interview.) To add to Latimer’s racism-related woes, Jacobin came out with a deep dive into Latimer’s history with housing segregation, and found that Latimer had consistently slowed or obstructed desegregation efforts in highly-segregated Westchester throughout his long political career; if you’ve ever seen Show Me A Hero or otherwise know about the 1980s/1990s Yonkers desegregation fight, just know that Latimer was on the wrong side of it as a county legislator and his more recent record is not much different.

VA-10

Del. Dan Helmer was, and perhaps is, the favorite to win this seat on Tuesday. He’s been endorsed by the Washington Post, and he’s been the beneficiary in millions of super PAC spending, far more than all his opponents combined. There’s one big problem: he now stands accused of groping a woman in 2018, and the woman, who remains unnamed at this time, has a lot of people coming forward to back her up. The alleged incident in question apparently led the Loudoun County Democratic Committee to write and implement its first sexual harassment policy, according to three former chairs of the LCDC as well as the committee’s current deputy chair, and two additional notable Loudoun Democrats—the chair of the 10th Congressional District Democratic Committee and the county’s Democratic former DA—have come forward to say that they were made aware of this allegation prior to Helmer launching his congressional campaign, contradicting Helmer’s claim of a well-timed political hit job. Several of Helmer’s opponents have called for him to drop out, including former state House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, Del. Michelle Maldonado, former Defense Department official Krystle Kaul, and former state education official Atif Qarni; so has Manassas Mayor Michelle Davis-Younger, whose city is located wholly within VA-10. Helmer is already telling the press he won’t be dropping out, and he faces a scattered field of opponents (we didn’t even mention state Sens. Suhas Subramanyam and Jennifer Boysko, or Del. David Reid, who each released statements expressing concern without directly calling for Helmer to drop out); it’s entirely possible that he’s able to win with a plurality of voters who are unaware or unmoved. (The Washington Post has, predictably, refused to mention the story thus far.)

SD-24 (Mid-state coast)

Jean Guzzetti vs. Denise Tepler

Result: Tepler 50.3%, Guzzetti 49.7% | Winner TBD by recount

Policy analyst and former Sagadahoc County Register of Probate Jean Guzzetti faces former state Rep. Denise Tepler, and the two broadly agree on most issues: both like that the state has taken a more active role in housing affordability in recent years, and both would like to see it do more. Guzzetti would like to ban assault weapons, and Tepler would like to put abortion rights in the state constitution—but based on what we can see it seems like a difference in emphasis rather than belief. Both candidates even have glowing testimonials from some of the same people, like Senate President Troy Jackson and outgoing incumbent Eloise Vitelli.

SD-32 (Portland and Westbrook)

Jill Duson (i) vs. Ken A. Capron

Result: Duson 89.3%, Capron 10.7% | Duson wins

First-term state Sen. Jill Duson, previously a Portland city councilor, is in no real danger from her challenge from Ken Capron, an accountant who the Portland Press-Herald generously describes as “an out-of-the-box thinker,” which is genteel newspaper-speak for calling someone a crank.

HD-24 (Bangor and nearby towns)

Joseph Perry (i) vs. Zachary J. Smith

Result: Perry 72.2%, Smith 27.8% | Perry wins

While Joseph Perry doesn’t have the worst record of any Democrat in this Maine preview—more on that later—he does have a bad record, especially on abortion. He’s repeatedly voted against mandating that insurers in general, and MaineCare in specific, cover abortion services; he also voted against a bill which removed criminal penalties for certain abortions and undid the state’s ban on late-term abortions even in cases where the mother’s life is endangered. Attorney Zachary J. Smith has not cast any of those bad votes and does not throw up serious red flags, which earned him the endorsement of the progressive Maine People’s Alliance. Smith cites affordable housing, criminal justice reform, and a state-operated public bank as priority issues, and he envisions a public bank playing a central role in tackling housing affordability and building out Maine’s green energy infrastructure.

HD-64 (Waterville and Winslow)

Flavia DeBrito vs. Andrew Dent

Result: DeBrito 66.1%, Dent 33.9% | DeBrito wins

Waterville Ward 2 city councilor Flavia DeBrito is a community organizer with a focus on affordability for working-class families, citing Maine’s new child tax credit and state aid to municipal budgets as priorities for her, as well as a proposed constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution (sank by Republicans and anti-abortion Democrats like the one you’re about to read about in the next item.) Andrew Dent is running a bit to her left, criticizing Gov. Janet Mills for vetoing a minimum wage for farmworkers and criticizing the legislature for shooting down a study of passenger rail expansion; he’s also got an excellent platform that includes a guaranteed income for Mainers in poverty, universal background checks (Maine’s gun laws are unusually lax for a blue state), tuition-free public college, and state-provided universal health insurance. DeBrito has more money and, presumably, more name recognition from her city council job, so this is probably her race to lose. (Which is fine, because DeBrito seems like she’d make a good addition to the legislature.)

HD-65 (Waterville)

Bruce White (i) vs. Cassie Julia

Result: Julia 55.7%, White 44.3% | Julia wins

Bruce White does have the worst record of any Democrat in this Maine preview. His anti-abortion record is far more consistent than Perry’s—he scored just 11% from Planned Parenthood in 2023, meaning he voted with the organization on a priority bill exactly once—and this year he also voted against Maine’s shield law for providers of gender-affirming care, which protects medical providers from liability for providing reproductive or gender-affirming care to patients who have traveled from states which ban the procedures. That’s why Planned Parenthood, EMILY’s List, and Equality Maine have lined up alongside the People’s Alliance in this primary to support Cassie Julia. Julia, who has benefited from over $6,000 in independent expenditures from Planned Parenthood (which is a lot of money in Maine’s tiny districts), is a pro-public schools activist who sits on the Waterville Planning Board—but the main thing she wants you to know is that she’s pro-choice, unlike her opponent.

HD-109 (Gorham)

Eleanor Sato vs. Seven Siegel

Result: Sato 55.3%, Siegel 44.7% | Sato wins

Gorham councilor Seven Siegel has an eclectic mix of priorities, from farm preservation (in a Portland suburb?) to public housing (cool!) They’re endorsed by the Sierra Club and would join the nation’s small but growing number of nonbinary state legislators. Dancer and bartender Ellie Sato, who has also worked as an aide to various Maine Democrats, agrees with Siegel about the need to fund education far more than Maine currently does; she also shares Siegel’s skepticism of the Gorham Connector, a planned highway project that would cut through miles of farmland and open space. Both candidates also agree on increasing Maine’s homestead property tax exemption. In short, the stakes here are low; Sato and Siegel are both pretty close to your average liberal Democrat.

HD-118 (Bayside Portland)

Herbert Adams vs. Benjamin Chipman vs. Yusuf Yusuf

Result: Yusuf 63.8%, Adams 36.2% | Yusuf wins

Because of term limits, state Sen. Ben Chipman was running for a demotion while state House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross is running for Chipman’s open senate seat. We say was because Chipman withdrew from this race with a day to go, which turns this from a ranked-choice contest into a head-to-head race between former state Rep. Herb Adams and former Portland school board member Yusuf Yusuf. In terms of both fundraising and endorsements, Yusuf is a clear favorite over Adams, who has been out of the spotlight for a few years now.

HD-123 (Cape Elizabeth)

Michelle Boyer vs. Cynthia Dill vs. Kimberly Monaghan

Result: Boyer 61.7%, Monaghan 28.7%, Dill 9.6% | Boyer wins

Cynthia Dill is a former state senator who was the Democrats’ sacrificial lamb against centrist independent Angus King (who caucuses with Senate Democrats but is more moderate than most of them) in 2012. We wish she had faded into obscurity; unfortunately, she instead reinvented herself as an ultra-NIMBY and anti-affordable housing crusader in Cape Elizabeth, one of Maine’s wealthiest towns. Seriously, just read this shit she wrote about an affordable housing project slated to go up near a building she owns, it’s unhinged. She’s also worried about public schools “failing to teach fundamental American principles and ideals” and “cancel culture.” Miss us with that “public schools have gone woke” shit, the GOP is right over there. Former state Rep. Kim Monaghan and Cape Elizabeth Conservation Committee member Michelle Boyer are normal Democrats; Boyer focuses on gun control and education funding, and has the support of outgoing state Rep. Rebecca Willett, while Monaghan focuses more on climate change and affordable housing, supporting the affordable housing project that Dill rage-blogged about. Either would be a much better addition to the Maine House than Dill, and hopefully RCV allows one of them to beat her.

Nevada

SD-01 (North Las Vegas)

Michelee “Shelly” Crawford vs. Clara “Claire” Thomas

Result (>95% in): Crawford 53.9%, Thomas 46.1% | Crawford wins

Nevada System of Higher Education Regent Shelly Crawford is the choice of Nevada Senate Democrats, rather than Assemb. Clara “Claire” Thomas. Thomas thinks it’s because she opposed a suite of 2023 bills weakening restorative justice reforms that the state had passed in 2019 under Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak; in fact, she says that Senate Democrats told her so in their endorsement meeting. Coincidentally, Thomas also broke with the caucus on another flashpoint piece of legislation repealing COVID-era room-cleaning provisions which we’ll discuss later. Thomas says the state was wrong to roll back the restorative justice reforms, which sought to reform school discipline so that Black and Latino students would have fewer unnecessary interactions with the police and the criminal legal system. Thomas is backed by the powerful Culinary Union, which represents casino and hotel workers throughout the state, and SEIU, but most unions, including those representing teachers and police officers, are backing Crawford, who also has a substantial financial advantage. (So is the Vegas Chamber of Commerce, which…sigh.)

SD-03 (central Las Vegas)

Rochelle Nguyen (i) vs. Geoconda “Geo” Hughes

Result (>95% in): Nguyen 55.2%, Hughes 44.8% | Nguyen wins

For decades, Nevada Democrats were powered by Culinary Workers Union Local 226, often shortened to the Culinary Union or just “Culinary.” The incredibly well-organized union represents casino workers across Las Vegas and Reno and boasts an unrivaled turnout operation that is frequently decisive in Democratic primaries and general elections. Their relationship with Democrats in the legislature is on the rocks, though—and while that was present in the previous race, this is a better place to introduce this fight properly.

In the summer of 2020, the Nevada legislature held a special session to respond to the COVID pandemic. Among the pieces of legislation passed to respond to the pandemic was SB4, which mandated meticulous daily cleanings of hotel rooms. Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak signed the bill into law, and it created a lot of work for Culinary’s membership, affecting many workers’ part-/full-time status. The policy also undoubtedly kept Nevada hotels much cleaner and made cleaning staff’s work much easier.

In 2023, with newly-elected Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo settling into office, state lawmakers took a more critical look at SB4. With Republicans taking the view that it was an onerous mandate on businesses, and many Democrats viewing it as a pandemic-era policy whose time had passed, a bill repealing SB4’s daily room-cleaning mandate, SB441, sailed through the legislature, with just a handful of Democrats voting against it. This came despite Culinary fighting hard against the repeal, and it left the powerhouse union feeling betrayed by the party it had loyally supported for decades. The bill was sponsored by state Sen. Marilyn Dondero Loop, who isn’t up until 2026. Another Democrat took what seemed like a leading role in its passage: Rochelle Nguyen, a state senator who had been appointed in 2022 to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of fellow Democrat Chris Brooks, who took a private-sector job. (The Nevada legislature does not pay well.) Nguyen had previously been an assemblywoman—but that, too, was a job she had originally been appointed to in order to fill a vacancy left behind by Chris Brooks upon his 2018 elevation to the state Senate. Nguyen survived a primary for her Assembly seat in 2020, but it wasn’t a particularly strong challenge. This time around, she has to take on the full force of the Culinary Union, because they want revenge for SB441. Culinary’s candidate is Geoconda “Geo” Hughes, a nurse practitioner whose mother Geoconda Argüello-Kline led Culinary for a decade. Financially, Nguyen has an edge of nearly 20 to 1, but Hughes has Culinary—and Culinary isn’t alone. A few Teamsters locals, UFCW, and the Nevada State Education Association are backing Culinary up and supporting Hughes. Not all of labor is behind Culinary’s SB441 revenge plot, though; the Clark County Education Association is going against Culinary in almost every primary, and SEIU is sticking with Nguyen as well. Culinary is quite serious about SB441; they dramatically unendorsed every Democratic yes vote in May, and this is only one of seven primaries where Culinary is going up against the endorsed candidate of the official campaign arm of either the House or Senate Democrats.

SD-04 (central Las Vegas and North Las Vegas)

Dina Neal (i) vs. Laura Perkins

Result (>95% in): Neal 72.3%, Perkins 27.7% | Neal wins

This primary is entirely separate from the Culinary-SB441 fight. Dina Neal is serving under an ethical cloud, as the FBI investigates allegations that she pressured the director of NV Grow, a state program that provided grants and loan assistance to Nevada businesses, to steer grant money to a company connected to a longtime friend of Neal’s. Her campaign finance reports show a strange pattern of money going missing, as conservative columnist Victor Joecks originally noticed; we looked at the campaign finance reports, and he’s right that the numbers don’t add up from period to period unless she’s making unreported expenses. Joecks appears to have missed that his own paper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, heard about a year ago that North Las Vegas city officials had met with an undisclosed law enforcement agency about Neal potentially misusing campaign funds for personal purposes. Nothing has been proven, and as such labor is either sticking with Neal or staying neutral, but her relationship with North Las Vegas city officials has—related or not—taken a marked turn for the worse, and many of them are backing Nevada System of Higher Education Regent Laura Perkins, including Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown, who defeated Perkins and five other candidates to become mayor of North Las Vegas in 2022. City councilman Isaac Barron registered a PAC (donors undisclosed) that’s funding harsh negative attack mailers against Neal, making hay of the FBI investigation. Will it be enough to sink Neal, the daughter of longtime state Sen. Joe Neal? We’ll find out tonight.

SD-15 (Reno)

Naomi Duerr vs. Johnny Kerns vs. Angie Taylor

Result (>95% in): Taylor 64.0%, Duerr 33.6%, Kerns 2.5% | Taylor wins

Assemb. Angie Taylor was one of the Democrats who crossed Culinary on SB441, and Culinary is backing Reno city councilor Naomi Duerr instead. The two broadly agree on policy, from a state constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights to capping rent increases for seniors on fixed incomes to opposing school vouchers. Duerr, the former state water planner, brings more of a climate focus, while Taylor emphasizes her legislative experience. Duerr is not without labor support beyond Culinary, either; in particular, she has the support of unions representing firefighters in Reno and statewide. However, she is at a 2.5-to-1 financial disadvantage, and the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm is backing Taylor. Duerr is not out of this race by any means, but it tilts in Taylor’s favor.

(Also of note: this is technically a Republican-held seat, but Nevada Democrats passed new maps after the 2020 census that transformed it into a district Joe Biden won by 15 percentage points.)

AD-06 (West Las Vegas)

Jovan Jackson vs. Derek Rimson

Result (>95% in): Jackson 84.1%, Rimson 15.9% | Jackson wins

Jovan Jackson, president of the Mass Liberation Project, was an unsuccessful, progressive-backed candidate for the Las Vegas City Council in 2022. This time around, Jackson is the candidate backed by the Culinary Union, but has retained his progressive supporters as well, including Valerie Thomason (see AD-10). A formerly incarcerated man, Jackson’s right to vote and run for office was restored in 2019 when the legislature ended felon disenfranchisement. He would be the first member of the legislature to have been disenfranchised in that manner and would bring a new perspective to the Assembly. His opponent is fourth-generation Pentecostal Bishop Derek Rimson, who is backed by most of the rest of organized labor, including the AFL-CIO and SEIU. Though Rimson is probably the more moderate one judging by his backers, he’s by no means guaranteed to toe the party line—he attended a presidential campaign fundraiser for Cornel West in March of this year, and all but endorsed his campaign.

AD-07 (North Las Vegas)

James Fennell III vs. Tanya Flanagan

Result (>95% in): Flanagan 80.5%, Fennell 19.5% | Flanagan

James Fennell III is a Teamster who likes rent control. However, he reports a balance of zero dollars, and even his own union local is backing former newspaper reporter and local philanthropist Tanya Flanagan, who has held roles with the Las Vegas Urban League and the Las Vegas chapters of the National Association of Black Journalists, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Flanagan should win, and win by a lot.

AD-09 (southwest Las Vegas suburbs)

Steve Yeager (i) vs. Adeline Celio

Result (>95% in): Yeager 83.2%, Celio 16.8% | Yeager wins

Culinary may have emphatically unendorsed incumbent Steve Yeager over his vote for SB4, but Adeline Celio isn’t their doing. Celio is a bodybuilder who filed to run for the assembly all on his own, and then promptly disappeared from public life, as far as we can tell, not even updating his social media accounts.

AD-10 (central Las Vegas)

Kyle Greenwood vs. Venise Karris vs. Valerie Thomason

Result (>95% in): Karris 47.3%, Thomason 34.5%, Greenwood 18.2% | Karris wins

Almost the full weight of the Nevada Democratic establishment is uniting to elect IBEW union steward Venise Karris: from the Democratic Caucus, to most unions, to the Chamber of Commerce. The only missing figure is Culinary, who are staying out of this one for reasons that are hard to parse—our best guess is that Karris simply might be too moderate and close with Democratic leadership, and they don’t trust her. It’s a fantastic opening for one of the most exciting and left-wing candidates in Nevada: Teamster and former Bernie Sanders organizer Valerie Thomason. Thomason is a DSA member, endorsed by Las Vegas DSA, and her campaign is strongly hitting democratic socialist points, from single payer healthcare, to a $23 minimum wage, to housing for all. She does have some union support as well: Southern Nevada’s SEIU local dual-endorsed in this race, and the Nevada State Education Association is backing Thomason. Nevadans for Economic Opportunity, a Trump-supporting business group run by Karris’s son-in-law, is running an attack mailer comparing Thomason to Donald Trump because she put money from a PAC she used to run into her campaign. Thomason might be the underdog, but business interests are clearly scared of her.

Kyle Greenwood “does not appear to be actively running a campaign”, according to the Nevada Current.

AD-11 (East Las Vegas)

Thomas Lambert vs. Cinthia Moore

Result (>95% in): Moore 78.5%, Lambert 21.5% | Moore wins

Despite the fight between Culinary and state Democrats, the two camps do agree in some races, mostly ones that are barely contested. Here, they agree that environmentalist community organizer Cinthia Moore should be the next member of the Assembly from District 11, not union organizer and MBA Thomas Lambert, who has self-funded his campaign’s entire budget of $264.80.

AD-16 (south Las Vegas suburbs)

Cecelia González (i) vs. Eva Chase

Result (>95% in): González 72.7%, Chase 27.3% | González wins

Assemb. Cecelia González, a second-term incumbent with a strong partisan voting record, is being challenged by Eva Chase, a trans USMC veteran who bills herself as more “independent”. Chase’s poorly funded campaign and odd online presence suggest she won’t do much better than her first foray into politics, 2022’s LG primary, where she finished last with 4% of the vote.

AD-17 (North Las Vegas)

Linda Hunt vs. Mishon Montgomery vs. Chauntille Roberts

Result (>95% in): Hunt 64.0%, Montgomery 27.8%, Roberts 8.2% | Hunt wins

SD-03 is one of Culinary’s priority races; the other is this one, where Culinary member and leader Linda Hunt is seeking an open Assembly seat. Labor is split but leans towards Hunt; the Clark County Education Association (whose director has a dim view of Culinary, calling them “a political force that’s in decline”) and police unions are behind Nevada Assembly Democrats’ pick, Air Force veteran and motivational speaker Mishon Montgomery, but the Nevada AFL-CIO and most unions are backing Hunt, a longtime casino food server. (Peculiarly, the Nevada State Education Association is backing nonprofit worker Chauntille Roberts, who badly lags her competition financially.) Unlike SD-03, this race hasn’t turned ugly; it looks like Culinary and other unions are simply excited to elect one of their own members and leaders to the legislature.

AD-27 (Reno)

Heather Goulding vs. Alex Velto

Result (>95% in): Goulding 56.2%, Velto 43.8% | Goulding wins

This is the final legislative race where Culinary and Nevada Democrats have chosen opposing sides in a primary. Labor lawyer Alex Velto is Assembly Democrats’ preferred pick to join their caucus, and most of labor is backing him, as are progressive groups like Make the Road Action Nevada and Run for Something. However, he’s also backed by the Vegas and Henderson Chambers of Commerce and several police unions, and his campaign bank account has money in it from multiple fossil fuel companies and developers, which makes his vague issues page more concerning than that of his Culinary-backed opponent, Reno community activist Heather Goulding. Goulding also has the Sierra Club in her corner (we bet they don’t like the fossil fuel money) as well as Planned Parenthood Votes Nevada and a handful of Nevada Democratic politicians, including 2018 gubernatorial candidate Chris Giunchigliani (whose PAC donated to Goulding) and former Lt. Gov. Kate Marshall. Both candidates, when they do take specific positions, agree; for example, both support the proposed referendum to incorporate abortion rights into the Nevada Constitution. However, Velto is stuck answering for his past work for law firm Hutchison and Steffen, whose Northern Nevada managing partner represented several anti-abortion groups in litigation; Velto published an op-ed stating he quit because of his boss’s anti-abortion work, but his critics aren’t buying it, responding to the op-ed by noting that Hutchison and Steffen is a conservative law firm that has pursued politically charged cases against Democrats for years. After reading up on Hutchison and Steffen ourselves, we don’t buy it either. The Hutchison in Hutchison and Steffen stands for former GOP Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison, and the boss who Velto supposedly quit over, Jason Guinasso, was a Republican candidate for a Reno Assembly seat back in 2016. It’s not hard to figure out Hutchison and Steffen is a Republican law firm, and that didn’t stop Velto from working there until he was eyeing a run for office.

AD-42 (Spring Valley)

Tracy Brown-May (i) vs. Sayed Zaidi

Result (>95% in): Brown-May 87.7%, Zaidi 12.3% | Brown-May wins

Assemb. Tracy Brown-May is safe against perennial candidate Sayed Zaidi, who she defeated 81%-19% in 2022.

Las Vegas Mayor

Kola Akingbade vs. Tera Anderson vs. Lynn Baird vs. Shelley Berkley vs. Dan Chapman vs. Cedric Crear vs. Irina Hansen vs. Kara Jenkins vs. Eric Medlin vs. Donna Miller vs. Michael Pacino vs. Deb Peck vs. Victoria Seaman vs. William Walls

Result (>95% in): Berkley 35.7%, Seaman 28.9%, Crear 18.9%, others 16.5% | Berkley and Seaman advance to runoff

Don’t mind the imposing wall of names. Las Vegas’s next mayor is probably going to be either moderate former Congressmember Shelley Berkley, running as the de facto Democrat, or conservative Councilmember Victoria Seaman, running as the de facto Republican. If anyone else has a chance of making the runoff, it’s Councilmember Cedric Crear, running as an anti-development candidate, which is rich coming a former casino marketing executive when casinos are one of the biggest drivers of development in the city. Crear is also anti-homeless and voted for the city’s camping ban, meaning he’s, at best, not any better than Berkley. In fact, given that he’s running on his efforts to stop apartments from being built on what used to be a private golf course, he’s probably more dangerous in a mayoral contest specifically. 

Las Vegas City Council Ward 1 (central Las Vegas)

Brian Knudsen (i) vs. Dennis Chairez vs. Miriam Gibson

Result (>95% in): Knudsen 62.1%, Gibson 24.0%, Chairez 13.9% | Knudsen wins

Councilman Brian Knudsen is likely to coast in the face of token challenges from political consultant Miriam Gibson, who has spent less than $100, and anti-development advocate Dennis Chairez, who has reported spending nothing. As far as outside groups go, they’re divided between ignoring this race and perfunctorily endorsing Knudsen.

Las Vegas City Council Ward 3 (western Las Vegas)

Olivia Diaz (i) vs. Melissa Clary vs. David Gomez

Result (>95% in): Diaz 57.5%, Clary 33.3%, Gomez 9.1% | Diaz wins

David Gomez, a former Republican candidate for state Assembly, is likely to be eliminated. That’s probably bad for Olivia Diaz, who narrowly beat Melissa Clary for this open seat in 2019; Clary is endorsed by just about every police union in the state, and candidates like that are usually easier to beat when they openly affiliate with the GOP. Clary scans as a conservative in general; while she has no issues page this time around, in 2019 she said “there are some places in [Ward 3] that look like a third-world country,” and she’s a neighborhood preservationist. (In Las Vegas? What in Las Vegas is sacred, exactly?) Clary is far from broke, too, though she’s definitely at a financial disadvantage given the absurd four hundred thousand dollars parked in Diaz’s campaign account.

Las Vegas City Council Ward 5 (central Las Vegas)

Sheila Collins vs. Katie Duncan vs. Josanna Espejo vs. Barbara Jones Zangaro vs. Cameron Miller vs. Mariana Catherine Santiago vs. Erika Smith vs. Shondra Summers-Armstrong

Result (>95% in): Summers-Armstrong 32.0%, Miller 19.0%, Collins 13.7%, Duncan 10.8%, Espejo 10.3%, Santiago 5.7%, Smith 5.1%, Jones Zangaro 3.5% | Summers-Armstrong and Miller advance

Culinary, organized labor, and several veterans groups support Shondra Summers-Armstrong for this district, which is probably good enough to get her into the runoff. That’s frustrating, as she’s an annoying centrist type who wants to find “common-group solutions” with “both large & small businesses”. Several candidates are running to her right, including GOP-endorsed Josanna Espejo, former Republican Assembly candidate Erika Smith, and Katie Duncan, who somehow has managed to find 15 separate cop unions to endorse her. The only viable candidate not running to Summers-Armstrong’s right is Assemblymember Cameron Miller, who ran Amy Klobuchar’s presidential campaign in Nevada, which does not inspire confidence.

South Carolina

SD-07 (Greenville)

Karl Allen (i) vs. Michelle Goodwin-Calwile

Result: Allen 68.0%, Goodwin-Calwile 32.0% | Allen wins

Karl Allen has spent over a decade each in the state house and senate, and has, despite the occasional ethical hiccup, has been a solid liberal Democratic vote, and more of a workhorse than a showhorse. He’s being challenged by teacher and Greenville County School Board member Michelle Goodwin-Calwile, who promises to be more “approachable and accountable” but hasn’t articulated any more concrete differences between the two of them.

SD-19 (north Columbia metro)

Tameika Isaac Devine (i) vs. Michael Addison

Result: Devine 91.9%, Addison 8.1% | Devine wins

While Tameika Devine has only been in office a few months following a special election, she managed to avoid a real primary, being challenged only by repeat candidate Michael Addison, a man of eclectic fashion and political positions, which include anti-immigrant screeds.

SD-22 (northwest Columbia metro)

Monica Elkins vs. Ivory Thigpen vs. Overture Walker

Result: Thigpen 42.9%, Walker 40.3%, Elkins 16.8% | Thigpen and Walker advance to runoff

A rare open seat in the senate has resulted in a star-studded affair—school board member Monica Elkins, state Rep. Ivory Thigpen, and Richland County Board chair Overture Walker are all in the mix. Walker has been asleep at the wheel as oversight of the county jail got so bad the state had to step in. We shudder to think what the conditions of a jail could be that the state of South Carolina would find unacceptable, but they did. Elkins has the opposite problem of perhaps being too invested in her office, as seen in a memorable 2019 school board meeting where she, after adjourning, threatened to kill the husband of another member and told the sister of state Sen. Mia McLeod “‘Bitch, I asked you to get the fuck out of my face before I beat your ass”. Thigpen, the least exciting choice, is probably the best here.

SD-32 (rural Lowcountry)

Ronnie Sabb (i) vs. Prinscillia Sumpter

Result: Sabb 76.1%, Sumpter 23.9% | Sabb wins

Ronnie Sabb is one of the few remaining Democratic officials in South Carolina with a truly mixed voting record on abortion, and he’s being challenged by a Democrat who specifically wants to support reproductive rights. And yet, when offered the opportunity to differentiate herself on the issue, nursing home administrator Prinscillia Sumpter said she supports Sabb’s 20-week position. Yeah, it’s another fight over whether a member of the minority in a legislature is an effective legislator, something that’s basically impossible to measure.

SD-36 (rural Columbia area)

Kevin Johnson (i) vs. Eleazer Carter

Result: Johnson 77.4%, Carter 22.6% | Johnson wins

In 2020, state Senator Kevin Johnson defeated Eleazer Carter by a margin of 76% to 24%. Carter is an attorney who keeps getting reprimanded by the state supreme court for a wide range of issues that seem less like corruption than massive, massive incompetence. He’s running again, and only barely made the ballot after a state court reversed the state party’s attempt to take him off the ballot over residency issues. While voters will have the opportunity to vote for a terrible lawyer who may or may not live in the district, we don’t think many will take them up on it.

SD-40 (Orangeburg and rural central SC)

Brad Hutto (i) vs. Kendrick Brown

Result: Hutto 71.5%, Brown 28.5% | Hutto wins

Brad Hutto is the minority leader of the state senate, making him probably the second most powerful Democrat in the state, behind Jim Clyburn. Hutto has resisted the tendency among many Southern Democrats of his era (he was first elected in 1996) to move to the right in an attempt to win over an increasingly Republican state. Which is why we really wish he kept up those values in his personal life as a lawyer. Famously, he defended a privileged teen against charges of rape by saying the victim “didn’t say no”. Even though teacher Kendrick Brown is an underfunded challenger running mostly on being young, we wouldn’t be upset if he won.

SD-42 (Charleston)

Deon Tedder (i) vs. Kim Greene

Result: Tedder 83.3%, Greene 16.7% | Tedder wins

Last year, moderate state Rep. Deon Tedder won the special election for this seat over Bernie Sanders-endorsed labor champion Wendell Gilliard by just 11 votes. Gilliard is opting to run for reelection as a state representative instead of trying again, which was the prudent decision at the time he made it, but turned out to be the wrong one, now that the public has found out that Tedder has been under investigation for two years for “forcible rape”. Luckily, Tedder isn’t the only option on the ballot. Human resource manager Kim Greene is running vaguely as a progressive, and even though she hasn’t raised much money, does have support from at least one labor union, International Longshoremen's Association Local 1422. 

HD-15 (Charleston suburbs)

JA Moore (i) vs. Damian Daly

Result: Moore 86.9%, Daly 13.1% | Moore wins

JA Moore is a rare Democrat that actually flipped a legislative seat, a feat he pulled off in 2018. Even though he’s good at raising money, he still flopped hard running for state senate in a 2023 special election, taking only 15%. Our theory as to why is just that he’s kind of boring. That’s one thing you can’t accuse Damian Daly, the Connecticut ex-cop running as a progressive, of being. He has a garish, hard-to-read website where he idly asks “Why is [Dylann Roof] still alive by the way?”, and demonstrates pride for his adopted state by declaring “We're not Alabama or Mississippi. We live on the coast we should be an enlightened state”.

HD-25 (Greenville area)

Wendell Jones (i) vs. Bruce Wilson

Result: Jones 74.6%, Wilson 25.4% | Jones wins

Bruce Wilson is a community activist who has been commendably involved with racial justice issues and is one of the few candidates taking renters’ rights seriously in the state, but several year ago, Wilson, then 50, was also accused by his then-27-year-old wife of false imprisonment and assault in what sounds like a harrowing experience for her. While we don’t know precisely what happened after that, he did plead guilty to cruelty to children soon after, and the next year The Greenville News mentioned that he had been convicted of false imprisonment at some point. We’re hoping that Wendell Jones wins a second term.

HD-54 (rural Pee Dee region)

Jason Luck vs. Betty Quick

Result: Luck 53.1%, Quick 46.9% | Luck wins

Jason Luck is a lawyer running on two things: being endorsed by the previous representatives in this seat, and being a lawyer. In explaining why it would be so valuable to have a lawyer in this seat, he says “You can’t speak truth to power if you don’t speak the same language”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. He sounds very annoying, on top of which he’s a white guy running for a district where a majority of the population, and a large majority of the Democratic voters, are Black. Betty Jo Quick is a nonprofit director and a chaplain, and is Black. That’s, unfortunately, all the information we have on her, because this part of the state is a bit of a news desert. 

HD-70 (western Columbia area)

Eve Carlin vs. Mama G. Miller vs. Robert Reese

Result: Reese 50.5%, Miller 28.3%, Carlin 21.3% | Reese wins

Though, as is the case with many Democrats in red states, the candidates in the race aren’t thinking much beyond opposing GOP policies and supporting a few general Democratic principles, grant writer Robert Reese stands out for a focus on environmental issues that are less common. Eve Carlin is focusing more on her political experience…in New York politics circa the 90s. Finally, Mama G. Miller is really excited to tell you about her decades of work in self defense, but it’s not clear how that translates to governing.

HD-72 (downtown Columbia)

Seth Rose (i) vs. Tate Few

Result: Rose 91.3%, Few 8.7% | Rose wins

Tate Few is cool. He’s running on a detailed and thought-out, though not especially progressive, platform, and would be one of only a few LGBTQ+ members of government anywhere in the state. Unfortunately, even though he’s raising good money, he only moved to the district last year for law school. Campaigning during law school and running as a recent transplant are both difficult enough—doing both seems like a campaign death sentence. Still, this is a progressive, transplant-heavy part of the city, and we wish him the best against prosecutor-turned-unremarkable-politician Seth Rose.

HD-73 (north Columbia)

Christopher Hart (i) vs. Touami Pride

Result: Hart 85.0%, Pride 15.0% | Hart wins

Touami Pride, who “intends to” become a lawyer one day, ran for this seat last cycle and got crushed by incumbent Christopher Hart 82%-18%. We’re not even sure he’s campaigning this cycle as hard as he did then.

HD-79 (east Columbia area)

Jonnieka Farr vs. Hamilton Grant

Result: Grant 63.1%, Farr 36.9% | Grant wins

Hamilton Grant is an MBA who currently works as a business coach and is deeply involved with the local Chamber of Commerce. The red flags thrown up by that biography are also present in the way he talks about issues, from wanting schools to focus on skill sets that will be helpful to local businesses, to proposing tax breaks for homebuyers, to launching his campaign with the goal of ensuring government projects don’t “disrupt our small businesses”. He even has taken to calling campaign contributions “investments” people can make to “partner” with the campaign. Naturally, he’s better financed than his opponent, and has the support of local businessmen and local political players, including centrist pundit Bakari Sellers, fresh off his efforts to defeat Rashida Tlaib.

The combination of those factors suggests the better choice is Jonnieka Farr, who may not have the money Grant does, but was previously the Chair of the Richland Democratic Women's Council, and nearly won a seat on the Richland County Council in 2020. Farr talks about similar goals as Grant, but without the noxious business mindset infesting everything.

HD-82 (rural Augusta area)

William Clyburn Sr. (i) vs. Brian Doyle

Result: Clyburn 89.8%, Doyle 10.2% | Clyburn wins

Yes, William “Bill” Clyburn Sr. is related to Jim Clyburn—they’re cousins. Bill has this job guaranteed as long as Jim is alive, and the caliber of opponent he’s getting is a symptom of that—Brian Doyle is a convicted Medicare fraudster who previously tried to sue the state party for RICO.

HD-93 (rural Midlands)

Johnny Felder vs. Phillip Ford vs. Jerry Govan Jr. vs. Chris Roland

Result: Govan 45.9%, Felder 32.1%, Ford 11.2%, Roland 10.7% | Govan and Felder advance to runoff

State Rep. Jerry Govan Jr. represented Orangeburg in the state house for 30 years before redistricting drew him out of his district and into the neighboring one. Govan decided against challenging incumbent Jerry Ott last cycle, but with Ott retiring this year, Govan is attempting to make a return to the chamber. Govan was a rare endorser of Tom Steyer in the 2020 presidential primary, which many thought was related to the $43,000 Steyer paid Govan. Govan and his allies were really, really indignant at the suggestion, but what other conclusion is anyone supposed to reach?

Unfortunately, another leading candidate doesn’t inspire any more confidence. Johnny Felder is a lawyer who wants to “bring common sense” to the state house. While that’s merely eye-rolling, he’s also heavily emphasizing that part of the reason he’s qualified for the seat is that his dad held it for 24 years. His father, John G. Felder, was originally elected as a Democrat in the 70s, but switched parties in the 90s, and spent a term in the house as a Republican before being defeated a Democrat. He ran for office a few more times as a Republican, and, according to Vicki Ringer, the Director of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic SC, Johnny has voted in more Republican primaries than Democratic ones.

Planned Parenthood wound up endorsing the only unequivocally good candidate in the race: Phillip J. Ford, a lobbyist for the ACLU and several other nonprofits. Ford is openly gay, and would be one of the few gay members of South Carolina government. Chris Roland, an engineer, is the only candidate without a strong chance of making the likely runoff.

HD-111 (Charleston)

Wendell Gilliard (i) vs. Regina Duggins vs. Dwayne Green

Result: Gilliard 77.4%, Green 17.1%, Duggins 5.5% | Gilliard wins

To quote ourselves from when Wendell Gilliard ran for a state senate special election:

Gilliard, who is 69, has been politically active longer than either of his opponents has been alive; he became active in the United Steelworkers as a chemical plant worker in the 1980s, eventually becoming the president of his local. He won his first public office, a seat on the Charleston City Council, in 1998; ten years later, he moved up to the state House. He’s made a name for himself as a lonely defender of labor in the most union-hostile of the 50 states, and in recent years has also gained notice as a prominent South Carolina supporter and friend of Bernie Sanders, who appeared at a rally with Gilliard in support of a $17 minimum wage in June.

His opponents have a high bar to clear if they want to convince voters of the need to replace Gillard, but Regina Duggins, an out and proud lesbian who co-founded Charleston Black Pride, might honestly be up to the standard Gillard has set. Unfortunately, she’s not the bigger threat to Gilliard. That threat is, instead, attorney Dwayne Green, an ally of Deon Tedder, the moderate state rep who defeated Gilliard by just 11 votes in that special election. It’s not hard to imagine Tedder is involved in this challenge to some degree, but Green very well could have made this decision himself—he already ran for office once before, in 2016, when he outraised an incumbent state senator 2:1 and still lost the primary to him 75%-25%. Now, like then, Green’s problem is that he has no compelling reason to run. Even if Gilliard should be the favorite, Green is a monied attorney and thus can’t be entirely discounted as a threat to one of the most progressive members of the legislature.