2023 Overview
a quick look at the elections on tap this year
Welcome back to Primary School! Odd-numbered years are quiet on the federal level, but local elections (and state elections in a few places) don’t stop. This is an overview of the races we’re watching in the year ahead (but keep in mind it is by no means exhaustive, and some of the later elections in here might turn out to be uncompetitive duds as filing deadlines pass and actual voting draws near.)
Feb. 21
Wisconsin preliminary elections
Madison
Mayor
Council
Milwaukee County
Judicial elections (April 4 only)
In Wisconsin, most of the action is going to be on April 4. That’s the general election date in odd-numbered election years in Wisconsin, and it features the high-profile state Supreme Court contest that will determine ideological (and de facto partisan) control of the state’s court, which is going to see millions in spending. Not that we need to tell you, but if you live in Wisconsin, please vote on April 4th.
However, spring elections in Wisconsin are a two-stage affair, with a primary held for all contests with more than two candidates in February, and all two-person contests held in April. In Madison, freshman Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway is very likely going to face School Board president and cop Gloria Reyes running to her right in the April election, but the presence of city employee Scott Kerr means there will be a February race, the results of which could affect the level of interest in the April runoff. In addition to the mayoralty, the entire Council is up, and an unusually large number of the seats are open.
Feb. 28
Chicago:
Mayor
City Council
Police Board
Chicago politics may be a wild ride that never truly ends, but this year's elections are going to be especially high-octane. Incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot has subterranean polling numbers and is fighting to even make the runoff, with 4th place finish looking possible; meanwhile, previous progressive favorite and insurgent machine boss Chuy García is the man to beat, even if the Council’s Socialist Caucus and some progressive labor groups are backing Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson. The conservative vote is going to split between Willie Wilson and former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, while a quartet of other candidates—Ald. Sophia King, Ald. Roderick Sawyer, state Rep. Kam Buckner, and activist Ja’Mal Green—are struggling to break through. The Council, fresh off an insanely contentious redistricting, is also up, and just about every major player in Chicago politics is trying to make gains. On top of that, the newly created police oversight body, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, is electing its first class of commissioners—66 of them.
Mar. 14
Phoenix City Council Runoffs
The finale of a pair of races that we previewed for November: we’ve previously covered these elections here and here. Can Carlos Garcia, the city’s most dedicated criminal justice reform advocate, hold on against a push from Team Centrism to oust him? His late-breaking campaign finance scandal is behind him, but the outlook remains tough. And can moderate Democrat Kevin Robinson, an ex-cop backed by Mayor Kate Gallego, defeat Sam Stone, the policy director to the campaign of far-right gubernatorial candidate and election-denying sore loser Kari Lake, to flip the seat currently held by conservative Republican Sal DiCiccio?
Apr. 4
Denver:
Mayor
Auditor
City Council
Kansas City, MO:
Mayor
City Council
Chicago runoffs
Wisconsin runoffs
Though they’re likely to be overlooked in political press by the more high-profile contests for Chicago Mayor and Wisconsin Supreme Court, Denver and Kansas City will be electing new mayors on April 4th. Denver may have the most crowded mayoral contest of the year—while a top tier consisting of two state senators, two house reps, one city councilor, and one respectable 3rd-place finisher in the previous mayoral contest would already be a lot to handle, the city’s matching fund program has allowed another half dozen candidates to put together enough of a campaign to take seriously as well, and filing’s not even over yet. We’ll eventually be talking about this contest in more depth, but here’s a quick guide to (some of) the candidates from local outlet Denverite. The entirety of the Denver Council is up for election, with races ranging from the only (thus far) uncontested district (District 6, Paul Kashmann) to the free-for-all chaos of the 12 person at-large field.
Kansas City is quieter, especially after Quinton Lucas won so thoroughly in the last mayoral race. Still, in a city of half a million, it’s unlikely that nothing will be happening in either the mayoral or council races.
May 2
Indianapolis:
Mayor
Council
Joe Hogsett actually flipped the Indianapolis mayor’s office from the GOP when he first ran in 2015, but Indiannapolis is thankfully beyond the point where it’s willing to elect Republicans. That means, for the first time in his career, Hogsett is going to face a serious primary. State Rep. Robin Shackleford, the chair of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus, has indirectly sparred with Hogsett before—the IBLC was highly critical of the Hogsett-aligned Marion County Democratic Party’s practice of engineering official primary endorsements for leaders’ preferred candidates in past cycles, and that disagreement came to a head in a state Senate contest last year where the party backed City-County Councilor Kristin Jones while all other candidates skipped the party endorsement process in protest—including Shackleford’s endorsed candidate, public school principal Andrea Hunley, who ended up handily defeating Jones and becoming the district’s first Black senator. Beating an incumbent mayor head-to-head is a lot harder than beating the mayor’s candidate in a proxy war, however.
May 6
Dallas:
Mayor
Council
San Antonio:
Mayor
Council
In Dallas, incumbent mayor Eric Johnson is probably going to be the only Democrat running, but there’s time for that to change. The real action is probably going to be in the Council, where progressives want to make up ground after the brutal 2019 losses, while Johnson is probably going to try to push the Council right again like he (unsuccessfully) did in 2021. San Antonio similarly looks to have a sleepy mayor race (though again, no guarantee just yet), but the Council races are going to be worth watching, from the multiple socialist members running for reelection, to the potential for progressive advancement, to the incumbent who (allegedly) spent a few hours on November 6 downing 14 drinks, trying to drive home, ramming his Jeep into another car, and running away.
May 16
Philadelphia:
Mayor
Council
Sheriff
Pittsburgh:
City Controller
Allegheny County:
Executive
Council
DA
Controller
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the only two cities in Pennsylvania (fight us, Harrisburgers) are both in the midst of defining clashes between the current generations of moderate incumbents, and progressive gate-crashers on the verge of taking power. For Philadelphia, this is most evident in the very real possibility that City Councilor Helen Gym could become mayor…as could an ideologically wide range of other candidates, including Allan Domb, Philly’s own Rick Caruso. Expect Council races to have nearly as many fireworks. The Sheriff’s election is there more out of caution than anything else—we don’t yet know if Rochelle Bilal will be allowed to coast after unseating an incumbent last cycle.
In Pittsburgh, the battle is mostly for power in county government, even if the city is picking a new Controller because Conor Lamb’s uncle is retiring. The county races are all blood feuds between the Summer Lee/progressive wing of Allegheny County politics and the old establishment, who are running either incumbents or whatever bigoted recent Republican converts they can drag up.
June 6
New Jersey
Assembly
State Senate
It’s a redistricting cycle—there is a 0% chance there won’t be something crazy going on in New Jersey, but we won’t know what that is until the county parties start doling out their lines. Additionally, the Democratic primary for Hudson County Executive might get interesting, and the primary for Mercer County Executive is already shaping up to be a bloody battle between longtime incumbent Brian Hughes and Assemb. Daniel Benson.
June 10
Dallas runoffs
San Antonio runoffs
June 13
Virginia:
House
Senate
Commonwealth Attorneys (DAs)
Virginia got an entirely new set of legislative districts after 2021, drawn by an odd combination of party-appointed masters and a court mediating them, producing a pair of maps nearly from scratch. The result is dozens of open and double-bunked districts. Virginia has let us down in the past, but hopefully a shakeup of this magnitude can shake out some of the gunk in the system. Additionally, reform-minded prosecutors in a number of populous Northern Virginia jurisdictions, including Arlington and Fairfax County, face their first reelection races this year.
June 27
New York City:
Council
Queens DA
Bronx DA
Yonkers:
Mayor
Council
After two years of Mayor Cop, New York has a chance to vote on how happy they are with how things are going; recent polling of the city’s residents finds a tepid opinion at best. Races in the Big Apple develop late, so it’s hard to say which are going to be the biggest contests. In the Bronx, reformists are hoping to recruit a candidate against incumbent DA Darcel Clark worth getting excited about, while in Queens, Melinda Katz, after a rocky term won by only a few dozen votes over leftist Tiffany Cabán in 2019, is facing one challenger from her right, and there’s still time for one from her left to join in. Looking north to Yonkers, the Council just changed the city charter to let three term conservative mayor Mike Spano run for term 4, and we’re just left hoping that he’ll at least have to fight for reelection this time.
Aug. 1
Tucson, AZ:
Mayor
Council
Seattle, WA:
Council
Incumbent Mayor Regina Romero announced her reelection bid in December, but as of yet has no opposition in the primary, though the filing deadline is months away. Meanwhile, incumbents in three Council seats (Districts 1, 2, and 4) are also facing the voters, though challengers have yet to materialize for any of them. In Seattle, all district-based Council seats are up for election, and with both moderates and progressives on the council already announcing their retirements, control of the sharply divided council could swing wildly.
Aug. 3
Memphis, TN:
Mayor
City Council
Nashville, TN:
Mayor
City Council
Tennessee’s two largest cities are electing mayors. In Memphis, there’s a wide-open field including the county sheriff (Floyd Bonner), House Minority Leader (Karen Camper), multiple Shelby County Commissioners, and a TV judge (Joe Brown, of the syndicated courtroom reality show Judge Joe Brown). In Nashville, incumbent John Cooper (brother of recently retired Blue Dog Jim Cooper) is being challenged for reelection by a pair of city councilors, Sharon Hurt and Freddie O’Connell, as well as Metro Development Agency staffer Matt Whitshire. Of the three, only O’Connell could really be called progressive, but all are more liberal than Cooper, the latest in a string of painfully centrist mayors.
Aug. 8
Mississippi
State House
State Senate
Mississippi’s entire legislature is up once every four years and only once every four years. Despite the length of time everyone involved has to plan their moves, none of the big developments happen this early. There probably will be interesting elections here, we just don’t know which ones yet.
Aug. 29
Mississippi runoffs
Beyond this point, everything is really too far out to say much about how the following races are shaping up, so we’re just going to list some of the big ones.
Sept. 12
Connecticut municipal primaries in:
Bridgeport
Hartford
Nov. 7
Orlando, FL:
Mayor
City Council
Des Moines, IA:
Mayor
City Council
Massachusetts municipal elections in:
Worcester
Cambridge
Springfield
Somerville
Saint Paul, MN:
City Council
Durham, NC:
City Council At-Large
Columbus, OH:
Mayor
Council
Houston, TX:
Mayor
Controller
Council
St. Petersburg runoffs
Salt Lake City runoffs
Dec. 12
Houston runoffs