Primary School 1/8
Happy New Year!
Redistricting
A trio of major redistricting rulings came down over the holidays, and we’re going to lead with those.
Georgia U.S. House
A federal court has upheld Georgia's new proposed Congressional districts. Last year, civil rights groups sued the state for only creating three Black majority districts in the Atlanta metro when it clearly had the population to create four, and won. Though many had read the judge’s initial order to require preservation of the current 7th district, which is majority minority but not majority Black, the state mostly shuffled population between the 7th and the three Black majority districts: GA-04, GA-05, and GA-13. Now that Judge Steve Jones of the Northern District Georgia federal court has ruled otherwise, the prospects for preserving the 7th look bleak given the right wing bent of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and SCOTUS.
The new map can be viewed here. Daily Kos’s Steven Wolf crunched the numbers and showed that most districts were kept mostly intact (though GA-06 was renamed GA-07) but districts GA-07 and GA-13 were blown up. While the largest chunk of the old GA-13 wound up in the new GA-06, and the largest chunk of the old GA-07 wound up in the new GA-13, it doesn’t appear that the incumbents are poised to follow. Rep. Lucy McBath, who hopped from Cobb County to Gwinnett County after last cycle’s redistricting, is now running in the new Cobb-based GA-06, which contains none of her current district (but overlaps with her old one) and is located on the other side of the city of Atlanta. In fact, it contains a substantial portion of the city itself.
This could present progressives with an opportunity. Blue Dog Rep. David Scott, who currently represents the southwestern Atlanta area, has been a thorn in the side of progressives for a long time, and repelled a trio of progressive challengers with 66% of the primary vote in 2022. Unless he wants to face off against McBath for some reason, he’ll be running for the new 13th district, which is mostly going to be new material for him, and will include some more progressive territory in Gwinnett County. Scott will need to win over new voters despite recent concerns about his age getting in the way of his job and his ability to appear in public.
Wisconsin Legislature
The Wisconsin Supreme Court closed out the year by striking down the entirety of the state legislative district maps on grounds that Republicans’ brutally effective gerrymander failed to make all districts contiguous as required. While the ruling was expected—so expected, in fact, that Republicans were threatening to impeach a liberal justice if she ruled against the maps—what happens next is less clear. Republicans want to appeal this ruling to the US Supreme Court, and, while SCOTUS is a right wing organization that has literally already reversed a WISC ruling on legislative districts to make them more Republican-favoring this decade, the impression we're getting from court watchers is that it's much less likely to work this go-around.
Assuming SCOTUS doesn't step in, the legislature will get first crack at drawing new districts. While the odds of the power-obsessed and vindictive psychos at the WIGOP being willing to play ball are low, they still might attempt to pass a less drastic gerrymander and see if the court (and Dem Gov. Tony Evers) will bite. Failing that, the court will hire a special master to draw new districts. This multi-stage process is supposed to finish in time for the state’s August 13 primary election to happen unimpeded, and it better, because even if the state court WI wants to push the election back, they only have so much time before they start stepping on the general elections’ toes, even if there doesn't have to be a full 90 days between the two, like in federal contests.
The new maps will necessarily produce districts more favorable to the Democrats, but that doesn't mean a substantial number of new safely Democratic seats. Outside of Milwaukee and Dane (Madison) counties, there aren't many possible safely Democratic districts to even draw, and the special master may well choose to create a large volume of swing districts to create a fair map, an outcome that could mean an overhaul of an entire legislature somehow produces no or very few open contests on the Democratic side that we would cover.
Michigan Legislature
A federal district court in Michigan also ended the year by striking down its state’s legislative maps, though their ruling was much more limited in scope. They found that roughly a dozen state house and state senate districts in the Detroit area had been drawn out of accordance with the Voting Rights Act’s stipulations for minority access districts. As many noted at the time, the maps the state’s citizen redistricting commission drew frequently treated Black populations of close to 40% as sufficient to meet the VRA’s standard, which it plainly would not in heavily Democratic districts. The 2022 primaries proved the naysayers right after multiple primaries fell along racial lines, and the candidate of the white suburbs won.
The remedial map could go one of two ways—since the population of Detroit declined between 2010 and 2020, they're going to have to choose between removing Black access districts and drawing squiggly strips from the city core to the suburbs à la Chicago.
Note: the original version of this issue misstated the reason for the Wisconsin ruling; while the voided maps are extremely effective GOP gerrymanders, they were struck down for non-contiguous district lines. The original version of this issue also misstated the court which struck down the Michigan state legislative maps; it was the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, not the Michigan Supreme Court. Thanks to our readers for the quick correction. We apologize for the error.
AL-02
Two candidates have dropped out of the crowded field for Alabama’s new Democratic congressional district. Both, somehow, were the choice of Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, whose endorsement has been a kiss of death (his first choice, state Sen. Kirk Hatcher, dropped out shortly before the filing deadline.) After Hatcher withdrew and Reed himself decided against a run, the mayor threw his support to Montgomery surgeon Dr. Brian Gary, who has now withdrawn; after Gary withdrew, Reed backed Alabama Education Association official Darryl Sinkfield, who likewise dropped out shortly thereafter. Phyllis Harvey-Hall, a retired schoolteacher who was the Democratic nominee for the old AL-02 in 2020 and 2022, finds herself the only noteworthy Democratic candidate from Montgomery County, the largest source of Democratic votes in the district. (Several candidates, most notably state Rep. Napoleon Bracy and Biden DOJ official Shomari Figures, hail from Mobile County, the only other county containing a comparable number of Democratic AL-02 voters.)
CA-Sen
Morning Consult, contracted by Politico, released their first poll of the contest. They found Rep. Adam Schiff leading with 28% of the vote, Republican Steve Garvey taking second with 19%, and Dem Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee even further behind Schiff, taking 17% and 14%, respectively. Recent polls have shown Schiff consolidating Democratic support, and, just as concerningly, Steve Garvey consolidating Republican support, greatly increasing the odds that joining Schiff in the runoff is another Republican, granting him a near-automatic general election victory.
CA-16
Palo Alto City Councilor Julie Lythcott-Haims was endorsed by Sen. Cory Booker. Booker is an alumnus of Stanford, where Lythcott-Haims once served as a dean, and he’s apparently known her since he was a student.
DE-AL
The Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC has endorsed state Sen. Sarah McBride for Delaware’s lone House seat. This is a blow to state housing secretary Eugene Young Jr., who is running somewhat to McBride’s left, and further evidence that McBride is a strong favorite as she seeks to become the first openly transgender member of Congress.
FL-20
The House Ethics Committee has unanimously voted to begin an investigation into alleged campaign finance violations committed by South Florida Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. She might wind up being the true heir to Alcee Hastings after all. Though it doesn’t seem to have impacted her reelection prospects just yet, the filing deadline in Florida isn’t until June 14.
NJ-Sen
To kick off the new year, Andy Kim was endorsed by Jersey City Council President and 2025 mayoral candidate Joyce Watterman. In addition to her political career, Watterman is a popular pastor with connections to politically active Black churches across North Jersey. If she continues to campaign for Kim, as she did at several events across Jersey City on Thursday, her simple message—“I am tired of people dictating to us who we are going to vote for”—could reach a sizable number of reliable primary voters who don’t normally hear anti-machine appeals. He also landed the endorsement of AFSCME, which is on icier-than-usual terms with the Murphy administration at the moment over a pay dispute.
Kim also announced a $2.75 million fundraising total for the final quarter of 2023, bringing him to an annual total of nearly $4 million raised. New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy is an exceptional fundraiser, like her husband—Phil Murphy was the DNC’s finance chair in the late 2000s, and he became governor in 2017 by burying all opposition in a mountain of money. Tammy Murphy has been one of his closest advisors and best fundraisers all along, so it’s only a mild surprise that she raised an even larger $3.2 million in the final quarter of 2023—despite only beginning her campaign in mid-November, meaning she raised that amount in about half of a quarter.
Perplexingly, a fourth candidate entered the race—labor activist Patricia Campos-Medina declared an upstart campaign for Senate. Campos-Medina will be vying for a tiny sliver of the same progressive outsider lane as former Newark school board member Larry Hamm, who filed to run before Menendez was even indicted—and both will be largely crowded out by Kim, the only even-sort-of-an-outsider candidate with the money, political network, or name recognition to rival (or, in the case of name recognition, surpass) Tammy Murphy. If we were going for the thumbtacks-on-corkboard approach to this we would point out that Campos-Medina is on good terms with the Murphys, and even announced her campaign on the same day that she joined Gov. Murphy at an event celebrating New Jersey’s minimum wage finally reaching (and surpassing, by 13 cents) $15 an hour, but the mundane reality is most no-shot campaigns happen because of opaque personal motivations, not as part of intentional stalking-horse plotting, even in the sleazy world of New Jersey politics.
NJ-03
State Sen. Vin Gopal is the closest thing Monmouth County Democrats have to a party boss; he even used to be the county party chair. He endorsed Assemb. Herb Conaway for Congress, a sign that Conaway is the favorite for the party line in Monmouth County and potentially that he’ll have access to Gopal’s formidable campaign operation, which overlaps with NJ-03 in the city and township of Freehold. Assembly Deputy Majority Leader Carol Murphy, a George Norcross ally who seemed to be the early favorite, increasingly looks like an underdog here.
NJ-09
Something is in the water in New Jersey. The last and toughest stronghold of the smoke-filled room school of politics is uncharacteristically rife with dissent this cycle, as activists and party regulars bristle at the expectation that they once again fall in line on the orders of the same people who had them line up behind Bob Menendez. There’s an unusually lively behind-the-scenes fight for Andy Kim’s open seat, and even more unusually, there are bitterly contested primaries for US Senate and the House seat of Bob Menendez’s son, U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez Jr. All this democracy is threatening to spill over into another district—but for reasons unrelated to Bob Menendez.
Paterson, NJ is the center of some of the nation’s largest Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern communities. Parts of the city’s south end are known as Little Ramallah or Little Palestine, and Little Istanbul is right next door. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations’s New Jersey chapter, more than 1,000 Palestinians with relatives in North Jersey have been killed in the war as of mid-December. If only one New Jersey representative were to sign on to the growing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza to protect civilian life, you’d expect it to be Paterson’s. Two New Jersey representatives have called for a ceasefire—but not Paterson’s congressman, a source of anger and feelings of betrayal in Muslim communities that helped Paterson Rep. Bill Pascrell survive his redistricting battle with fellow Rep. Steve Rothman in 2012. Activists and local elected officials from within the Paterson area’s Palestinian and Muslim communities are absolutely furious with Pascrell, including many past supporters. Community leader Salaheddin Mustafa, the outreach director of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, says politicians who refuse to call for a ceasefire are no longer welcome at area mosques; Clifton school board member Feras Awwad, a Palestinian-American with family roots in the West Bank, says there’s “not a chance in hell” anyone in his community will back Pascrell. Those angry constituents already have a challenger in mind, too: Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh, a former Pascrell aide who was once seen as the congressman’s successor in waiting but has lately grown impatient with the 86-year-old’s continued tenure in Congress. Sayegh, a Syrian and Lebanese Christian, speaks Arabic and has been a vocal supporter of a ceasefire since the conflict broke out. Sayegh has recently contributed to local party organizations outside of Paterson but within the 9th congressional district, a telltale sign that he’s thinking about a promotion.
PA-12
It looks like Swissvale Borough Council member Bhavini Patel isn't going to be the only centrist challenger to progressive Rep. Summer Lee. Laurie MacDonald, the President of the Center for Victims, filed to run for Congress on Friday. MacDonald’s choice to join the Democratic primary may seem odd, given that she supported the confirmation of right-wing foot soldier Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, her sole federal political contribution is to Dr. Oz last October, and, unless someone is running a sophisticated hoax pretending to be her on Twitter, liked a Trump tweet complaining about his impeachment. Independently of her political leanings, MacDonald has come under fire for her leadership of the Center for Victims. In 2020, Aaron Martin of WPXI-TV reported that employees and ex-employees had been complaining for years of bigotry from upper management, MacDonald among them. From the article: “According to the letter, ‘stupid Jews’, ‘fat lesbians’, and the ‘n-word’ were among the terms used.”
Clearly a Republican AND credibly accused of bigotry? MacDonald is an early frontrunner for the Allegheny County Democratic Committee endorsement, if the past is any guide.
TX-18
Fresh off a punishing 30-point loss in the Houston mayoral race, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has another problem: former Houston City Councilor At-Large Amanda Edwards decided to stay in the congressional race after Jackson Lee chose to run for reelection, and she’s gaining traction. Fort Bend County Judge K.P. George and Fort Bend County Democratic Party Chair Cynthia Ginyard endorsed Edwards shortly before Christmas. (County judge is Texan for county executive.) While none of Fort Bend County is contained within TX-18, the county contains a sliver of Houston and many of the city’s bluest, most diverse suburbs; Jackson Lee, who has represented Houston in Congress since the 90s, is a known quantity here, and it’s a bad sign for her if big names in Houston-area Democratic politics are defecting to her challenger early on.
WA-06
Washington Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz continues to cement her status as an early frontrunner. Over the holidays, Franz was endorsed by the Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council, the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, and the Puyallup Tribal Council. Franz has been endorsed by a number of tribes previously; the Puyallup Tribe’s reservation lands are nestled in the heart of the Tacoma metro area.
Her leading competitor, state Sen. Emily Randall, may be able to count on some national help from the LGBT Equality PAC, whose co-chair, Rep. Mark Takano, endorsed her campaign shortly before Christmas.
Baltimore Mayor
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott got some badly needed good news over the holidays: Thiru Vignarajah seems to be running against him. Scott already faces a tough challenge from controversial former Mayor Sheila Dixon, who left office amid a corruption conviction but sees an opening to take back her old job, courtesy of Scott’s unpopularity. Vignarajah, who ran for mayor in 2020 and State’s Attorney in 2022 on a tough-on-crime centrist/conservative platform, will likely siphon off white conservatives, who won’t vote for Scott but might not want to put Dixon back in office either.
DC Council Ward 7
Vincent Gray, the former mayor of DC, announced over the holidays that he would be retiring in 2024 and not seeking reelection to the Ward 7 council seat he has held since 2016. Ward 7, in Northeast DC, is safely Democratic like all of DC’s wards, and there’s likely to be no shortage of candidates in the Democratic primary.
Cook County DA
Retired judge Eileen O’Neill Burke is the conservative/moderate candidate to replace Chicagoland conservative boogey(wo)man Kim Foxx, who is retiring as Cook County’s top prosecutor this year. The Chicago Tribune recently found a sobering case in O’Neill Burke’s past as a prosecutor: she put away a child for a 1993 murder, only for that child to be released—after spending his adolescent years behind bars—because his confession had been coerced by Chicago police.
NYC Mayor
Though he’ll become mayor if the corruption probe swirling around Eric Adams takes the mayor down before his term is up, we can tentatively cross Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’s name off the list of potential 2025 mayoral candidates. Williams, who generally identifies with the NYC left, would have been a strong contender with or without incumbency, but progressives are looking more closely at others like state Sen. Jessica Ramos.