Primary School 3/24/23
we caught Paul Vallas palling around with homophobes (again)
We’re very sorry about the length of this issue, our first in a while to be too long for some email providers. It was a newsy week, and once again, we lead with Chicago.
Chicago
Endorsement tracker
For Brandon Johnson: Chuy García, Ald. Mike Rodriguez, Ald.-elect Julia Ramirez, state Sen. Celina Villanueva, state Rep. Edgar Gonzalez and Metropolitan Water Reclamation Board Member Eira Corral Sepúlveda; the Rev. Jesse Jackson; Ald. Chris Taliaferro; City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin; US Rep. Ayanna Pressley; Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and state Rep. Bob Morgan; Alds. Jason Ervin and Howard Brookins Jr., state Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, state Rep. Justin Slaughter, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, Metropolitan Water Reclamation Board Vice President Kimberly Neely du Buclet, and former state Sen. Donne Trotter
For Paul Vallas: former Rep. Bobby Rush, former Gov. Pat Quinn, Ald. Nicholas Sposato, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, West Side Black clergy who supported Willie Wilson, the Polish National Alliance, 2022 GOP gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey (sorta)
Brandon Johnson had an excellent few days. U.S. Rep. Chuy García, the erstwhile progressive favorite who Johnson elbowed out of the progressive lane in the first round, buried the hatchet and endorsed Johnson on Friday morning, bringing along a number of elected officials aligned with Chuy and his Southwest Side-based political machine. García’s sure-thing campaign crumbled spectacularly after he refused to get started until the last minute, by which time progressives were looking elsewhere. His efforts to retaliate against onetime allies for backing Johnson fared no better than his campaign; however, he still has tremendous influence with Latine Chicagoans, and his endorsement could go very far in the Southwest Side neighborhoods that have been his base for decades—neighborhoods where Johnson struggled and his conservative runoff opponent Paul Vallas ran a strong second to García.
Before the day was even over, the Rev. Jesse Jackson endorsed Johnson as well. Maybe that’s to be expected—the reverend’s son, Rep. Jonathan Jackson, endorsed Johnson back in the first round, and his politics fit with Johnson’s, not Vallas’s. But the Rev. Jesse Jackson is a legend of the civil rights movement whose groundbreaking 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns got him closer to the White House than any Black candidate before (or since) Barack Obama; Jonathan is just a freshman congressman.
Throughout the weekend and into Monday, another round of endorsements came in from outside the progressive wing of Chicago politics. Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin endorsed Johnson on Sunday, and at a press conference the following morning, so did her husband, 28th Ward Ald. and City Council Black Caucus Chair Jason Ervin. 21st Ward Ald. Howard Brookins Jr., state Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, and state Rep. Justin Slaughter were among the other notables at Ervin’s press conference. (We have to mention that Slaughter was a vocal ally of indicted former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan until the very end, not exactly someone you’d expect to back a progressive reformer.) Ald. Chris Taliaferro, a member of the Progressive Reform Caucus on paper and a loyal ally of Lori Lightfoot in practice, separately endorsed Johnson in an interview with Block Club Chicago the same morning.
Who was endorsing Vallas in that same time period? Exactly who you’d expect, for the most part. Ald. Nicholas Sposato’s endorsement only surprised us in that we figured he had already endorsed Vallas; Sposato, a right-wing Blue Lives Matter guy, represents a suburban Northwest Side ward where Vallas won 57% of the first-round vote. The Chamber of Commerce and other business groups also make sense as Vallas endorsers. So does former Gov. Pat Quinn, who chose Vallas as his running mate in his unsuccessful 2014 reelection bid. There’s one exception: former Rep. Bobby Rush, who held the South Side seat now occupied by Jonathan Jackson until the beginning of this year. Rush is an odd guy: a former Black Panther and a co-chair of Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign. He endorsed Vallas late on Monday night, and while we can’t say for sure why, we can point out some funny coincidences with the timing that give us a pretty good idea.
Jonathan Jackson, with the support of his father as well as Chuy García, trounced Rush’s chosen successor, businesswoman Karin Norington-Reaves, in the 2022 primary, and Rush just happened to endorse Vallas right after both Jesse Jackson and Chuy endorsed Brandon Johnson. Incidentally, Ald. Pat Dowell, who placed second behind Jackson and ahead of Norington-Reaves in the 2022 IL-01 primary, was there to show support at that Monday morning press conference, having already endorsed Johnson; standing alongside her was not one, but two past primary challengers to Bobby Rush: Howard Brookins Jr. (2016) and former state Sen. Donne Trotter (2000.) A few hours after that press conference, Rush endorsed Vallas. Interesting! Was Rush’s endorsement of the FOP-endorsed candidate for mayor (something he considered such a disqualifier that he falsely claimed Lori Lightfoot, who he then opposed, had their endorsement in 2019) motivated by petty personal grievances? Surely not. It just looks exactly like that.
We’ve only got one new poll this week, and it doesn’t tell us anything new. Victory Research, one of the most accurate polling firms in the first round, released its second poll of the runoff: Vallas 46%, Johnson 44%. That’s not a great trend for Vallas, who led 45% to 39% in Victory’s first runoff poll, but it’s still a dead heat (and an exact reversal of last week’s 46% Johnson, 44% Vallas poll from IZQ Strategies, the other firm that did particularly well in Round 1.) So: it’s close, but we already knew that. If Vallas is indeed losing ground, it could be because of all the good news for Johnson mentioned above—but another contributing factor is Vallas’s continued vulnerability to attacks on his poorly-hidden Republican leanings, a drum that Johnson’s camp has been beating nonstop since the runoff began. This week’s fracas is over Vallas spouting off on conservative talk radio; this time, one of the targets of Vallas’s past ire responded, unlike when past comments about the Obamas and Joe Biden surfaced. In response to a recording of Vallas describing Lori Lightfoot and Gov. JB Pritzker as “dictators” for their cautious early-pandemic COVID policies, Pritzker’s office released a statement to HuffPost’s Daniel Marans that maintained his official neutrality in the mayoral race, but ended with a clear swipe at Vallas:
“Leadership requires making tough choices and not pandering to the loudest voices driven by politics,” [Pritzker spokesperson Natalie Edelstein] added. “The next mayor of Chicago may be called upon to lead in a similar type of emergency and residents deserve to know if their next Mayor will listen to experts or instead to right wing talk show hosts when making decisions about people’s lives.”
Vallas responded to HuffPost, also via a spokesperson. Vallas’s response was a lot less pointed than the Pritzker statement:
“Paul Vallas looks forward to working with state leaders in tackling all the issues facing Chicago, from making the city safer to improving education to confronting crisis situations whenever they emerge,” Vallas campaign spokesperson Phil Swibinski said in a statement. “As a lifelong Democrat, Paul respects Gov. Pritzker’s leadership and voted for him in the past election.”
Arguably relevant to Vallas’s claim that he supported Pritzker in 2022 is the stance of the man Pritzker beat, far-right loon Darren Bailey, who’s previously expressed his affinity for Vallas. And whaddya know, Bailey weighed in on the race, warning that Johnson’s election would be “a dark day for not only Chicago, but Illinois, I believe.” Johnson’s campaign seized on that, describing it as an endorsement (eh, that’s a stretch, though it’s clear who Bailey prefers) and using it as a segue to bring up all the other things that belie Vallas’s claim of being a progressive and a lifelong Democrat.
That very specific “lifelong Democrat” phrasing is all over Vallas’s campaign messaging. Of course, he publicly mused about running for office as a Republican, said if he ran for office it would be as a Republican, and said if he voted in a primary he’d do so in the Republican primary—all in a single interview in 2009. “Lifelong Democrat” may be a technically unfalsifiable claim, since Illinois does not have party registration and Vallas has not, to our knowledge, actually voted in any Republican primaries, but it’s laughably dishonest. It’s also a clunky line; saying “lifelong Democrat” every five seconds just sounds canned, wooden, unconvincing. However, most of the ways one might demonstrate party loyalty (like highlighting past public support of fellow partisans or involvement in party politics) are off-limits to Vallas, given his forays into Democratic politics have been pretty much limited to races where he was a candidate and his public statements about Democratic politicians from Obama and Biden on down have been (and continue to be) largely negative. Having ruled out all of the easy ways by being a conservative, he’s stuck with desperate gambits like appending the phrase “As a lifelong Democrat” to every sentence, rolling out endorsements from gadflies and washed-up ex-politicians, and touting the support of right-wing fringe groups that happen to have the word “Democratic” in the name.
Wait, what was that last one? Oh, right. Vallas effusively thanked someone named Rikki Jones, president of the innocuously-named group Cook County Democratic Women, as she held a press conference alongside Vallas in support of his campaign. It did not occur to him or his campaign, however, to Google “rikki jones chicago” like we did, because the first meaningful result was this:
Ah. Surely there’s a non-homophobic explana—
Credit where it’s due: “Your arms are too short to box with God” is a banger. As for everything else? Yikes. It’s not the first time Vallas has cozied up to an anti-LGBTQ group; he was a panelist at a fundraiser for Awake Illinois, a far-right anti-trans anti-gay hate group that has incited harassment and outright violence against family-friendly drag shows and used anti-LGBTQ hate speech, just last year. Hell, it’s not even the first time Vallas has cozied up to Rikki Jones and the Cook County Democratic Women; he announced his 2019 mayoral campaign, which would go on to be endorsed by the Chicago Republican Party, with Jones’s endorsement.
RI-01
State Sen. Sandra Cano officially entered the special election for Rhode Island’s 1st on Monday, joining Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos and repeat GOP candidate Allen Waters as the only declared candidates. Cano has held elected office since 2013—first locally in Pawtucket, and then in the Senate after winning a special election in 2018. Cano is married to state Treasurer James Diossa, who, needless to say, will not be a candidate in this election. Cano is not part of the conservative faction of the Rhode Island Dems, but she is a moderate who has always sided with the Senate’s awful leadership, and has a shaky record on the environment.
The third candidate to enter the race this week was Nick Autiello. Autiello is a former staffer to Gina Raimondo (from her days running the R.I. Commerce Corp), and also a former climate policy specialist…for the British Royal Family. Autiello has never held elected office, though he did run for state Senate in 2018, coming in at 16% in a three-candidate primary won by Sam Bell. That primary got nasty before it even began. After the publication of an op-ed highlighting Autiello’s past support of Rudy Guliani and Sarah Palin, Autiello defended his college-aged party switch and accused Bell of orchestrating that particular oppo drop in an op-ed of his own, where he accused Bell of carptetbagging and being less progressive than him (Bell was and is a DSA member,) and said that “Sam’s decided to do what he does best: jump into places where nobody wants him and throw bombs.” (Bell beat Autiello 44% - 16%). The next year he helped out on the Pete Buttigieg campaign and managed to get the campaign in some hot water for publishing Autiello’s resume without noticing he’d inflated it. Oops. Autiello is a VP at finance giant State Street, was a large donor to fellow finance higher-up Seth Magaziner in RI-02, and has social media is full of grievances against Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This is all to say he’s one of many ambitious young go-getters trying to put a fresh young face on centrism, and doing a better job of ingratiating himself with politicians than with actual voters.
A fourth candidate got in on Thursday: state Rep. Nathan Biah, who successfully primaried out a progressive incumbent in 2020. Biah was supported by anti-choice groups in that primary, though that may have been tactical on their part, since he would have voted to keep the chamber's anti-choice speaker, but has a legislative record that hasn't enamored him to anti-choice groups. He's probably not a liability to the ability of a Democratic majority to pass legislation, in the way a Josh Gottheimer or Kurt Schrader type would be, but he would be a downgrade from CPC member David Cicilline. Biah is the second Providence politician to enter the race, after Matos.
Meanwhile, conservative state House Speaker Joe Shekarchi and former CVS CEO/gubernatorial candidate Helena Buonanno Foulkes both took their names out of the running for the special election to this seat, while former state Rep. and 2022 candidate for RI-02 David Segal isn’t saying no.
WA-Gov
Washington Governor Jay Inslee is in the middle of his third term, and is the first governor of Washington to be able to say that since the 70s. While the length of his tenure is already on the long side, historically speaking, Washington doesn't have term limits, Inslee is a healthy 72, and his approval ratings are flat overall but very positive among Democrats. He very much could run for governor again, and probably win without too much trouble. But, just because he can does not mean he will, and there's been on-and-off speculation that he'll retire instead of seeking a fourth term. Should that happen, the floodgates will open. Washington hasn’t had an open gubernatorial or Senate primary since 2012, but the last actual, competitive Democratic primary took place in 2004. There is a tremendous amount of pent-up demand for advancement in Washington, and Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times examined the potential field this week.
Two major statewide officeholders are preparing to run should Inslee not: AG Bob Ferguson and Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz. Ferguson is a former IP lawyer and King County Councilor elected AG in 2012, and who began his time in office by launching a lawsuit against a flower shop for anti-gay discrimination, receiving national attention for what eventually became the less-well-remembered cousin to the Masterpiece Cakeshop Supreme Court case. Ferguson considers himself something of an activist AG, has consistently been willing to challenge businesses both small and massive, has had at least some willingness to prosecute police higher-ups, has a good record on consumer protections, and overall might be the most Inslee-esque statewide officeholder in Washington right now, and on the progressive side for that group. That may be more of a statement about the tendency for Washington Democrats to produce middle-of-the-road politicians at their highest level than anything else; Ferguson was proudly part of the moderate faction of Seattle politics, and once endorsed a Republican for Seattle City Council (to be fair, the guy was merely a very conservative candidate for the nonpartisan office back in 2009).
Hilary Franz is more of a wildcard candidate. Franz’s background is an environmental attorney and director of environmental group Futurewise, as well as Commissioner for the town of Bainbridge Island (pop. 25,000). Her election as in 2016, backed by progressives in a crowded primary, was seen as a major get for environmentalist groups. Franz has lived up to those expectations, pushing for major forest conservation efforts, just got permission for her agency to sell carbon credits, and swimming upstream to take on major fish farming operations in the Puget Sound. That last one has made some groups very angry at her. While we generally hold off on judgements for candidates in more narrowly defined offices until they define themselves more thoroughly in a campaign, Franz does appear to be good on housing issues as well, even managing to find a way to get her office involved in affordable housing. Franz’s intention to run may even survive Inslee deciding to go for that fourth term—she refused to rule out running against him, but did tell Brunner that Inslee has “a legacy of success”.
Though it’s far too early to say how a campaign would go, there has been a poll of a potential Inslee-less field. The Northwest Progressive Institute found Ferguson leading with 21%, and Franz tied for second with 7% with King County Executive Dow Constantine. As this was an open primary, a Republican was listed, and he received 30% of the vote. Constantine, despite rumors and speculation, including from that very poll, decided to preemptively remove himself from this race this week. That, at least, is welcome news; Constantine is both moderate and widely seen as ambitious.
Allegheny County Executive, County Council District 14
Allegheny County Councilor Liv Bennett made a bold and somewhat confusing choice to run for County Executive after the entirety of progressive infrastructure in the county had gotten behind state Rep. Sara Innamorato. Bennett was, for a time, running for both offices simultaneously, but is now running for neither, after the work required for both stretched her too thin. She was facing steep odds in the Executive race which she couldn’t devote her full time to, and the time she’d put into running for Council probably still wasn’t enough, as she was facing a challenge to her signatures for that primary, a challenge that was looking like it would succeed before she dropped out.
Baltimore City Council President
City Councilmember Zeke Cohen has announced a campaign for City Council President, putting him on a collision course with incumbent Nick Mosby, husband of recently ousted DA Marilyn Mosby. While Marilyn awkwardly mixed progressive and conservative policies while in office, Nick swaps out the former for plain old corruption. Cohen, a progressive, has clashed with Mosby before, giving the primary an ideological clash element. Another dimension present will be Mayor Brandon Scott, a former Council President who came into the mayoralty with a Council majority of allies, including Zeke Cohen, but whose pick for Council President, Sharon Sneed, lost to Mosby. Scott hasn’t endorsed in this election yet (and his relationship with his onetime allies on the council has deteriorated since his election) but he doesn’t shy away from taking sides in intra-party contests, and his shadow will loom large over it regardless.
Buffalo Common Council
India Walton jumped into the Masten District primary expecting to face off against incumbent Ulysees Wingo, but he has since opted to retire instead of run for reelection. Instead of Wingo, Walton will now be facing Zeneta Everhart, a staffer to state Sen. Tim Kennedy. Everhart has received the official party endorsement, but that has to be expected for anyone Walton will ever run against.
Los Angeles City Council District 6
The special election for this seat, vacated by former City Council President Nury Martinez after her racist comments were leaked to the media, has snuck up on us, mostly because there’s been very little news about it. The LA Times highlighted a major reason why this week: progressive groups are, by and large, steering clear of this one. The reasons make sense: it’s going to be a low-turnout affair in the already moderate San Fernando Valley, and the winner is only going to be in office for a year before they have to run for reelection again, but it’s still a little surprising that there’s no real attempt being made, given how much ground progressives have gained in LA in the last few years. As the LA Times points out, there are progressive/leftist candidates running; it’s just very unclear which one of them, if any, will make it into a runoff.
Philadelphia Mayor
State Rep. Amen Brown is facing a serious challenge to his nominating petitions for the mayoral contest. Though he turned in 3,300 signatures, far over the requirement of 1,000, attorney Kevin Greenberg alleges that 2,700 of them are fraudulent. Specifically, Greenberg says these signatures are all the work of the same person, as the handwriting is consistent across all of them. The case will come before a judge on Wednesday the 22nd. While Greenberg is technically filling the challenge on the behalf of an unrelated voter, Amen Brown alleges Greenberg is acting on behalf of candidate Jeff Brown, who Amen could presumably sap votes from, especially since they appear next to each other on the ballot. Ironically, Brown’s presence on the ballot would be good news for progressives for that reason, even though Brown himself is one of the most conservative Philadelphia Democrats in the legislature, who very nearly lost his 2020 reelection primary over his tough-on-crime stances, and whose campaign originally looked like it might have substantial support from big money Republican sources. That didn’t happen, probably because it became obvious very quickly that Brown was barely even campaigning. His exit from the race would barely be noticed.
Unknown candidate John Wood took himself out of the race yesterday, the last day to do so and have the changes reflected on the ballot. The largest effect this will have is removing him from the coveted first spot on the ballot and giving it instead to candidate Cherelle Parker. This brings the field down to 13 candidates, 12 if Brown loses his challenge. Parker got more good news yesterday when the carpenter’s union, one of the traditionally establishment/machine-aligned building trades unions, officially endorsed her.
Allan Domb has gone all-in on attacking Jeff Brown, even launching a website, www.therealjeffbrown.com, and listing it under the name of his campaign. More confident candidates usually let PACs do the dirty work, but Domb has abandoned any attempt to avoid looking like he’s going negative here. (We’re not complaining; both Domb and Brown are self-funding centrists. Let them fight.) Rebecca Rhynhart is focusing more on the positives, and has launched an ad to highlight the endorsements she’s received from former mayors Michael Nutter and John Street, who sit with Rhynhart at a table and tell viewers why they should support her. Progressive Helen Gym is now benefiting from a Super PAC, Fighting Together for Philadelphia, which is airing $400,000 worth of ads highlighting her support for policing alternatives. Gym has maintained the need to handle public safety issues without defaulting to more policing, even as the field as a whole has moved pretty far to the right on the issue, with Cherelle Parker even campaigning on restarting stop-and-frisk. The other super PAC in the face, For a Better Philadelphia, has already spent $1 million promoting Jeff Brown.
Philadelphia City Council
Business representative Jabari Jones dropped out of the primary for West Philadelphia’s Council District 3, ending the petition challenge he was facing. Incumbent Jamie Gauthier, a progressive who defeated 28-year incumbent Jannie Blackwell in 2019, was facing two challengers running to her right; Jones exiting the race leaves only Raymond Grant, a ghost candidate also facing petition challenges.
Gauthier may have just found reelection all but guaranteed thanks to the petition challenge process, but she wasn’t even the candidate who made out the best. That would be Jay Young of the 5th district, who is now the only name on the ballot, out of a field that had seven candidates turn in petitions. City Council President Darrell Clarke announced his retirement very late in an attempt to outplay Sen. Sharif Street and have his chosen successor on the ballot without competition with Street’s candidate, but the gambit backfired, and neither his candidate nor Street’s made the ballot. Instead, Jay Young, a real estate lawyer who seems generally liberal-to-progressive based on his social media, but as with many first-time underdog candidates has some strange ideas like making ski masks illegal, is now all but certain to be the next Councilmember from District 5.
Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorneys
Virginia calls its district attorneys “commonwealth’s attorneys”; when we say DA in reference to Virginia, technically we mean the Commonwealth’s Attorney, which is the same thing.
Josh Katcher, a prosecutor running against progressive Arlington DA Parisa Dehghani-Tafti from the right, has picked up the endorsements of Arlington County Board member Libby Garvey, former School Board member Barbara Kanninen, and former US Rep. Jim Moran. Katcher is one of two tough-on-crime attorneys running to undo the progressive prosecutor wave of Northern Virginia in 2019. Joining him is Ed Nuttall, the go-to lawyer for cops facing misconduct charges, running against Fairfax County DA Steve Descano. Elizabeth Lancaster, a former public defender, is running against reform DA Buta Biberaj in Loudoun County, and while Biberaj was, like Descano and Dehghani-Tafti, a progressive prosecutor elected in 2019, Lancaster is choosing to focus on incidents of incompetence and poor treatment of victims of sexual assault than on Biberaj’s actual policies, has support from two of the five Democratic County Supervisors, and is centering her opening pitch on a man she believes was wrongly charged with a crime. Whether she would actually represent a step rightward is unclear as of yet.