Issue #38
Minor internal news: we have more writers now!
We’re excited to announce that we have two new(ish) writers here at Primaries for Progress:
Ellie Applebaum has actually been a PFP writer since July, but she never got around to introducing herself. She’s also a big New York politics nerd. Follow her on Twitter at @ElForProgress.
Tisya Mavuram joined the team last week! You can follow her on Twitter at @tmavuram.
New Developments
IL-03
We’ve been warning readers about the danger of a split progressive vote in districts where a plurality can win, and finally someone listened to us. On Tuesday, attorney Abe Matthew, who had been running a low-profile campaign against horrible anti-abortion homophobe Rep. Dan Lipinski, dropped out and endorsed Marie Newman, who nearly took down Lipinski in 2018. That still leaves activist Rush Darwish in the race, but it puts the left in a better position today than on Monday.
Matthew had raised a credible $83,000 from April to September, so he had the resources to be more than some rando who got 0.5%; Newman, however, was always the only viable progressive in the race. You don’t have to take our word for it: Justice Democrats, EMILY’s List, Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and many, many more all came to the same conclusion, endorsing her against Lipinski.
Darwish, perplexingly, responded to the endorsement by echoing a Lipinski attack on Newman, criticizing her for supporting single-payer using the bullshit Buttigieg-esque “Medicare for all who want it” line. He may be running to Lipinski’s left on abortion, but he seems to be just as bad as Lipinski on healthcare. We still fear he’ll draw anti-Lipinski votes from Newman, but this indicates he might be trying to appeal to moderates uneasy with Lipinski’s social conservatism but unwilling to back a progressive like Newman.
MD-07
Maya Rockeymoore Cummings has resigned from her post as chair of the Maryland Democratic Party and launched a campaign to succeed her late husband in Congress. In her announcement, she said that Elijah Cummings wanted her to succeed him in Congress, and that she would refrain from campaigning actively for a couple weeks so she could undergo a preventative cancer treatment of her own. Cummings is known for being willing to take on the more centrist and entrenched elements of her own party. Notably, Cummings cracked down on Democrats backing Republicans after elected officials backed Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (who she has called a “dog-whistle white nationalist”). Meanwhile there was concern that the House of Delegates speaker candidate favored by the Legislative Black Caucus would seek Republican support to win the speakership vote, causing a verbal sparring match between her and LBC chairman Darryl Barnes.
Del. Talmadge Branch, who previously said he would enter the race, filed with the FEC on Tuesday night. Branch is the majority whip in the state House of Delegates, and has been a delegate since 1995, so he enters the race with connections and name recognition in Baltimore, which anchors this district. Branch has an ugly history of opposition to LGBT rights. In 2011 he was instrumental in killing a same-sex marraige bill, and in 2012 he voted against it again, even as it passed the House and Senate. He said he did so at the behest of his pastor. He also allegedly said at one point that there were no gays or lesbians in his district.
Sen. Jill Carter is considering, has filed with the FEC and has teased a “special announcement” scheduled for next week. There’s little love lost between Carter and Rockeymoore Cummings. When Cummings was considering running for governor in 2017, Carter’s response was “just being married to Elijah Cummings is not enough to elevate her to the top.”
In 2014, Carter attended a Louis Farrakhan speech hosted by a Nation Of Islam radio personalisty. In his speech Farrakhan talked about “conspiracies by ‘the white man’ to oppress blacks with fast food, debt, vaccines and government policies aimed at reducing the worldwide population targeting blacks. He implied that homosexuality is caused by estrogen and other chemicals being added to food today.” Intense homophobia and anti-vax rhetoric is commonplace for Farrakhan, as is insane levels of anti-semitism, so Carter’s decision to attend that speech and subsequent silence on the issue cannot be overlooked.
MA-Sen
On November 10, Massachusetts had its very first climate debate at Stonehill College — and guess who didn’t show up?
That’s right: Massachusetts’ very own golden boy, Joe Kennedy.
Kennedy’s campaign’s official stance was that the scheduling of the debate was unfair, but the debate had already been rescheduled once for him after his campaign voiced objections to the originally scheduled Nov. 18 debate at Tufts University. The Markey and Liss-Riordan campaigns agreed to two of his demands, and decided on a date that the House was not in session and a debate that wouldn’t be hosted by the Environmental League of Massachusetts, a group that had endorsed Markey.
Kennedy is still polling higher than Markey by almost double digits, mostly because of name recognition, but it’s not going to last forever — and for a candidate whose entire pitch to voters is generational change, Kennedy isn’t doing a good job convincing anyone that he will be any sort of an improvement over Ed Markey. If taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from fossil fuel companies and running against the original Senate co-sponsor of the Green New Deal wasn’t enough, skipping the climate debate is proof that he’s not serious about taking action on the climate crisis.
Also noteworthy: During the debate, Markey voiced support for ending the filibuster, a shift from his original position a couple of months ago. However, he stopped short of supporting a total ban on fracking, a position his fellow Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has embraced. Challenger Shannon Liss-Riordan supports a ban on all fracking.
NM-03
We’ve taken a fewcracks at Santa Fe DA Marco Serna for how his office blew a series of deadlines and got fined for it, but a recent investigation shows that that embarrassing saga was far from alone. Five separate incidents involving missing evidence, 4th amendment violations, broken rules, and charging a long-dead man all point to, generously, a disorganized office letting murder and rape cases slip through the cracks. In one case “a judge tossed out a case against a man who police said had confessed to fatally shooting a former Santa Fe librarian in 2016; the judge ruled the state had violated the defendant’s right to a speedy trial”.
This is probably the worst kind of press DA seeking higher office can get, and we can’t say we’re terribly disappointed to see this happen to Serna, who has staked out a series of centrist positions in this primary - his goal is “affordable health care” and he opposes the Green New Deal - and recently said “With an economy based on mineral and oil extraction, our state is especially vulnerable to the international climate change movement” (emphasis ours). He also recently attacked Valerie Plame having a large number of small donors, which he said could be concealing white supremecist support. There’s a kernel of truth to the larger point he was making, in that Valerie Plame accepted $450 from anti-war former Congressman Pete McCloskey, who’s lost his mind in recent decades and spoke at a Holocaust denial confrence in 2000. He’s right that she should return or donate away that $450, but moving onto attacking the concept of small donors is just ugly.
NY-15
We reported a few weeks ago on how New York City Council Member Ritchie Torres accepted donations from the executives of a real estate contracting company that regularly underpays its workers. Well, the list of known shitty people that Torres is taking money from has grown. This week, the New York Daily News reported that Torres has accepted money of the maximum donation amount from billionaire Daniel Loeb and his wife Margaret. Loeb has made a number of weird, racist comments over the years. In 2017, he wrote in a Facebook post that then-Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (who is black) did “more damage to people of color than anyone who has ever donned a hood [i.e. the KKK]” because she chose to support teacher’s unions over charter schools.
At the time, Torres was running for Council speaker and joined six other Council speaker candidates in opposing Loeb’s rhetoric. Torres said then, “What kind of message does it send to people if we accept money from people who would direct racially charged hostilities toward elected officials… Money in politics should reflect the people we represent, and our values as public servants.” Now, though, Torres is defending Loeb’s donations because “he apologized.” Torres is also trying to defend the donations by falsely claiming that Loeb is a “prolific donor to the Democratic Party and to progressive causes” — according to the Daily News, 77 percent of Loeb’s campaign donations this year went to Republicans and conservatives. Torres won’t apologize for accepting real estate donations either, because “members of Congress do not control land use in the city.” I mean, if he read Data For Progress’ progressive housing policy memo, he would know that there’s a lot that Congress can do about the housing crisis.
It looks like Ruben Díaz Sr. is running into some roadblocks this week as well. His son, Ruben Díaz Jr., current Bronx Borough President and 2021 mayoral hopeful, is having trouble deciding whether to endorse his father for Congress. Díaz Jr. is more consistently left than his father on social issues. While Díaz Sr. has said that the City Council is “controlled by the homosexual community” and opposed same-sex marriage, Díaz Jr. has consistently called on his father to apologize. Díaz Jr. is worried that if he were to endorse his father’s congressional run, leftists would be less likely to vote for Díaz Jr. in his own run for mayor, but if he doesn’t endorse his father, older minority voters would turn against Díaz Jr. for putting politics above family. Seems like quite the dilemma, but if he asked us, supporting bigots is never the way to go.
NY-17
New York State Assembly Member Tom Abinanti seems to be seriously considering joining the race to succeed retiring Rep. Nita Lowey and is taking steps towards forming an exploratory committee. When Lowey first announced her retirement, here’s what we had to say about Abinanti:
“Assemblymember Tom Abinanti’s name is also being floated. He’s another case of “what, why?”. Abinanti is seriously old to be running for Congress for the first time - he’d be 73 or 74 when he takes office, and the man’s a walking controversy for his anti-vax views, for killing legislation to make the minimum wage apply to disabled employees, and for a general prickliness. Abinanti is a Cuomo antagonist, which we support, but for him that means he’s boxed out from establishment support, while his own terrible record and the presence of Jones in the race means he’s not likely to get much progressive support.”
Seems like Abinanti has noticed his potential weakness with progressives, because he’s touting single-payer health care, clean drinking water, and the climate crisis as his top issues. To be fair, he has been a co-sponsor of the New York Health Act, which would create a New York State single-payer health care program, since at least 2016. We still stand by our previous criticisms of his candidacy, though, and wish he would get out of the way of Mondaire Jones, who is a true progressive candidate, a strong fundraiser, and most importantly not an anti-vaxxer.
TX-28
Jessica Cisneros has begun picking up union support in her bid to defeat Henry Cuellar, who has never been a friend of labor. The AFL-CIO rates him as the worst Democrat in Congress on union issues, and in the 2017-2019 Congress even put him below two Republicans, and AFSCME finds the same. Late last month, she was endorsed by Construction Workers of America District 6, which covers Texas and several other states; on Thursday, she picked up the National Nurses United endorsement, and on Friday, the American Federation of Teachers Local 4632, which covers the Lo Joya Independent School District and has over 1,500 members, endorsed her. While not making an endorsement, AFSCME Local 1624, which covers Austin, did hold a GOTV conference on Nov. 2 where they invited Cisneros but not Cuellar to speak.
Texas is one of the least unionized states in the country, with only 4.3% of the workforce being union members, so Cuellar may feel safer ignoring union concerns than he would in a state like New York, but unions are still an important force in primaries. Labor isn’t entirely lining up against Cuellar - this cycle he’s received contributions from the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters, the National Education Association, and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
This week, Cisneros has also received endorsements from progressive organizations the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and 350 Action.
New Primaries
IN-01
Two new candidates have waded into the recently open primary for IN-01, and another two are considering.
Frank J. Mrvan Jr. is a North Township Trustee and is the son of longtime State Senator Frank Mrvan Jr. In Indiana, all counties are split into townships which handle local government functions in the absence of incorporated cities and towns. While all of North Township (pop. 163,000) is covered by incorporated cities, the township still retains a few government functions. While Mrvan has a large constituency, the press he gets for his office is pretty small-scale. He’ll probably be better known for his father than his job. Mrvan contrasts himself with the aggressively moderate current candidate McDermott by unabashedly supporting impeachment.
Jim Harper is an ex-public defender and current medical malpractice attorney from Valparaiso, Indiana, a city in Porter County. In 2016 he entered politics as a candidate for SD-05, a more rural and Republican district he lived in. He lost 60-40, a bit better than the 59-36 Clinton was losing the district by. In 2018, he ran for Secretary of State and lost 56-41, about the same as the three statewide Democrats who weren’t Joe Donnelly did. Since both races were pretty well recognized as hopeless, Harper didn’t face a primary for either, but he did raise almost $500,000 for his Secretary of State bid, so he should have a healthy donor list. Harper has not yet announced his bid, but he has said he’s considering and just filed to run with the FEC. He describes himself as a “progressive voice” for northwest Indiana.
State Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon is interested. A former Visclosky staffer, she now represents HD-12, a light-blue, middle class, suburban district on the western border of the district. Her tenure dates back to 2007, but she is sadly best known as one of the five women to come forward and accuse Attorney General Curtis Hill of groping them, and as the first of the four to come public with her identity. The disciplinary case over those accusations is ongoing. She is the only Latinx candidate currently considering in this 12% Latinx district, and has generally been a progressive legislator.
State Rep. Ragen Hatcher, currently running for State Senate, has said “all options are on the table” regarding the race. She’s only a freshman in the House, but she also served a term on the Gary City Council before that. While she’s established herself more than Frank Mrvan Jr, she’s in a similar boat in that her father’s legacy precedes her. She’s the daughter of Richard Hatcher who served as mayor of Gary from 1968-1988, and was nationally known as a civil rights advocate, and Black political leader during that time. She is the only Black candidate considering in this 18% Black district.
Senator Eddie Melton, who represents a majority Black district anchored by Gary, has said he will continue running for governor instead of switching to IN-01.
TN-05
Blue Dog congressman Jim Cooper has represented Nashville in Congress since 2003, but from 1983-1995 had a stint in Congress from rural Middle Tennessee, and he’s always fit that district better than his new one, which is diverse and quite blue. Cooper has recently voted for Kate’s Law, a balanced budget amendment, small borrower protection rollbacks, and FISA surveillance, none of which is out of character for him. According to an FEC filing, that may have finally earned him a primary. Activist Justin Jones has filed to run. Jones is best known as a devoted tormentor of erstwhile state house speaker Glen Casada; his opposition to the speaker, who was such a raging bigot and obvious crook that his own Republican colleagues forced him out of the speakership, nonetheless made Republicans so mad that they’re now prosecuting him for allegedly throwing a drink at Casada (and attempting to frame him for other stuff, too.) He’s been banned from the state capitol for the alleged assault.
One caveat about any potential TN-05 challenge is that this could very well be the last year the district exists in anything resembling its current form. TN-05 contains Nashville and a few reddish suburbs making it a Democratic leaning district, but not overwhelmingly so. Hillary Clinton beat Trump there by 18%. Bordering TN-05 is a lot of extremely red turf, and in the 2021-2022 redistricting cycle it would be trivial to split the city three or four ways and make districts no Democrat could win. Indeed, this was even proposed in 2011 before being ultimately scrapped. While that could happen again after 2020, odds don’t seem good for the continued existence of a Nashville district after this upcoming election.
Election Results
San Francisco DA
Endorsed by Bernie Sanders, Tiffany Caban, and Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, Boudin joins a growing number of decarceral public defenders who are committed to using the office of district attorney to end mass incarceration. Boudin ran on a progressive platform of ending cash bail, restoring civil rights, and ending the war on drugs, and despite having never prosecuted a case, won against interim District Attorney Suzy Loftus, who was endorsed by Dianne Feinstein, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, and SF mayor London Breed.
Boudin’s win sends a powerful message to the Democratic establishment that voters are tired of tough-on-crime platforms and want elected officials that will take action to end mass incarceration. This is the first ever district attorney race that had two presidential candidates endorse opposing sides, showing that district attorney races are becoming increasingly nationalized, and are the next frontier for progressives taking on mass incarceration.
Seattle City Council
After a mediocre election night last week, the results are finally in for Seattle City Council -- and Seattle residents definitively voted against Amazon.
Last year, the city council voted to levy a head tax on large businesses of about $275 per employee to fund services for the homeless and low-income housing. Amazon and other large corporations in Seattle fought the tax, eventually leading to its repeal. In an attempt to prevent it from happening again, Amazon spent over $1.4 million to back seven business-friendly City Council candidates. Only one of them won.
While challenger Shaun Scott ultimately lost to Amazon-funded incumbent Alex Pedersen, Amazon’s other top target pulled off a win. Incumbent socialist Kshama Sawant, endorsed by Bernie Sanders, was down by eight points against Amazon-funded challenger Kai Orion last Tuesday night. But because a significant percentage of voters in Washington vote by mail (and most of those votes break left), in the following days she was able to close the deficit and declare victory on Saturday. Orion conceded Tuesday night after the last batch of votes came in, extending Sawant’s lead.
