Issue #46
Assuming that the US and Iran don't annihilate each other, making this all pointless anyway
Incumbent Challenges
IL-03
On Saturday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot weighed in for the first time on this primary. In reaction to the news that Lipinski had signed onto an amicus brief before the Supreme Court suggesting the reversal of Roe v. Wade, she tweeted the following out
This is a big get for Newman. Chicago cast almost 40,000 votes in the 2018 IL-03 primary, about 42% of the total, and the mayor of Chicago is well known throughout all of Chicagoland. Last cycle the mayor was Rahm Emanuel, who stayed neutral. Chicago was the only part of the district Lipinski won in his close 2018 race with Newman, as Newman easilyoutpolled him in the suburbs.
Lipinski fired back with the endorsements of 28 mayors and village presidents across the district. In true form, Lipinski may have had 28 mayors, but he did not have 28 Democrats. Eight of them are Republicans, including Lemont Village President John Egofske, Justice Mayor Krzysztof (Kris) Wasowicz, La Grange Village President (and Republican operative) Tom Livingston, Lockport Mayor Steve Streit, Romeoville Village President John Noak, and Worth Mayor Mary Werner. Lipinski’s choice to tout their endorsements is unsurprising considering that a leaked memo of his campaign’s strategy to attract Republican votes said, among other things “A drive to persuade Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary would include reaching out to GOP officeholders”.
Additionally, Stickney mayor Jeff Walik, one of the Democrats on the list, told Politico that he refused multiple times to endorse Lipinski, but was put on the list anyway. The also list includes Tom Heller, who is no longer mayor of Forest View. And finally, Lipinski misspelled Dennis MaGee’s name.
TN-05
Keeda Haynes, a Nashville public defender who has been considering for months, has entered the primary against Blue Dog Rep. Jim Cooper. Haynes, who spent five years in federal prison before going to law school and becoming a public defender, was initially in talks with Justice Democrats, but the group has reportedly decided to sit this race out. Haynes plans to make criminal justice reform a focus of her campaign, indicating she may make her personal story a centerpiece of the campaign.
Haynes joins activist Justin Jones in the primary. Cooper is the sixth current or former co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition facing a credible primary challenge; Jim Costa, Henry Cuellar, Dan Lipinski, Kurt Schrader, and Tom O’Halleran face primaries of their own. (O’Halleran’s AZ-01 narrowly voted for Donald Trump, and Republicans seem uninterested in seriously contesting Schrader’s OR-05 even though it is only modestly Democratic; the other three represent lopsidedly Democratic districts, like Cooper does.)
Cooper, like everyone who has ever been a member of the Blue Dogs, is consistently one of the worst Democrats in the House. TN-05 is likely to be dismantled and replaced with a very Republican district in 2022, so the long-term benefits of taking him out are limited; however, replacing Cooper with Haynes or Jones would provide one more reliable vote for new House leadership and the legislative agenda of a progressive during the first two years of their presidency, so Cooper going down would still be an unquestionably positive development.
TX-28
Republican ghouls rushing to appear on TV and, while slobbering all over themselves about all the bombing they’re going to get to do, tossing off whatever bullshit pops into their head to justify the invasion of a sizable and stable country in the Middle East, knowing the media will uncritically repeat every word they say as fact? Welcome to 2002 everybody! There are some differences this time, mostly that this Republican administration is lazier and more obvious about what they’re doing, but also that while Democrats still don’t actually have enough of a spine to put up a real fight to it, they’re at least not actively joining in beating the war drum like last time. If you can’t convince Adam Schiff (who was itching for war just months ago!) to sign onto your war, you’re doing something wrong.
There was one glaring exception: Henry Cuellar, who commended Trump for the assissination, calling it a “necessary step”. Jessica Cisneros immediately pushed back, comparing his attitude towards Trump’s (although he’s a version of Trump who can speak in complete sentences, so…George W. Bush. By the way, Cuellar endorsed Bush in 2000.) Then things really got crazy when Cuellar’s campaign manager and our old friend Colin Strother decided to jump in. We have a history with Strother, from his attempts to call small donor money “dark money”, to his climate denialist claims that Laredoans wouldn’t mind it getting significantly hotter there than Death Valley, to his threat to sue an author of this newsletter for slander because Nick tweeted he believed the woman who is suing Cuellar for sex discrimination.
Colin’s great. And by “great” we mean “will say something insane with the slightest provocation”. He did not disappoint, sayingtwice that Cisneros was siding with Iran and terrorists. Strother, a man who said that “Koreans are very nationalistic, and that isn’t limited by a border” to explain why it would be a bad idea for Trump to meet with Kim Jong-un, is now calling Cisneros a foreign government and terrorist sympathizer because she won’t support the military actions of the president.
Open Races
IN-01
Two new candidates have filed to run for IN-01, and we may be getting a third soon.
Melissa Borom is a 33 year old lobbyist for a local aviation firm, and has previously worked in the offices of Senator Dick Durbin and Congressman Pete Visclocksy. This 2018 profile of her captures what is already a long career for her age. Wendell Mosbyhas worked in politics, sales, and community outreach for about 25 years, with a particular emphasis on public speaking. He was also a Sanders supporter in 2016. His work is mostly based in Chicago, not Indiana, however, and he’ll likely have to introduce himself to most of the district.
Another potential candidate is State Senator Eddie Melton. Melton represents a majority black district within IN-01, and had previously been running for governor. Considering how difficult it would be for a Democrat to win governor of Indiana in 2020, he was mentioned as a candidate for IN-01 after Visclosky announced his retirement, but Melton opted to stay in the gubernatorial race. This week, however, Melton reversed course and announced he was dropping out. Melton has said he’ll be running for reelection, but of course he still has time to mull over a Congressional bid.
This displaces Regan Hatcher, state rep and daughter of famous recently deceased Gary mayor Richard Hatcher. Hatcher had been running for Melton’s Senate seat, and shortly after she announced for that seat, her 2018 primary rival announced for Hatcher’s House seat, putting Hatcher in a tough place where she’ll be in a competitive primary no matter what. Hatcher had previously given some public thought of jumping into the IN-01 race, and this might be the motivation she needs to take the leap.
MA-04
Two candidates in this race have already released their fourth quarter fundraising numbers. Newton City Councilman Jake Auchincloss says he’s raised “more than” $609,000, while Brookline City Councilwoman Jesse Mermell says she pulled in $351,000 and adds that that was done without the help of corporate PACs. Auchincloss, a centrist who only became a Democrat recently, is by far the worst candidate in the race, so of course he’s raking in a ridiculous amount of cash. Mermell is raising a smaller, though healthy amount of money, and is rapidly becoming the establishment choice, today picking up even more endorsements in addition to the big names like Ayanna Pressley she already has in her corner. Yesterday she announced the support of five local electeds and three Massachusetts Democratic State Committee members.
NY-15
According to an investigation by the New York Daily News, Assembly Member Michael Blake has spent more than a year’s worth of time somewhere other than his district or Albany since he was elected to the Assembly in 2014. Blake’s time away from his Assembly duties can be accounted for due to his roles as vice-chair for the DNC, fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, and national honorary co-chair with the non-profit New Leaders Council. Still, though, all these trips away from the Bronx mean that Blake is not engaging with his constituents as much as he should be, and he is missing the opportunity to organize with his district and hear about his constituents’ legislative needs. Great, just what Congress needs — another corrupt, absentee politician.
NY-17
We have some early fundraising numbers for the crowded primary to replace retiring Rep. Nita Lowey.
Evelyn Farkas, a former official in the Department of Defense during the Obama administration, raised $460,000 in the six weeks since she entered the race. Mondaire Jones, who was challenging Lowey from the left before she retired, announced he raised $488,000 since entering the race in July. Jones raised $218,000 in his first quarter in the race; this means he raised the remaining $270,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019. Jones is the progressive in this race (supporting the Green New Deal and Medicare for all, among other progressive priorities), and this kind of fundraising proves he’s got staying power--but Farkas’s fundraising just illustrates that Jones will have to get past some very well-funded opposition. Along with Farkas, Jones has to beat:
de facto Republican state Sen. David Carlucci
de facto Republican until a few years ago Westchester County Legislator Catherine Parker
activist and former NARAL board chair Allison Fine
mostly-progressive Assemblyman David Buchwald
national security expert Asha Castleberry-Hernandez
federal prosecutor Adam Schleifer, the son of biotech billionaire Leonard Schleifer
Westchester County Legislator Catherine Borgia (possibly)
Queens Borough President
We have a date! Shortly after we published last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the special election for Queens Borough President will be on March 24.
New York City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer got two new endorsements this week. One endorsement was from New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. As a trusted progressive in NYC politics, Williams’ support could give credence to Van Bramer’s campaign, especially as he tries to prove to leftist voters that he is a better choice than Council Member Costa Constantinides. In Williams’ own special election last year, he managed to carve out pockets of support in both progressive western Queens, where Van Bramer is expected to do well, and more conservative southeastern Queens, where Van Bramer is expected to struggle.
Van Bramer’s other new endorsement might not be as useful to his campaign strategically but may still provide him some general visibility. The endorsement in question came from the actor and brief Obama administration alum Kal Penn, who plays a former City Council Member from the Queens neighborhood of Sunnyside, which falls within Van Bramer’s real-life council district, on the new TV comedy Sunnyside. Unlike in Penn’s TV show, New York City has never actually had a South Asian City Council Member. When Sunnyside first premiered last fall, activists were calling on Penn to endorse organizer and City Council candidate Shahana Hanif, who is running in Brooklyn to be New York City’s first South Asian elected official. Penn instead stayed out of off-screen New York City politics until now.
One additional thing to note about this race is that it will be nonpartisan, meaning that there will be no primary and that all candidates, regardless of party, will be competing against each other on March 24. No Republican candidates have declared yet, but if one should, the fact that this race comes before ranked-choice voting is implemented means that Democratic voters will have to really consolidate their support behind a single candidate to avoid splitting the Democratic vote and handing the race to the Republican.
WA-10
State Rep. Kristine Reeves, who resigned her seat in the legislature last month in advance of a likely candidacy for this district, is officially in. We noted the fairly serious problems with her candidacy back then:
“State Rep. Kristine Reeves resigned her seat in the state legislature on Monday in preparation for a likely run. Reeves has been a low-profile, mostly party-line vote in the state legislature since her election in 2016, but there’s a small problem with her candidacy: she does not live in WA-10, and she only represents a minute portion of it in the state legislature - 13 whole people. (This is probably why she wasn’t mentioned as a potential candidate until she abruptly quit the legislature.) She lives in Federal Way, in King County; WA-10 includes none of King County. Reeves defends herself by saying she lives five blocks from the Pierce County line. (That part of the county line does not include a border with WA-10).
That doesn’t necessarily affect her ability to represent the district in Congress, but she doesn’t seem to actually know what the district even...is: she says that it’s natural that she’s giving this race serious thought, because she “grew up in rural parts of this state, which this district is full of.” The district is not rural by any measure, with most of the population in the state capital of Olympia, the city of Tacoma, and the surrounding suburbs. Reeves is one of the more moderate members of the State House, opposing, for instance, the gas tax increase and tenant protections passed this session. The Seattle and King County NAACP sent out a statement that legislators who voted against that bill were upholding a white supremacist system - notable, as Reeves is herself black. She also opposes a state income tax.”
Reeves joins centrist former Tacoma mayor-turned-Seattle Chamber of Commerce Amazon lackey Marilyn Strickland and socialist truck driver/full-time shitposter Joshua Collins in the race.
