Primary School 4/3/2023
lock him up?
Chicago Mayor
The Chicago mayoral race stayed in a holding pattern in its last full week. Polling remained close, each candidate received a few late endorsements, and both camps focused on getting out the vote.
First, the polls. The right-wing Manhattan Institute and Schoen Cooperman Research found Paul Vallas up 47-42; an Emerson/WGN/The Hill poll found Vallas up by a similar 46-41 margin; and Northwestern University found Vallas and Brandon Johnson tied at 44%. Vallas may be establishing a narrow polling lead, which is worrying, but it’s a very close race.
Vallas rolled out the endorsements of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (a longtime resident of faraway Springfield who Vallas criticized on right-wing talk radio) and vanquished mayoral opponent Ald. Sophia King (who was extremely critical of Vallas in the first round.) Durbin is just a moderate, but King is the outgoing chair of the Progressive Reform Caucus, so her endorsement of the conservative candidate is hard to take as good faith. A majority of the caucus has endorsed Johnson, and nine of its 18 members signed on to a statement denouncing King’s endorsement.
Johnson countered with endorsements of his own from South Side state Sen. Mattie Hunter, Chicago-based daytime TV staple Judge Greg Mathis, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King III, the eldest son of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. The biggest boost for Johnson might be the week’s news, though: a Republican PAC founded by Betsy DeVos started spending on Vallas’s behalf, helpfully feeding the Johnson campaign’s narrative that Vallas is a Republican. And the Thursday indictment of Donald Trump by a New York grand jury gave Johnson an excuse to bring up all the times Vallas defended Trump on conservative talk radio, even calling impeachment “a witch hunt.” (For bothsidesism enthusiasts, don’t worry: the Chicago political press decided to even things out by covering Johnson’s unpaid water bills, which he promptly paid off using personal funds when the press asked about it, while not covering the Vallas’s campaign’s apparent use of campaign funds to pay parking tickets—er, “auto expenses,” which just happen to be a lot of parking ticket-sized checks written out to the city of Chicago, in addition to car washes and a single purchase at a Power Mart in Palos Heights, the suburb where Vallas actually lives.)
CA-Sen
Ro Khanna will not be running for the open Senate seat in California. Khanna had been quite publicly preparing a campaign, but reportedly told other members of Congress that he would only run if Barbara Lee did not. Given that Lee launched her campaign last month, we've been confused why Khanna hadn't taken his name out of contention yet, but whatever the roadblock was, it's over now, and he endorsed Lee as promised.
CA-12
BART Director Lateefah Simon announced her campaign for Congress a month ago, and immediately became the frontrunner after what seemed like pretty clear private communications between Bay Area politicians about the open congressional and state Senate seats made her the only high-profile candidate to enter the race. This week, it became clear that she had really cleared the field, when she announced the endorsement of nearly every East Bay politician of note who hadn’t already endorsed her. One notable omission? Former Oakland Councilmember Loren Taylor, who ran as the moderate candidate for mayor last year. Taylor has been rumored as a potential candidate for CA-12, and this is another sign that he’s still considering, even as his past allies line up behind Simon.
MA-Sen
Elizabeth Warren announced her intention to run for reelection this week. There had been speculation about her retiring this cycle, but it was never taken as seriously as speculation about other senators.
RI-01
This week, the special primary election for RI-01 gained a date, September 5, as well as five new candidates. The first is Providence City Councilmember John Goncalves. Goncalves has seen some embarrassing scandals recently, from flipping positions on granting a liquor license after the store gave him $500 and plagiarizing his environmental policy so obviously it included a reference to working with NY state utility company Con Ed, but we’re more concerned with his efforts to speed up the clearing of homeless encampments and help protect large property owners by killing a progressive property tax rate structure.
The second is former state Rep. Aaron Regunberg. Though he isn’t technically running as of yet, he resigned a judicial clerkship to “explore” a campaign, which is not something anyone would do without intending to go through with it. Regunberg served in the state house from 2015-2019, and ran for LG in 2018 against incumbent Dan McKee, who is now governor. Regunberg ran from the left and only narrowly lost, 51-49, though our calculations have him doing slightly worse in RI-01, 52-48. He’s stayed active in politics since then. He’s a cofounder of the state’s Working Families Party chapter and supported Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign. Despite that, the state’s left wing is not sold on him, at least not the portion of it involved with organizing under the banner of the RI Political Co-op, a group that brought together a large number of progressive candidates for legislature and even governor in 2020 and 2022, and served as the most visible hub of progressive political activity in the state.
Regunberg has feuded with the RI Co-op in the past, and his entry was greeted with hostility from former state Sen. Cynthia Mendes, who called him a “sinister barrier to many working class candidates” pushing for progressive policies. Former state Sen. Jeanine Calkin said much the same. We can say with a high degree of confidence that they’re not alone in their feelings among those involved with the RI Co-op. Regunberg will run with a progressive policy platform, but, based on the deep rift between him and the Co-op, it’s unlikely he will become the consensus progressive candidate in RI-01 the way David Segal was in RI-02.
The third new candidate is Stephanie Beauté. Beauté ran for the open Secretary of State office in 2022, losing by a wide 64%-36%, which is still better than most expected given how little she’d raised. Our calculations indicate that she did slightly worse in the 1st district, losing it 65%-35%. The campaign wasn’t particularly policy-heavy, and we won’t know where she falls on the progressive/moderate spectrum until she defines herself further in this campaign.
The fourth is state Rep. Stephen Casey. Casey has represented Woonsocket in the Assembly for a decade, beginning his career as the union candidate knocking out a fiscally conservative Democrat in a primary. Casey may not be fiscally conservative, but he’s nearly as bad as the state will produce on other issues: anti-gun control, anti-marijuana, anti-choice, and anti-gay. Casey understands that he’s not going to be the party’s choice, which is a good sign, but he still could pose a threat in a very divided field if he collects all the conservative white voters still left in the Democratic Party.
The final entrant last week was state Sen. Ana Quezada, of Providence. Quezada was a city employee who ran a grassroots campaign against an incumbent Democrat and defeated him 52-48 in 2016. Though that might imply she was one of the progressive upsets that year, ideological organizations weren’t involved in her race, and her win was seen as more about effectiveness than progressiveness. Just because she’s not part of the recent progressive wave in Rhode Island doesn’t make her cozy with the state’s conservative establishment—the city pretty blatantly retaliated against her for winning that race, and she’s publicly confronted Jorge Elorza, mayor of Providence until this year. Her voting record is progressive, though that isn’t hard in a state where good bills rarely reach the floor.
CA-SD-37
Nathan Fletcher, the former Republican Assemblymemer who switched parties in 2012 and was elected to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors in 2018, announced weeks ago his intention to run for the city’s primary Senate district, held by termed-out state Senate President Toni Atkins. We of course wished he wouldn’t, given his Republican past and only somewhat non-Republican present, but even we weren’t prepared for how quickly it would all be over for him. This week, a woman came forward to accuse Fletcher of sexual assault. He first ended his Senate campaign, then checked himself into a mental health facility, then resigned from office, all in the space of a few days, and all before a second woman came forward to accuse Fletcher of similar behavior. Regardless of what happens now or what more comes to light, we hope he stays out of politics and public life for good.
Fletcher had been the overwhelming favorite in the state Senate race before his sudden exit from politics. The San Diego Union-Tribune took a preliminary look at the field and found that one area assemblymember, Dr. Akilah Weber, is interested now that Fletcher’s out. Another, Chris Ward, declined to talk about the race. The Union-Tribune floated the names of two additional candidates, Georgette Gómez and Janessa Goldbeck. Goldbeck, a 2020 congressional candidate and military veteran, had just announced a run for Fletcher’s seat on the Board of Supervisors, but now she has choices to pick from; Gómez, the former president of the San Diego City Council and also a 2020 congressional candidate, is fresh off a loss for state Assembly in 2022.
VA-SD-13
After waiting for three years, it appears that the knives are finally out for Joe Morrissey. Democrats in Virginia never wanted him in office, but they’ve preferred until now not to push the former Republican and independent candidate away too strongly in light of their extremely narrow majority in the state Senate. After Democrat Aaron Rouse flipped a Virginia Beach swing district in a January special election held due to Republican state Sen. Jen Kiggans’s election to Congress, Virginia Democrats no longer need to worry about Morrissey switching parties—if he does, Democrats will still hold a one-vote majority, making the main reason Democrats had tolerated Morrissey a moot point, and allowing them to finally, unceremoniously dump him. The Democratic Women's Caucus of the Virginia State Senate endorsed Lashrecse Aird, calling Morrissey “divisive and destructive”. They were then joined by several other prominent Democrats: Dels. David Reid, Mike Mullin, Dan Helmer, and Paul Krizek, state Sens. Dave Marsden, George Barker, and Jeremy McPike, and U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger. Morrissey describes himself as “unapologetically pro-life” and wants to ban abortion after 15 weeks, something that puts him to the right of not only every other Democratic Senator, but at least one Republican. He’s now trying to portray himself as a heterodox thinker on abortion who is cruelly being canceled by the woke mob for having the wrong opinions. We’ll see how far it gets him.
While all of that is happening, Morrissey is dealing with an ugly divorce from his child bride (okay, fine, she was only his child girlfriend, she’d hit 18 before the wedding), part of which got him a court date for criminal charges—he allegedly stole his ex-wife’s passport, a felony. That court date is in May, weeks before the primary.
Virginia Senate, Virginia House of Delegates
Clean Virginia, the PAC run and funded by billionaire couple Michael Bills and Sonja Smith, focused on countering the influence of Dominion Power in Virginia politics, made its first round of endorsements for the cycle, along with a pledge to spend nearly $700,000 promoting its candidates, though that amount could easily grow. They're getting involved in an unusually large number of blue seat nomination contests, including targeting multiple Senate incumbents. Clean Virginia, Bills, and Smith are able to singlehandedly fund campaigns thanks to Virginia’s complete lack of contribution limits, so their endorsements are worth attention. Below are Clean Virginia’s picks in those blue-district contests:
SD-13: Ex-Del. Lashrecse Aird over incumbent conservaDem/sex pest Joe Morrissey
SD-32: Establishment-friendly Del. Suhas Subramanyam over progressive ex-Del. Ibraheem Samirah
SD-33: Progressive ex-Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy over moderate ex-Del. Hala Ayala
SD-35: Good government activist Heidi Drauschak over incumbent Dave Marsden. Marsden has accepted over $100,000 from Dominion and before being elected to the Senate ran the state's child prison under appointment from the Republican governor.
SD-36: Fairfax County School Board member Stella Perkarsky over centrist incumbent George Barker
SD-37: Center-right incumbent Chap Petersen, often mentioned in the same breath as Joe Morrissey and Joe Manchin, over both of his progressive challengers
SD-40: Incumbent Barbara Favola over challenger James DeVita
HD-02: Adele McClure, the executive director of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, over Kevin Saucedo-Broach, the former chief of staff to Del. Alfonso Lopez
HD-15: Fairfax County School Board member Laura Jane Cohen over self-described progressive opponent Henri' Thompson
HD-19: Rozia Henson, an also-ran for the special election to fill Jennifer Carroll-Foy's seat in 2021, over DEI instructor and former FBI employee Makya Little and Natalie Shorter, a business owner and granddaughter of state Senate President Louise Lucas
HD-26: Virginia State Medicaid Board Chair Kannan Srinivasan over IT professional Sreedhar NagiReddi
HD-79: Lawyer and Democratic Party official Rae Cousins over Richmond City Councilmember (and skeptic of both vaccines and pedestrians) Ann-Francis Lambert and nonprofit leader Richard Walker
HD-84: Progressive incumbent Nadarius Clark over moderate challenger Michele Joyce. Clark was one of the top recipients of Clean Virginia money in 2021.
While there's more positive than negative on this list, it's a mixed bag overall (Chap Petersen, really?) Most of these candidates have already received some money from either Clean Virginia or Bills/Smith personally. Though they have very deep pockets, they're probably not going to go all-in on every election; they tend to pick a few races to spend ungodly amounts on while spending far more modest amounts in others.
Allegheny County Exec
The tension in this race is growing, though not between the candidates you’d expect. County Controller John Weinstein and Pittsburgh City Controller Michael Lamb are at each other’s throats, starting when Lamb criticized Weinstein for killing an ethics rule at the retirement board meant to increase transparency. Weinstein responded by holding a press conference accusing one of Lamb’s employees of felonious criminal activity by “double dipping” (holding two government jobs at once) in different municipalities, both of which had residency requirements for hiring. On top of that, Weinstein argued that “potential voter fraud violations” could also result from the residency question, demanding an investigation. This took the county’s DA, Stephen Zappala, totally off guard. Progressive favorite Sara Innamorato is not the subject of the war of words being fought between the two moderates, which could be to her advantage if they continue to tear each other down and ignore her.
Allegheny County DA
Stephen Zappala, the conservative Democratic DA of Allegheny County, has been threatening to shut down Kennywood, an iconic local amusement park, over alleged safety concerns. Not concerns about any of the rides, or the food, or even working conditions—no, Zappala is attempting to shutter one of Allegheny County’s biggest destinations over concerns about crime. Zappala, citing a shooting that took place in September, is demanding that the park, even after making significant changes to their security policies, demonstrate to him that they’re safe from gun violence or he’ll go to court to block them from opening; it’s unclear whether he even has the authority to do so.
While this could be the deluded actions of a very strange man, more plausible explanations are tough-on-crime posturing for the upcoming elections, or an attempt to distract from other, less flattering stories. For instance, it appears as if Zappala is retaliating against the county’s top public defender, Matt Dugan, for running against him by refusing to allow any plea deals for defendants using public defenders. Zappala denies it, of course, but this wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried this particular inexcusable tactic. In 2021, after a Black attorney called his office racist, he was quite happy to announce to the press that he would no longer be accepting plea deals from clients of that attorney’s office. Zappala’s silence on whether or not he’s applying this policy to clients of the public defender’s office probably has something to do with voters recognizing the difference between attempting to slowly bleed out an attorney’s practice by forcing their clients to look elsewhere, and doing that to clients of the public defender’s office, who, by definition, can’t look elsewhere.
Dugan ran into his own bad press when he had to fire his campaign manager after she was arrested for driving drunk. In hindsight, the choice to have her staff a campaign booze table at the county endorsement convention didn’t age terribly well.
Fairfax County Sheriff
Steve Descano, the incumbent Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax County, has to face a contested primary, but the criminal justice implications of June’s election will not end there. The county’s sheriff, Stacey Ann Kincaid, is facing a challenge as well; unlike Descano, a reformer who primaried a conservative incumbent out of office in 2019, her challenge comes from her left. Kincaid isn’t the flashiest sheriff in the country, but if she’s best known for anything, it will be as the sheriff whose anti-trans policies inspired the first-ever federal ruling against housing inmates in jails designated for inmates of the other gender, regardless of what they were assigned at birth. Fairfax County jails have also been the site of numerous inmate deaths during her tenure, in one case leading to a $750,000 settlement with the deceased’s family. In 2021, the County Board adopted a policy of not informing ICE about releases of immigrant prisoners. For several months, Kincaid refused to implement it, and informed ICE about every undocumented immigrant that passed through her facilities, but recently, perhaps grasping that her level of conservatism might cause her trouble in a Democratic primary, she finally got in line with the county policy.
Her challenger is Kelvin Garcia, a former DC cop now working as a law clerk. Garcia takes issue with the conditions in the jail, and is promising three major changes: housing transgender inmates according to their gender identity, not cooperating with ICE, and giving inmates 30 minutes of free phone calls. It’s all bare-bones liberal policy, but that’s more than Kincaid can say.
Houston Mayor
As has long been suspected, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is now officially running for mayor of Houston. Though the most recent member of Congress to run for mayor of a large city was Chuy García, Lee’s bid bears more similarity to fellow Sun Belt Democrat Karen Bass. Though Jackson Lee is four years older than Karen Bass, the two have a lot in common in regards to the politics of their cities, and Jackson Lee is, like Bass, running for mayor as a career capstone. Also like Bass, Jackson Lee’s entry implicitly sets her up as the liberal alternative to the white, conservative frontrunner—though while Bass was largely regarded as a progressive at the time and was running against an ex-Republican billionaire, Jackson Lee fits more into the mainstream of the Democratic Party and will have to contend with lifelong Democrat John Whitmire. (Whitmire happens to be the brother-in-law of former mayor Kathy Whitmire, who appointed Lee to her first political office in the 80s.) The question for the moment is whether Lee’s presence in the race will muscle out other major politicians running to Whitmire’s left, including former city council member Amanda Edwards and current city council member Robert Gallegos.
Also joining this week is investment banker, CNBC contributor, and former Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County Chair Gilbert Garcia, a man who would be utterly forgettable if not for his presumed ability to massively self-fund.
Philadelphia Mayor
The challenges to state Rep. Amen Brown's ballot petitions, which we covered last week, finally had their day in court. After a contentious two-day hearing, the judge has ruled that he will be on the ballot, provided he files some updated financial forms. Barring any appeals or surprises, this leaves a field of 13 mayoral candidates, most of whom are putting together serious campaigns. Brown is not, but he does share a last name with Jeff Brown, and may wind up placing above the also-rans for that reason.
On Saturday, the Philadelphia Inquirer endorsed Rebecca Rhynhart for mayor. Rhynhart seems to be trying to position herself somewhere between the leading moderates (Jeff Brown, Allan Domb, Derek Green, Cherelle Parker) and the progressive favorite, Helen Gym; the Inquirer endorsement could further elevate her with voters uneasy about their other choices.
Pittsburgh City Council District 3
Pittsburgh will have one fewer contested election in May. The open 3rd Council district had looked like a contest between Bob Charland, a moderate and top staffer to the outgoing incumbent, and William Reeves, a policy analyst for Casa San Jose's Pittsburgh chapter, who was running a more progressive campaign. Reeves's ballot petitions were challenged, and this week he announced the challenge was successful, making Charland the district's next councilmember by default.
St. Louis Board of Aldermen
Cori Bush endorsed four candidates ahead of Tuesday’s runoff elections for St. Louis’s new, 14-member board of aldermen. All of them were already supported by Board President Megan Green, a democratic socialist aligned with Bush and Mayor Tishaura Jones, but Bush naturally has a higher profile as a congresswoman. Her endorsed candidates are incumbent Ald. Shane Cohn, running unopposed in Ward 3; former journalist and NARAL board member Daniela Velázquez, running against former Ald. Jennifer Florida in Ward 6; St. Louis Board of Education member Alisha Sonnier, running against Catholic school administrator JP Mitchom in Ward 7; and state Rep. Rasheen Aldridge, running against realtor Ebony Washington in Ward 14.