Primary School 2/15/23
Philadelphia’s mayoral primary isn’t for another few months and one candidate is already faking an Obama endorsement. A senior House Democrat is eyeing the exits for the unrewarding world of municipal politics. Shri Thanedar might face a rematch with the Conyers dynasty. Dianne Feinstein is finally retiring. It’s a busy time, even in national politics’ off-season.
AZ-03
Glendale Elementary School Board member Héctor Jaramillo is the first Democrat to file to run for Ruben Gallego’s open Phoenix district. He was elected to the board with the support of pro-public school, anti-charter school groups and seems to have generally progressive politics, which are good signs, but we’ll hold off on a more detailed look unless and until he actually kicks off a campaign. (“Big announcement coming soon.”)
CA-Sen
Dianne Feinstein’s long-awaited retirement is finally confirmed, about ten years after people started wondering when she was going to retire. The 89-year-old senator announced she would not seek reelection in 2024, which she had said (threatened?) she might do as recently as last month. Most in politics, however, assumed she would ultimately retire this year; while her announcement might make some ambitious California politicians a little more willing to test the waters now that they’re officially not challenging an incumbent, the race to replace her was already well underway. Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff already launched their campaigns, and their colleague Barbara Lee is reportedly planning to join them before the end of the month.
With so many potential or declared candidates, we assumed most Democratic-aligned interest groups and labor unions would stay neutral until the race took shape, especially before Feinstein’s announcement. However, one major union council bucked expectations and endorsed early: IATSE, which represents stage hands, film crew and production workers, and other entertainment industry workers. Several days before Feinstein’s retirement announcement, the California IATSE Council endorsed Adam Schiff. Schiff has represented the beating heart of the American entertainment industry—Hollywood, Burbank, Glendale—for over twenty years, so he’s kind of IATSE’s favorite son in this race, and we’re hesitant to draw any broader conclusions about how organized labor is leaning in this race based on just IATSE.
We do have an idea of what Schiff views as his weak spot, though: progressives. Schiff, a moderate Democrat through and through (he was even a member of the Blue Dogs for a while), is the least progressive candidate in the race, and his opponents certainly won’t let that slide. Katie Porter jabbed Schiff for not being a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and in response he immediately sought to join the caucus, which he had never expressed interest in doing before in his 20+ years in Congress. It’s shameless. Adam Schiff is no progressive, nor would anyone who’s followed his career describe him as such; he’s always been close to the median House Democrat, or a little to the right of that. His sudden progressive turn is nothing more than a branding exercise in which he transparently does not believe, as devoid of meaning and value as a 2 AM rerun of a panel of talking heads broadcast from the MSNBC studio Schiff inhabits 24/7.
MA-Sen, MA-04
Rep. Jake Auchincloss is reportedly considering a primary run against Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Auchincloss was a campaign staffer for Republican Gov. Charlie Baker in 2014 and is cozier with the crypto industry than most lawmakers of either party; longtime readers may remember how he limped through an expensive primary in 2020 with less than a quarter of the vote after his parents dumped big bucks into a super PAC boosting his campaign. Suffice it to say we’re not fans of the idea of a Senator Auchincloss.
MI-13
A reader reached out to us this week with news: they had been contacted by John Conyers III about a potential run for Congress against Shri Thanedar in the 12th district. The contact came in the form of an email; we can’t confirm that it was sent by Conyers or anyone working for him, but it did come from the web domain officially associated with Conyers’s 2022 campaign committee.
Conyers first ran for a version of this district in 2018, before getting knocked off the ballot and watching from the sidelines as his cousin Ian lost horribly with 6% of the vote. John III then ran for Congress in the current 13th, losing with 9% of the vote in an election that ended with Shri Thanedar winning at only 28%.
We’ve talked about Thanedar before, multiple times. A self-funding pharma multimillionaire who went to Marcio Rubio rallies in 2016 before running for governor as a progressive in 2018, Thanedar got very far despite no one buying the “progressive” act, and then won a state house and Congressional race in 2020 and 2022, respectively. He’s also a DSA member, somehow. From what we gather he bought a lifetime membership before an endorsement meeting (he wasn’t endorsed, for obvious reasons) and isn’t really an active member, but has shown up at DSA events to campaign after that, so it’s not like he’s renounced his membership. It’s all very bizarre, but that’s the story of how a multimillionaire DSA member joined the centrist New Democrat Coalition. However, he also joined the Progressive Caucus, and has established a fairly progressive voting record in the five weeks Congress has been in session. Of course you should, under no circumstances, come under the assumption that Thanedar has any core beliefs, but the decent record and willingness to work with the left opens up the possibility that Shri Thanedar isn’t the worst case scenario for this seat. He may even be better than a substantial number of politicians who see a 1v1 against Thanedar as an easy proposition, and there are quite a few of those.
Thanedar, in addition to being a controversy-riddled plurality winner with only 28% of the vote, also represents a historically Black-represented district where about half of the electorate is Black. It seems unlikely that the Detroit establishment is going to let the cycle go by without a challenge to Thanedar, but two problems remain. The first is exemplified by Conyers’s potential entry into the race: there’s still no way to force the field down to two candidates. The Detroit establishment wanted to elect a Black member of Congress in 2022, but managed a three-way split on their candidate choice. Conyers wasn’t even one of those three, and won 8.6% of the vote, mostly on family name recognition, at least in our estimation. It’s hard to imagine that Conyers would be running because someone asked him to, and it’s unclear how they’d be able to force him out of the race this time after not being able to last time.
The second is that Thanedar does well politically in Detroit, even without the benefit of incumbency. The New York Times was baffled enough by that phenomenon to write an entire profile about it. They came to a reasonable conclusion that we’ll restate more bluntly than they can. After years of urban decline, a complacent machine failed to grasp how badly the corruption scandals of the late 2000s had hurt them, opening them up to lose to politicians who could either organize or buy their way to voters’ attention. Thanedar is willing to show up, and trust in Detroit’s establishment has fallen to the point that showing up (even if much of that presence is functionally purchased) is enough for many voters. For now, Shri Thanedar is going to start out the favorite for 2024, and we’re not even particularly disappointed.
NJ-Sen
Roselle Park Mayor Joe Signorello quietly filed to run against Sen. Bob Menendez this week. When reached for comment, Signorello clarified that he’s still in the exploratory stage. Even the potential existence of a Menendez challenger who isn’t a complete and total rando is welcome news to us, and presumably to all of the 38% of New Jersey Democratic primary voters who backed kooky petition fraudster Lisa McCormick in 2018 just as a giant fuck-you to the unpopular senator. It’s also a pleasant surprise; Menendez is famously and openly vindictive towards anyone who challenges his authority, and New Jersey’s ultra-powerful party machinery offers plenty of ways for party bosses to punish politicians who step out of line.
Roselle Park, a middle-class suburb of 14,000 just south of Newark, isn’t a natural launching pad for statewide office, but Signorello has a slightly higher profile than just borough hall. He ran for state senate unsuccessfully in 2021, and made headlines for trying to enforce a patently unconstitutional municipal ordinance banning profane signage against a Roselle Park woman who put up a “Fuck Biden” sign on her front lawn. (Who tries to ban profanity in New Jersey?) Signorello, a moderate Democrat who works in finance, is not the kind of candidate we normally get excited about, but Bob Menendez is a moderate, finance-friendly Democrat who also has insanely hawkish foreign policy views, the gavel of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a talent for attracting federal corruption investigations. (Currently he appears to be under investigation for allegedly accepting bribes from an Egyptian halal meat exporter. Last time it was a jet-setting Medicare fraudster. At least the corruption stays interesting with Bob Menendez.) “Better than Bob Menendez” is a bar Signorello easily clears.
TX-07
Renewable energy developer Pervez Agwan announced a primary challenge to Lizzie Pannill Fletcher. Agwan has been mentioned in at least one local press outlet as a Asian American community organizer, he’s currently part of an effort to block a freeway expansion in Houston, and his campaign is clearly taking on Fletcher from the left. As we noted when Texas redistricted, the 7th was made far more Democratic and diverse in order to shore up Republican districts, creating an opening for someone like Agwan against Fletcher, a moderate who was a much better fit for the old swing district than she is for the new blue one.
TX-18, Houston Mayor
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is polling Houstonians on a potential mayoral run, according to Texas politics blog Off the Kuff. Were she to run, she’d join a crowded field that already includes state Sen. John Whitmire, city councilor Robert Gallegos, former city councilor and 2020 Senate candidate Amanda Edwards, former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, and attorney Lee Kaplan; were she to win, she’d have to vacate her House seat, a deep-blue district that twists and turns through predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Houston’s northern half. Jackson Lee is a standard liberal Democrat best known as one of the Hill’s cruelest bosses; allegations of retaliation against an intern in Jackson Lee’s office who reported sexual assault by a supervisor led to her ouster as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in 2019. It’s not clear why she’d run or what she’d run on, but her entry would certainly shake up the race.
CA-SD-07
Nancy Skinner, the state senator for the East Bay, will be termed out in 2024, leaving an open seat. This district, which has existed in much the same form since 1992, has traditionally been a contest between two Assemblymembers: one from the district’s northern half (Richmond and Berkeley) and its southern half (Oakland and Alameda). Currently, those members are Buffy Wicks and Mia Bonta, respectively. However, neither of them will be the first Democrat to file for this race. Instead, our first candidate is Jesse Arreguín, mayor of Berkeley (pop. 124,000). Arreguín is in his second term as mayor, after 8 years in the City Council. He’s been associated with the progressive faction of his city’s politics, though in recent years the council has been less defined by those boundaries. Like with anything in Bay Area politics, much of Arreguín’s career has been defined by housing politics. Once a firm NIMBY who once voted to maintain single family zoning by denouncing what duplexes would do for neighborhoods character, Arreguín had a change of heart around 2018, when he reversed his opposition to building apartments over a parking lot, a fight which had turned into a statewide flashpoint in the housing wars.
Arreguín getting in is surprising, both because he’s not an immediately obvious candidate, but also for what it could mean for the field. Berkeley is also the home of Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Assemblymember who is seen as a rising star. Arreguín’s presence could signal that Wicks is not looking to run for Senate, which could mean she’s eyeing Barbara Lee’s House seat—or Arreguín could have decided to run independent of her plans, and instead might be an obstacle in Wicks’s way should she choose to run for state Senate.
VA-SD-37
In our last issue, conservative Democratic state Sen. Chap Petersen drew his first primary challenger, Fairfax County Democratic Party official Saddam Salim. Since then, he’s gotten a second one. Court officer and HOA president Erika Yalowitz, who ran for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 2019, joined the race and hit the ground running with a couple endorsements from local elected officials. While Yalowitz isn’t directly critical of Petersen (yet), she’s swearing off corporate contributions and emphasizing gun violence, so we can safely assume she’s more progressive than Petersen, a steadfast opponent of marijuana legalization and even the most modest gun control measures. (How an honest-to-God social conservative is still hanging around in liberal suburban DC in 2023 is a question without a satisfying answer.)
Chicago Mayor
This week brought six new polls in the Chicago mayoral contest. Bear with us.
Fox32 got its hands on a poll from a Republican firm tied to none of the mayoral candidates, conducted 1/26-1/30:
Lori Lightfoot 23%
Paul Vallas 21%
Chuy García 13%
Willie Wilson 8%
Brandon Johnson 7%
Progressive firm IZQ polled the field 1/27-2/2:
Paul Vallas 25%
Brandon Johnson 15%
Chuy García 12%
Lori Lightfoot 12%
Willie Wilson 11%
Brandon Johnson’s campaign released an internal poll, fielded 1/30-2/2:
Paul Vallas 24%
Lori Lightfoot 16%
Brandon Johnson 15%
Chuy García 11%
Willie Wilson 10%
Mason Dixon polled the field 1/31-2/3 at the behest of several major news organizations:
Chuy García 20%
Paul Vallas 18%
Lori Lightfoot 17%
Willie Wilson 12%
Brandon Johnson 11%
Lori Lightfoot's campaign released an internal fielded 2/5-2/7, unsurprisingly with her in the runoff:
Lori Lightfoot 24%
Paul Vallas 20%
Brandon Johnson 15%
Willie Wilson 14%
Chuy García 13%
And Northwestern University released its own poll, conducted 2/5-2/10:
Paul Vallas 19%
Chuy García 17%
Lori Lightfoot 14%
Willie Wilson 12%
Brandon Johnson 9%
So…polls continue to be all over the place, but they’re converging on one frontrunner, Paul Vallas, for one of the two runoff spots. It appears absolutely anyone could join him, from Lori Lightfoot to Brandon Johnson to Chuy García to Willie Wilson.
It was recently reported that Paul Vallas’s son was one of three San Antonio Police Department officers who shot and killed a Black man who was running away from them. While this news may endear Vallas to his base, it could get Vallas in trouble with the many voters still undecided in this race. For now, Vallas is trying to downplay the shooting, pointing out that the police department was fine with it. The news broke just after the most recent debate, meaning that Vallas was able to dodge immediate public criticism from the story and ride it out without making any further comments.
The story barely had time to saturate before Vallas found himself mired in another controversy, this time over his residency. Vallas moved to Chicago last year. (That he did it solely to run for mayor is widely accepted knowledge, but seldom discussed.) New reporting suggests that he may not have actually moved like he said he did. Vallas continued using his suburban address on business and political documents afterwards, and, even worse, the apartment he was renting in Chicago to establish residency was listed as a primary residence by the owner on her taxes. The Cook County Assessor’s office confirmed he did not commit any tax fraud in this process, but that doesn’t help him with the more burning question of residency. The bad news (for voters) is that the deadline for residency challenges has passed, so Vallas will remain on the ballot, but at least his opponents have two weeks to hammer him as a suburban LARPer.
Vallas picked up the support of two Alderpersons this week, both from the North Side: Brian Hopkins (Ward 2) and Tom Tunney (Ward 44). Potentially more impactful is the endorsement of the Chicago Tribune, which Vallas got last week. Johnson got the endorsements of Lightfoot-friendly South Side Ald. Pat Dowell (Ward 3), progressive Lightfoot antagonist and North Side Ald. Matt Martin (Ward 47), and state Sen. Robert Peters, who represents Hyde Park and the South Side. García, for his part, got the endorsement of fellow Rep. Mike Quigley, a North Side moderate who considered running for mayor last year.
Nashville Mayor
Mayor John Cooper, a bog-standard business-friendly moderate, shocked the world of Nashville politics when he announced he’d retire rather than seek a second term this year. At least one new entrant into the race is looking to fill the void of bland white Chamber of Commerce centrists: investment executive Jim Gingrich, whose qualifications include Business and whose plans for the city include Business.
Tennessee Republicans are considering a law which would end runoffs in local elections, and the reason is pretty simple: they want a Republican mayor of Nashville, which can realistically only happen if one candidate gets most Republican voters in a first-past-the-post contest while Democratic voters splinter among a crowded field of non-conservatives. Some noteworthy Republicans are considering campaigns, but we suspect those campaigns might be contingent on Tennessee Republicans eliminating runoffs.
Philadelphia Mayor
Grocery store tycoon Jeff Brown is one of several white candidates attempting to become Philadelphia’s next mayor, and he’s very conscious of the fact that the average primary voter in Philadelphia is not white. However, he has yet to figure out how to gracefully address that. One of his attempts at appealing to Black voters was a roundly criticized ad with overtones of white savior rhetoric, featuring a Black man who was, unbeknownst to the viewer, a former employee of Brown’s, not a neutral voter. Another attempt was an ad using footage of then-First Lady Michelle Obama lauding Brown (stripped, of course, of the context of the praise: an event about urban food deserts during the Obama administration at which Brown was a featured speaker, completely unrelated to his mayoral bid years later.) Apparently the former first lady’s team, less than pleased with Brown’s unauthorized and misleading use of her image, reached out to the campaign to give them an earful, after which point the campaign took the ad off the air. (A spokesperson for Michelle Obama clarified to the Daily Beast that she is not backing Brown or any other candidate, if that wasn’t already clear.)