Primary School 4/28/2023

Trying to work out a ShopWrong pun before Philadelphia votes

CA-Gov

Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis has officially launched her campaign for governor, as has State Controller Betty Yee.…both for the election in 2026, 42 months away. That's too far away for anyone to think about yet. Accordingly, we’re not going to touch this one for a while.

RI-01

Another week, another batch of new candidates for this election. We’re up to 16 in case anyone’s keeping track.

Pamela Azar is a former social studies teacher and current town councilor for the town of Lincoln (pop. 22,000), first elected in 2018. Her pitch is moderate, opposing the “endless war” between Democrats and Republicans, and promising to “negotiate and mediate with the other side of the aisle”. Indeed, while Azar is now a Democrat, she attempted to run for Secretary of State in 2014 as an independent, and currently the Reform Party is claiming her. Azar’s personal story, which she’s brought up in most of her political campaigns, involves a protracted fight over the schooling of her son, who has autism - a fight that lasted in court for over a decade. If her campaign picks up steam, expect her being quoted in 2017 as saying she “trusts” Syrian Bashar Al-Assad to become an issue.

The other new candidate is Walter Berbrick, a Navy veteran and professor at the US Naval War College. Berbick is positively unexciting in every aspect, and his politics have the same problems as other NatSec candidates. He has tweeted positively in the past about the Trump administration’s efforts to buy Greenland and in support of the Axis of Evil ideas of Bret Stephens.

Endorsements have finally begun trickling in as this field takes shape. CHC BOLD PAC, the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has chosen to get behind LG Sabina Matos. Matos was one of several Hispanic candidates. 

The RI Political Co-Op/Aaron Regunberg fight has hit the pages of the Boston Globe, with a smattering of hard-to-parse allegations that mostly center on alleged careerism on Regunberg’s part, and failure to support women candidates of color. The article also mentions that Regunberg was endorsed by four state reps: Leonela Felix, Cherie Cruz, Megan Cotter, and Kathleen Fogarty, and two members of the Providence Council: Helen Anthony and Susan Anderbois. All but Cotter and Fogarty represent districts within RI-01. In non-Co-Op Regunberg beef news, fellow RI-01 candidate state Sen. Ana Quezada publicly accused Regunberg of telling her he wouldn’t run if she did, then ran anyway. 

Philadelphia Mayor

Cherelle Parker continues to benefit from late-campaign consolidation. City Councilmember and former mayoral candidate Derek Green, Congressmember Brendan Boyle, and state Reps. Kevin Boyle and Anthony Bellmon endorsed Parker.

As Parker’s campaign picks up steam, grocery store Mogul Jeff Brown’s is stumbling. The preliminary injunction against his unofficial superPAC for being not unofficial enough has turned into a settlement for the remainder of the campaign. The PAC is allowed to make general GOTV-related efforts, but cannot attempt to influence the election for a particular candidate. As hard as they’ll be trying to skirt that rule, Brown’s painful mediocrity means that it’s pretty difficult to send a message that encourages voting for Brown without actually using his name. As far as the candidate himself, Brown once again stood out in a candidate debate by doubling down on his awkward, confrontational, conservative answers of the last debate. Brown launched into a tirade against progressive Helen Gym out of nowhere, ranting, among other things, “Helen is the least informed person on this stage. She knows nothing about the free market. She knows nothing about real estate.” Gym managed a great comeback, which included her telling Brown to his face “You don’t respect women.” Brown also used that debate to flat-out lie about the city’s case against him and his PAC, of course.

Rebecca Rhynhart received the endorsement of Ed Rendell, Philadelphia’s DA from 1978-1986 and mayor from 1992-2000, Pennsylvnia’s governor 2003-2011, and the party’s embarrassment from 2011 onwards, meaning that she has the support of all three former mayors of the last 30 years: Michael Nutter (2008-2012), John Street (2000-2008), and Ed Rendell (2000-2008). The other two, Wilson Goode and William Green, have tenures dating back to the 80s, but who knows, Goode may wind up weighing in if Rhynhart really wants to complete her straight of mayors. 

This afternoon, our long wait for a public poll of this election will come to an end…only 2 ½ weeks before voting starts. Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia civic group, will be releasing a 1,000 person poll which should hopefully give us not just topline results, but robust crosstabs to pour over. Unfortunately, we are publishing in the morning. However, a pair of internal polls have surfaced recently. Cherelle Parker’s team found her winning with 20%, Helen Gym in second with 16%, Rebecca Rhynhart at 15%, Jeff Brown at 12% and Allan Domb in fifth at 11%, while Domb’s campaign found Rhynhart leading with 21%, Gym at 19%, Domb at 17%, Parker at 16%, and Brown at 13%. Between the two we can say that while Brown’s campaign has flatlined, it’s still a packed, 4-way race for first.

Philadelphia City Council At-Large

The Philadelphia Inquirer made its picks for City Council At-Large this week (district races were last week). They chose, out of an enormous field, Isaiah Thomas, Katherine Gilmore Richardson, Nina Ahmad, Job Itzkowitz, and Eryn Santamoor. The first two are unsurprising: both are incumbents running for reelection. Another two of them (Nina Ahmad and Eryn Santamoor) are establishment choices, though on the liberal side as far as establishment choices go. Ahmad is the PA National Organization of Women chapter president, and is best remembered for a mild upset victory in the state Auditor primary of 2020, but she went on to lose the general election by 3%. In this election she’s backed by building trades unions and some Black elected officials, mostly in West Philadelphia, most significantly Congressmember Dwight Evans. Eryn Santamoor also has the building trades behind her, but her support from politicians is more scattered, though it does include former mayors Ed Rendall and Michael Nutter. She’s steering clear of discussing actual policy during her campaign, but you can safely assume she’s on the moderate side, since she’s the chief of staff to Allan Domb. Both Ahmad and Santamoor earned a semi-endorsement from the Philadelphia Democratic Party, who made 4 choices for the 5 seats, and kicked the 5th choice down to ward organizations to make between Ahmad, Santamoor and Erika Almirón.

The final choice by the Inquirer is a bit of a puzzler. Job Itzkowitz is not one of the remaining choices of the establishment (Rue Landau and Jim Harrity) or of progressives (Rue Landau, Erika Almirón, and Amanda McIllmurray). Instead he’s a business improvement district executive running on a small potatoes platform of neighborhood cleanup. He doesn’t particularly stand out from the pack and has few notable endorsements.

Allegheny County Executive

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fiztgerald finally chose who he wants to succeed him: Pittsburgh Controller Michael Lamb. Obviously Fitzgerald, who has spent the last four years fighting against progressive forces in the county, wasn’t going to endorse Sara Innamorato, but choosing Lamb over the more conservative John Weinstein wasn’t guaranteed. After Fitzgerlad made his endorsement, Weinstein claimed to have not even asked for it.

Innamorato and Weinstein had endorsements of their own to unveil this week. For the former, there was EMILY’s List, Vote Pro Choice, Clean Water Action PA, and UNITE PA. For the latter, it was former Executive candidates Liv Bennett and Erin McClelland. It’s a surprise to see Bennett, who was running in a lane similar to Innamorato, going out of her way to endorse the most conservative candidate in the race, but she has seemed disenchanted with the progressive scene in Pittsburgh for a while.

VA-SD-13

UNITE HERE, a well-organized hospitality worker union, endorsed Del. Lashrecse Aird against incumbent Joe Morrissey in the primary. While Morrissey has attracted controversy to no end outside of office, the endorsement appears to have been the result of routine legislating: Morrissey was attempting to pass a bill opening a casino in Petersburg, and he refused to include working standards in the bill. Aird released her first ad this week, an introductory spot narrated by her mother. While the ad does stay positive all 30 seconds, it also makes sure to emphasize Aird’s “100% pro-choice” record; Morrissey has been under fire recently for his support of Republican-proposed abortion restrictions.

VA-SD-18

The incumbent-on-incumbent battle for this Hampton Roads-area district just got significantly more heated with an accusation from Louise Lucas this week. The majority Black district is going to elect either Lucas or Lionel Spruill, also a Black current senator, from a district adjacent to hers. Both represent about half of the new district, and it’s a fraught, competitive battle between the two senators. Lucas’s allegation is that senators from northern Virginia are attempting to reduce Black political power by supporting Spruill. Specifically, she said, in a call out post, that Sens. George Barker, Barbara Favola, John Bell and Scott Surovell, who are headlining a Spruill fundraiser, want to get her out of the Senate because she has enough seniority to give her control of a powerful committee, and they want to keep it in NoVA hands.

As Lucas explains, NoVA and downstate each make up half the caucus. While NoVA has few Black voters, most downstate seats include Black voters in a key role of the Democratic coalition (she actually said “all”, which isn’t quite right, given the Charlottesville seat, but 10/11 is still close enough). Lucas says that Bell and Favola backed off from their support when she brought it up, and Surovell told the Virginian-Pilot that him attending the fundraiser wasn’t an endorsement, and that he would be happy to attend one for Lucas if she asked. The whole thing played out oddly - initially Lucas's conclusions didn't necessarily follow from her Senate colleagues merely picking sides in a primary, but the evasive and guilty-sounding responses when pressed, especially Surovell's excuse, do kind of imply this might be about committee seats after all. Regardless, this election has now become considerably more about factional politics than it was before, when it just appeared to be a contest between Spruill, known for his bipartisanship, and Lucas, who is a partisan hack (we mean that positively, there is zero reason to give the VAGOP an inch). Also mentioned in that thread is that former and credibly-accused rapist LG Justin Fairfax is doing events for Spruill.

VA-SD-29

House Minority Leader Don Scott endorsed Del. Elizabeth Guzman in her challenge against Sen. Jeremy McPike. Guzman is one of the body’s most progressive members, first elected in 2017, and an unsuccessful candidate for LG in 2021, while McPike is a moderate who crossed the aisle to help save Virginia’s death penalty. Guzman is at a financial disadvantage to McPike, who has $749K in the bank to her $241K, but a poll released this week by AFSCME shows her leading McPike 37-19. The Latino Victory Fund also endorsed Guzman this week; SD-29 is roughly one quarter Latine.

VA-SD-37

Moderate, pro-gun Democratic Chap Peterson, of the DC suburbs, had seemingly lucked into an easy reelection because he’d picked up two progressive challengers, meaning he could win with only a plurality. This week, that changed when Erika Yalowitz dropped out of the race and endorsed Saddam Salim, the only remaining challenger to Peterson. Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano also endorsed Salim recently, as did fellow progressive CAs Parisa Dehghani-Tafti (Arlington) and Buta Biberaj (Loudoun County).

Los Angeles City Council 14

Deeply, deeply embattled Councilmember Kevin De León has already attracted his first challenger for reelection: Assemb. Miguel Santiago, who announced a couple weeks ago. Now, he has a second in Assemb. Wendy Carillo, who is a progressive in the context of Sacramento politics, but is allied with the establishment in LA, including Gil Cedillo, who she was running a joint canvass with. Carillo came surprisingly close to losing to progressive-backed anti-gun violence activist Mia Livas Porter 57 - 43 in 2022. In many ways, she occupies the same lane as Santiago, which could make for a boring runoff, but if both stick with the campaign, the threshold for making the runoff will lower significantly and things could get much more interesting.

Denver City Council District 7

Only four Denver City Council elections went to a runoff, but only three of them are going to be contested. Nick Campion, the vaguely progressive tech CEO who finished second with 19% of the vote, behind establishment favorite Flor Alvidrez, who took 39%, dropped out of the race. Because of the timing, he will still be on the ballot, but votes for him won’t be counted,meaning Flor Alvidrez is Councilmember-elect in all but name.

Cook County DA 

Cook County District Attorney Kim Foxx, a progressive prosecutor who has been a lightning rod for national and local reactionary backlash since her initial 2016 election, will not be running again in 2024. Naturally, this kicked off a mad rush of speculation about who will be the next DA for a county of 5.3 million. Thankfully, Bill Conway, her opponent in the 2020 Democratic primary, will not be running, and instead focusing on serving on the Chicago City Council after winning a seat there this year.

Queens DA

For the last several months, we were dealing with a gnawing certainty that the change in narrative around criminal justice reform since 2019 would be starkly realized in how Melinda Katz, the carceral DA who beat Tiffany Cabán by just 60 votes in a heartbreakingly close primary, and who had, since the election, refused to implement even modest reforms she had campaigned, was going to be the better candidate given that her only opponent was right-wing cop George Grasso. This week, we found out there will at least be another option on the ballot. Local attorney and former judicial candidate Devian Daniels just submitted 13,000 signatures to make the ballot, and probably will. Daniels, in her nascent campaign, says she wants to offer voters a candidate who isn’t “a promoter of mass incarceration”. Daniels ran for Queens Civil Court last year, and came in a respectable 3rd in a 4 candidate field for the Top 2 race.

Akron Mayor

The Plain Dealer, the largest newspaper in the Cleveland-Akron region made its endorsement for mayor of Akron, as did Akron’s only newspaper, the Akron Beacon Journal. They both chose Councilmember Shammas Malik. It’s a classic newspaper endorsement pick in that Malik is not an outsider but also a non-establishment choice - that would be outgoing mayor Dan Horrigan’s chief of staff Marco Sommerville - and also a candidate with heavily white base, at least according to the one recent, public poll of the race, which found Malik leading with 18%, Somerville right behind at 17%, and Councilmember Tara Mosley finishing out the top tier at 15%. Tara Mosley was a supporter of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, even doing events in South Carolina for him, but Bernieworld hasn’t entirely returned the favor for her mayoral campaign - Nina Turner has made an endorsement and the local Our Revolution chapter has helped her out, but no one outside of Ohio is getting involved. Furthermore, no other local progressive or generally grassroots groups have made a move here either, perhaps because of the way her campaign has leaned on themes of crime, including a comment she made that the city needed to “debunk” skepticism of police from young people. Both Malik and Mosley have appeal to progressive voters, and the sentiment right now is more anti-Sommerville than pro-anyone else.

Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney

“I am not anti-Semitic. I am not MAGA. I am not a Republican”

Is it a good sign if you have to be saying that in your Democratic primary? Tough-on-crime backlash candidate Ed Nuttall would like to know, because he did just that in a radio debate with incumbent progressive prosecutor Steve Descano. Descano had brought up Ed Nuttall’s Facebook campaign page, which is a den of right-wing conspiracy theories from the Great Resent to antisemetic ramblings about George Soros, posts which Nuttall has positively interacted with on his page. Nuttall has the sense not to intentionally associate himself with too many conservative forces in this campaign - the endorsement from the local FOP lodge didn’t make it to his website for instance - but his financial support of a Republican candidate for Commonwealth Attorney last cycle makes the argument that he’s in now way a Republican harder to make, as does his donor list, which is riddled with names that primarily give to Republican candidates.