Issue #54
We're going to keep fighting
Results
For more context on these races, see our Super Tuesday Primary Preview.
There's no sugarcoating it, we suffered some tough losses. But first, the good news:
AR-SD-25: Stephanie Flowers flattened her more conservative challenger Efrem Elliott 75-25.
CA-53: It's pretty clear that San Diego City Councilor Georgette Gómez has made it into the runoff, and done so not all that far behind wealthy heiress Sara Jacobs. In the preliminary voting totals, Jacobs leads Gómez 29.6% to 18.6%. The best showing from a Republican is 14.0% Since later ballots lean Democratic, this means Gómez is pretty safely in the runoff.
Los Angeles County DA: Punitive incumbent Jackie Lacey leads with 50.69%. It’s long been true that later ballots lean more progressive, so by the time everything’s counted she should be under 50% and headed to a runoff. Surprisingly, while former San Francisco DA George Gascón is currently in second, he only leads Rachel Rossi, the leftmost candidate in the field, 26.8-22.5. Either could conceivably make the runoff. Gascón and Rossi have been running similar reformist campaigns, and we assume most of their voters will have picked the other in a runoff against Lacey.
TX-SD-27: Social arch-conservative Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. will be headed to a runoff after falling a couple hundred votes short of a majority. Surprisingly, it will be with lawyer Sara Stapleton Barrera, not State Board of Education member Ruben Cortez.
Travis County DA: José Garza, the executive director of the Workers Defense Project, has not only forced a runoff with incumbent Margret Moore, but beat her in the initial round, 44-41.
Webb County Tax Assessor-Collector: In a minor blow to the Cuellar dynasty, incumbent Rosie Cuellar is headed to a runoff, barely beating out her top opponent Patricia Barrera 44.75-44.64.
Webb County Democratic Party Chair: Henry Cuellar ally Eduardo Chapa lost outright 56-44 in his bid for Party Chair to Sylvia Bruni, a woman of liberal convictions that Cuellar does not share.
And now for the bad news, of which there was considerably more.
CA-12: We said to watch the margins in this election where a Pelosi-Buttar general was almost guaranteed, and the margins are not good, with Pelosi currently up 72.5-12.7. Late ballots will probably be friendly to Buttar, but not friendly enough to suggest any danger for Pelosi in the general election.
CA-16: Soria lost, and it wasn’t particularly close. She’s currently down to Jim Costa 37.5-18.4. Late ballots will close that margin, maybe even enough to bring it into single digits, but not nearly enough to beat him. And while the Republican in the race is only at 38.5, and thus likely to fall behind Costa, Soria doesn't have a real chance to beat either.
CA-20: California Food & Water Watch Director Adam Bolaños Scow will not be making the runoff. Late votes lean Democrat, but not enough to erase the 23.7-11.1 lead the Republican in the race, who is currently in the second place slot.
NC-02: As expected, Deborah Ross beat Monika Johnson-Hostler, although the 70-22 margin was worse than we were hoping.
NC-06: Kathy Manning, despite an enormous financial advantage, did not get a majority of the vote, sliding it at 48%. Unfortunately, North Carolina’s runoffs are triggered if not candidate reaches 30%, not 50%, so Manning’s 48-20 plurality win over Rhonda Foxx is final.
TX-28: This one hurts. It really, really does. Jessica Cisneros was a 26 year old lawyer with no political connections going up against the most powerful family in South Texas. She faced down millions in attacks, the Koch network, and both the local and national political establishments. She really should not have won. And yet, she almost did, losing by a painful 3.7% margin. In her concession speech, Cisneros declared that this wasn’t over. We agree that Cuellar’s days are numbered, and we hope she’s back in 2022 to finish him off. Interestingly, Cuellar only won Webb County 55-45 in this election. In his hotly contested 2004 and 2006 primaries, he won his half of it by margins of 84-16 and 85-10, respectively. His grip on power is loosening in his home town.
TX-HD-38: Local lawyer Erin Gamez came surprisingly close to knocking off Eddie Lucio III, son of Eddie Lucio Jr, losing only 54-46.
TX-HD-76: Labor-backed legislative staffer Elisa Tamayo lost handily to developer-friendly, constantly-explaining-herself-to-ethics-boards El Paso City Councilor Claudia Ordaz Perez 56-44.
Harris County DA: Incumbent punitive prosecutor Kim Ogg got 55% of the vote, securing her renomination. For a county the size of Harris, taking on an incumbent is a monumental task, and local activists got damn close.
Webb County Sheriff: Martin Cuellar, brother of Henry, won an easy 64-36 victory.
A few results were more ambiguous:
CA-18: Saratoga City Councilor Rishi Kumar had made it into the general election, but Eshoo has 58.4% of the vote to his 15.9%, so it’s pretty clear won’t be a close race in November.
CA-28: It’s too early to say, but Maebe A. Girl might be making it into the runoff with Adam Schiff. Girl is currently trailing the second place finisher, a Republican, 13.2-11.6. Given that late votes lean not just more Democratic but younger and more progressive as well, Maebe may be headed to November.
CA-SD-07: Marisol Rubio will not be landing ahead of anti-union, anti-tax incumbent Steve Glazer, but there is still a faint hope she might not be getting shut out of the general election. As the results currently stand, she is behind second place finisher Republican Julie Mobley 30.7-21.1. Coming back from that would be a steep lift, but not strictly out of the realm of plausibility.
Incumbent Challenges
NY-14
City Council Member Fernando Cabrera is dropping his bid against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and instead running for Bronx Borough President. That doesn’t mean he’s coming to his senses, though. AOC still has two other Democratic challengers, and Cabrera has made it clear he’s dropping out specifically to consolidate the moderate vote. Besides, he’s backing conservative CNBC host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera’s bid for the seat, who currently stands about as much chance of winning as he does.
OR-05
Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba’s challenge to Blue Dog Rep. Kurt Schrader continued to gain momentum last week, with two(?) important endorsements—we’ll explain the question mark.
Oregon is one of the few states outside of the East Coast where the Working Families Party has much of a footprint, and Oregon’s branch of the WFP apparently backed him (although their online footprint hasn’t been updated in quite a long time, despite national WFP having a meticulously maintained online presence, so...hold off on calling it official.)
He also claimed the endorsement of a major Teamsters umbrella organization, Joint Council 37, which covers Teamsters throughout Oregon. Schrader is staunchly anti-union, so this strikes us as more than a one-off. Unions, especially locals, generally do not have great websites, so Gamba’s word is likely all we’ll get, but we’d still like to have outside confirmation.
Open Races
MA-04
All but two candidates in the race to replace Rep. Joe Kennedy met for a first debate this week. We learned during two hand-raising questions that only progressive activist Ihssane Leckey and Ayanna Pressley-backed Brookline City Councilor Jesse Mermell support both single-payer health care and tuition-free college. Former Obama speechwriter Dave Cavell said he supports tuition-free college but not single-payer, and no other candidate expressed support for either policy. Newton City Councilor Becky Grossman talked about the need to take on the NRA, and Newton City Councilor Jake Auchincloss continued to solidify his position as a centrist shill by complaining about Medicare for All and touting his military experience.
Unfortunately, Auchincloss also scored his first union endorsement this week from the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), an affiliate of SEIU. NAGE represents around 22,000 members statewide.
NY-17
Mondaire Jones got two new endorsements in NY-17: UAW Region 9A, which represents thousands of workers in the New York metro area, and the New York Working Families Party, the progressive third party that largely plays in Democratic primaries rather than running its own candidates.
Jones, who started the cycle challenging Rep. Nita Lowey before she abruptly announced her retirement, is up against a crowded field which includes Rahm Emanuel-quoting Obama administration alum Evelyn Farkas, mostly-progressive Asm. David Buchwald, and literal Republican state Sen. David Carlucci.
WA-10
After quietly filing paperwork with the FEC ahead of a potential run for the WA-10, State Rep. Beth Doglio has made it official and launched her campaign. As we said at the time:
Doglio’s entry would reframe the race ideologically. Currently, there is a DSA-backed outright socialist and three centrists - an Amazon-allied Chamber of Commerce head, an anti-tax crusader in the state house, and Denny Heck’s “post-ideological” district director. Doglio, a climate activist and one of the most progressive members of the State House, would fit inside the considerable gulf between those two camps.
There’s also a geographical element to a Doglio candidacy. Former Tacoma Mayor Marylin Strickland is from, obviously, Tacoma, in the northern end of the district, and the other elected official, state Rep. Kristine Reeves, represents a district even further north, in fact so far north it’s almost entirely outside of WA-10. Doglio would be the only Olympia-area elected official in the race. Socialist Joshua Collins obviously isn’t elected, but his campaign headquarters is in Olympia.
Doglio stated at her launch that she is in favor of Medicare for All and a Green New Deal.
Correction: in an earlier version of this issue, we misspelled the town where Mark Gamba is mayor; it is spelled Milwaukie, not Milwaukee. We also erroneously wrote about a UMass-Lowell poll of MA-Sen that we had covered last week.
