Issue #48
Labor makes some moves, more candidates climb into open races, endorsements fly, and Bobby Rush makes us angrier
Incumbent Challenges
IL-03
Unfortunately, Rep. Dan Lipinski is holding onto support from the Illinois AFL-CIO. This big union voted to endorse Lipinski by a hair — roughly 20 votes out of a total of about 1,000. The endorsement comes despite the fact that the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) recommended that labor groups stay neutral on this race and the AFL-CIO usually listens to them. It’s almost like they’re forgetting that many workers are women and/or LGBTQ, groups whose rights Lipinski flatly opposes. We don’t see how the AFL-CIO can say that Lipinski is a pro-labor candidate when he’s frequently opposed the freedoms of so many workers.
This state of affairs is an improvement from last cycle, though. Back in 2018, the CFL actually backed Lipinski and AFL-CIO did so too, without hesitation. The Service Employees International Union, which backed Marie Newman in 2018, is sticking with her, while these other unions have weakened or severed their support for Lipinski. Overall, it seems like Illinois labor groups are slowly but surely shifting over to Newman.
MA-01/NJ-05
Indivisible, the network of progressive activists that sprung up across the country after Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, endorsed two House primary challengers on Tuesday: Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse in Massachusetts’s 1st district and Glen Rock Borough Councilor Arati Kreibich in New Jersey’s 5th district. Morse is challenging Richard Neal, the chair of the House Ways & Means Committee who is infamously averse todoing his job (and notaverseenoughtocorporateinterests.) Kreibich is challenging Josh Gottheimer, a conservative Democrat known for punching a car. Gottheimer represents a district carried by Donald Trump, so our usual word of caution about primaries in swing districts applies here.
Indivisible’s endorsement can carry serious organizational weight, and they’ve been sparing with their endorsements this cycle, with the national organization only backing seven candidates so far. Marie Newman is the only other primary challenger Indivisible has endorsed.
NY-03
The Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club is the largest and most active branch of the Stonewall Democrats operating in New York. They often endorse in Congressional races, and send out a questionnaire before they do so. Those questionnaires are now up on their website. They’re a pretty good guide to where candidates are ideologically, but unfortunately two incumbents facing challengers, Yvette Clarke in NY-09 and Eliot Engel in NY-16, have declined to seek the endorsement, and don’t have questionnaires on the website. The most interesting submission from an incumbent was Tom Suozzi in NY-03.
Generally speaking, Melanie D’Arrigo comes off better than Michael Weinstock in her form, supporting free college and supervised drug use sites. Weinstock is at least generally thoughtful when taking more conservative positions, but he has one truly awful moment where he lists Ilhan Omar’s comments about 9/11 — an out of context phrase pushed by right-wingers — as a reason he opposes the squad. Weinstock still comes off leagues better than Suozzi, whose form is, for one thing, lazy - at one point he spells the Club’s name “Jim Owls”, at another he answers “Which marches and for approximately how many years?” with “Yes”, and when asked for an example of legislation the first thing he lists is an op-ed.
It’s also painfully conservative. He won’t commit to hiring the formerly incarcerated, or even to visiting any incarcerated constituents, something every other respondent across the city easily did. Generally, candidates explain why they take anything other than the liberal positions, while Suozzi flatly states he thinks sex work should be criminalized, religious schools should get public money, and that he intends to take real estate PAC money. Most moderate or conservative members at least make the attempt to sell their position to a Democratic electorate, but Suozzi refuses to do even that.
NY-09
We noted a few weeks ago that known homophobe (and New York City Council Member) Chaim Deutsch was seriously considering running for Congress. This week he took that consideration a step further and officially filed with the FEC. In addition to incumbent Rep. Yvette Clarke, Deutsch joins progressive challengers Adem Bunkeddeko and Isiah James in the race. Deutsch is bad and should not be allowed anywhere near Congress, but — hear us out — his entrance in this race could actually be a good thing. In most of the NYC races we’re covering, the progressive candidates outnumber the moderates and conservatives, and there’s the big concern that dividing the progressive vote amongst multiple leftists candidates would allow a moderate or conservative candidate to win with a plurality.
In this case, though, Deutsch’s entrance will mean that Clarke will now have to defend herself from both the left and the right — there is even direct overlap in the geographic areas where Clarke and Deutsch have seen decent bases of support in recent elections, primarily in deep south Brooklyn. Clarke will additionally have to contend with the support that Deutsch, as an orthodox Jew, will almost certainly draw from the district’s orthodox Jewish neighborhoods like Boro Park. While most reform Jews in New York are predominantly progressive voters, orthodox Jews tend to be both culturally and politically conservative, much like Deutsch himself. So far in this race, we’ve seen the progressive vote split between Bunkeddeko and James, but the moderate vote will now also be split, between Clarke and Deutsch, which may make for an ideologically balanced field, closer to the district’s 2018 primary with its direct faceoff between Clarke and Bunkeddeko.
Hamilton County, OH Sheriff
It’s been a long time since we’ve had an update on the ugly Hamilton County Sheriff’s race - here’s a refresher from all the way back in May.
Now, we finally have some movement. The Hamilton County Democratic Party Executive Committee has made an endorsement for the race, and they’ve picked mainstream Democrat Charmaine McGuffey. Neil didn’t help his case by repeatedly praising anti-immigrant hardliner and Trump devotee Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones. Before losing the vote, he made the thinly veiled threat “"Law enforcement will not support McGuffey” - Neil of course being a member of law enforcement, and one with considerable sway among more rank-and-file members as their boss.
The HCDPEC’s endorsement will carry a lot of weight. Voters will be informed of the County Party’s slate, and Congressional candidate Kate Schroder said at that same meeting that winning the Party’s endorsement would save her $100,000 because she wouldn’t have to bother with the primary.
OR-05
Incumbent Blue Dog Congressman Kurt Schrader has never had a good relationship with the AFL-CIO. While he was in the state legislature, the Oregon branch rated him as the worst Democrat multiple times, and in Congress Schrader has cast plenty of anti-worker votes, including denying benefits to federal workers, delaying workplace safety regulations, and increasing the benefits of offshoring. When he voted for fast track authority on the TPP trade deal, the AFL-CIO ran some online ads against all Democrats who had done so, including him, and Schrader responded by publicly calling the AFL-CIO president a bully. Fast track was an especially sore spot for the state’s organized labor. Some unions declined to endorse for re-election the Democrats who voted for it. Oregon labor is currently out for blood after Democrats in the state government voted to cut pensions. The AFL-CIO and AFSCME will not be endorsing any politicians who voted for the measure, and in one case a CWA local has endorsed a literal Communist Party member, Paige Kreisman, over a pension-cutter. Kreisman is also endorsed by the Portland DSA and Socialist Alternative — we probably should have covered her by now. She’s cool.
Now the AFL-CIO is once again angry at Schrader for his refusal to support some basic pro-labor measures. He was already on thin ice with the labor organization, which had previously told members to “Hold Congressman Schrader Accountable” by contacting his office after he voted against the $15/hr minimum wage. Labor staying out of this race would be a huge boon to progressive challenger Mark Gamba. Even better, of course, would be getting backing from labor, something historically difficult, but not impossible, for challengers. Who knows? Maybe Schrader will be drive them past the breaking point?
Also this week, Gamba was endorsed by author and former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson as part of a slate of 21. It’s not clear how many votes Williamson can move, but if her endorsement sways anyone, it would be (and we mean this in the nicest way) zonked-out weirdos living in the woods in Oregon.
TX-28
The TV wars have begun in Texas’s 28th. Jessica Cisneros is up with an introductory 30 second spot, tying her biography to the struggles of the region, and highlighting her support for universal healthcare and opposition to Trump’s Wall. It’s a strong, well-made ad. The campaign says it’s going up on all TV markets in the district, with a Spanish-language version on Univision and Telemundo (which are cable stations and thus determined by media markets).
As we pointed out last week, Cisneros raised over half a million dollars in the last quarter, which is enough to get a serious foothold on the air. Cuellar, who is sitting on $4 million of corporate donations, will never be outspent, but Cisneros’s ads are a world better. We mentioned in December that Henry Cuellar had put out his first ad - a 15 second spot about his healthcare record. (It doesn’t mention how he almost voted against Obamacare.) Shortly afterwards, we noticed he had actually unveiled 9 ads that week, and they’re all pretty bad. We made a playlist; you can watch them all here.
Six of them are in the same vein of his healthcare ad: a hurried voice-over reading a list over stock footage. They feel like cheap ads from 2006, and they absolutely wash through your mind. We had to watch them three times before noticing that one was an alternate version of another. That alternate version of an ad, “Creating Jobs”, is a telling choice. In both versions, Cuellar’s voice-over is the same, reading a brief script about how he brings in money and jobs. The background images are the same for both as well. However, from 0:03-0:06 in the version marked “Laredo”, the on-screen text reads “Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge $86 million” and “The Gateway to the Americas International Bridge $31 million”. In the version marked “TX-28”, the on-screen text reads “Millions to hire additional CBP personnel”, “and millions to fund upgrades in technology”. Interesting choice about what he wants to show in the border city of Laredo, and what he wants to show elsewhere. Texas has open primaries, so Cuellar could be trying to appeal to Republican voters in the parts of the district further away from the border.
The last three are more memorable, but not better. They feature a camera trained on Cuellar as he gives a monologue in a city park. The first two, Son of a Migrant (:15) and CHIP (1:07), are viscerally off-putting because of a choice to have the camera wobble as Cuellar lumbers towards it, producing two competing motions that disorient the viewer. All three feature obvious first or second takes from Cuellar, where he includes some false starts to sentences, says “um” and “uh”, speaks too quickly, and blitzes through the pauses in the script. The second ad has a fade cut to the same word in a clumsy attempt to fuse two takes, and in the third ad he seemingly forgets he’s not supposed to be looking at the camera for a few seconds. These are not good ads. They’re lazy and reek of a candidate who, despite his money, isn’t willing to put serious work into his campaign. Cuellar may have the funds to show them more than Cisneros can show hers, but she is on another level then he is when it comes to messaging.
Open Races
MD-07
The special election for this deep-blue vacant seat left open by Rep. Elijah Cummings’s death is wide open, and it’s anybody’s guess what will happen. One of the few things that’s clear is that former Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who was succeeded by Cummings in 1996 after resigning to become CEO of the NAACP, is one of the frontrunners. His campaign may be in danger, however, as new documents have come to light showing that he did not step down from the NAACP voluntarily. Instead, he was forced out by a vote of the organization’s executive committee in the wake of sexual harassment allegations, internally controversial personnel decisions, and dissatisfaction with what the board perceived as Mfume’s use of the organization for his own personal gain.
The sexual harassment allegations were already public, and they already cast significant doubt on Mfume’s candidacy — enough for us to prefer either of the other two leading candidates, former Maryland Democratic Party Chair Maya Rockeymoore Cummings or state Sen. Jill P. Carter, over him. This latest report about his NAACP tenure just reinforces our doubts, showing that his departure was not an amicable one, contrary to Mfume’s account of his departure.
MA-04
Somehow, there are still new candidates entering this race. Just yesterday, attorney and self-described “community advocate” Ben Sigel announced he’d throw his hat into the ring because why not. Sigel seems hard to read — on his campaign website, he says he supports “universal health care” but doesn’t specify whether he means Medicare for All, and his platform positions are pretty vague overall. He also said he intends to follow in Rep. Joe Kennedy’s footsteps, which is fine but nothing to write home about. Sigel is Jewish and Puerto Rican and would be the first Latino congressman from Massachusetts if elected. All-in-all Sigel probably wouldn’t be terrible, but we don’t really see what he has to offer over someone like Leckey or Grossman.
NY-17
The already insanely crowded NY-17 could always use another candidate, and thus in walks Pleasantville (pop 7,000) Board of Education Trustee Shane McGaffey. McGaffey is a former Republican who is running on what almost exclusively appears to be a plan to adjust federal tax rates by state to give New York a tax cut. He’s strongly anti-marijuana legalization and oddly anti-school busses. We don’t see him getting terribly far.
Queens Borough President
As recently as two weeks ago, it looked like New York City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer’s Queens Borough President star was on the rise, with high profile endorsements from Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and actor Kal Penn. On Tuesday, though, Van Bramer announced that he is suspending his campaign due to “family circumstances.” While Van Bramer did not endorse another candidate, his exit can only come as good news to Council Member Costa Constantinides, the only other progressive left in this race. We’re now seeing a rare moment in post-AOC New York City politics where a race has more moderates than progressives.
WA-10
Another candidate has entered the race for WA-10, a blue seat centered on Olympia left open by the retirement of Rep. Denny Heck. Phil Gardner, a longtime staffer for Heck, got into the race last Wednesday, but we didn’t catch it until after we published our newsletter for that day. Gardner joins socialist shitposter Joshua Collins, former Tacoma mayor and Amazon stooge Marilyn Strickland, and particularly blatant carpetbagger/erstwhile state Rep. Kristine Reeves in the race. Gardner’s website says he would be the first out queer member of Congress from the state of Washington, which could attract the support of LGBTQ advocacy groups. Gardner’s ideological leanings aren’t clear, but his former boss was a moderate, which isn’t a great sign. A series of Medium articles he wrote in support of Pete Buttigieg don’t inspire confidence. In one, he praises Buttigieg’s lack of traditional ideology, and in another he explicitly says “Buttigieg has expressed a justifiable distaste for political ideology”, which is the kind of meaningless centrist talk that generally signals bad things when it comes time for governing.
IL-01
Rep. Bobby Rush’s most recent iffy move is endorsing Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire former Republican mayor of New York City, prison labor enthusiast, and pioneer of racist stop-and-frisk policing, for president. Thankfully, Rush will not skate to renomination unchallenged; he faces a challenge from activist Robert Emmons. Also on the ballot is law student Sarah Gad, who has...problems. Gad lost two high-level staffers last week; according to the Hyde Park Herald, she also falsely claimed she attended the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, pretended to have the endorsement of a nonexistent block club, and has been running several fraudulent social media accounts to boost her campaign. The Emmons campaign, which alerted the Hyde Park Herald to the social media inaccuracies and lies mentioned in their article, shared its research with Primaries for Progress; the campaign’s research clearly demonstrates a pattern of sock puppet accounts. It’s bad.
Primaries for Progress recently had the opportunity to interview Emmons, and a preview is available below. The full interview will be sent to everyone later this week.
NICK: You’ve mentioned [on the campaign trail] that there are no young black men in Congress. If you win, you will be one of the youngest members of Congress, and the youngest black member. You would bring a perspective that is just not in Congress. [The only members of Congress of color under the age of 35] would be you, [possibly] Jessica Cisneros, AOC, and Lauren Underwood, and you would be the only young black man in that group. How do you think that will impact the kind of representative you’ll be?
EMMONS: A couple weeks ago, I attended a conference in DC, and a gentleman by the name of Ted said something that really stuck out to me. He was saying that as progressives, as movement fighters, we can be both truth-tellers and bridge-builders. In this moment, it’s important to do both--tell the truth, which is saying that a lot of the issues we face are steeped in oppression and racism in our country, but it’s also important that we have members of Congress who can build those bridges. It’s not enough for me just to talk about solving gun violence on a campaign [if I can’t] do it in Congress. The only way I can do it in Congress, especially if we have a Senate that looks similar to the Senate that we currently have, is for someone to be able to build those bridges.
Nothing unites us better than stories do. We need stories from lived experiences [...] the majority of members of Congress are [...] speaking for communities that they’re not necessarily from. They can’t bring in the same stories that they would’ve been able to if they were from that community that has been disproportionately impacted by these challenges. That’s what I’ll be able to bring in as a young person, and also as a young black man, who’s liv[ed] experience is somewhat different than--no, not somewhat, it’s very different from a majority of members of Congress.
[...]
NICK: One of those progressive policies that Congressman Rush doesn’t support--and you mentioned this earlier--is the Green New Deal. You’ve been endorsed by the Sunrise Movement, and that makes you one of only four primary challengers they’ve endorsed so far. (The other three are Marie Newman in IL-03, Jessica Cisneros in TX-28, and Morgan Harper in OH-03.) There’s a big difference between you and Congressman Rush, who’s described the Green New Deal as a “smash and grab.” What does the Green New Deal look like for your district specifically, and why do you think it’s so important?
EMMONS: The most obvious one is...it begins to save our planet from destruction that’s irreversible. Moving past that, more locally, is the infrastructure piece of that. The infrastructure component of the Green New Deal means that we can reinvest in our pipes. Right now, in communities across the country, we have young people who are quite literally being lead-poisoned. There are numerous studies that show that lead, when we’re consuming it, it underdevelops the mind of our young people, especially from that age of 0-3. That makes it more difficult to do well in school, and it also affects the brain in a way that makes it more difficult to make rational decisions--whether or not to pull the trigger could have been determined by what you consumed when you were 2 years old.
That’s one way I’m looking at the Green New Deal, the infrastructure component. Another way I’m looking at it is health. Right now, in disinvested communities all across the country, [homes]--including the house I just bought--are situated right next to either toxic zones, or expressways, you name it, just bad areas. We’re breathing in these toxins and fumes, and it’s leading to health issues, and that has an economic component to it, because almost 650,000 Americans are going bankrupt every year due to healthcare bills, and a large portion of that are people of color who don’t have the means [to pay for] healthcare they desperately need. And it’s also the jobs portion of the Green New Deal. Creating that new economy looks like putting people to work in good-paying jobs that aren’t leading to their inevitable demise, like the fossil fuel industry has done--there are jobs [in the fossil fuel industry], and some of them are unionized, but they’re jobs that lead to eventual sickness.
This green economy gives good jobs, jobs that can be unionized, jobs that are gonna prepare them to obtain upward mobility. [...] So Bobby Rush calling it a “smash and grab”...I can’t fathom--I know why he called it a “smash and grab” but I can’t fathom why someone would sell out their community.
