Primary School 5/28
Trouble on the Hudson
Results highlights
Since our last regular issue, Angela Alsobrooks defeated self-funding Rep. David Trone, the extremely wealthy co-owner of Total Wine & More, who spent more than $60 million of his own money only to lose the Democratic nomination for Maryland’s open U.S. Senate seat to Alsobrooks by a not-that-close 53%-43%. Late-deciding voters, who had been bombarded with Trone ads for months, broke for Alsobrooks, as she won election day by a wide margin and improved dramatically with mail ballots as ballots which were received later gradually got added to the count. Unlike in the Senate race, money did predict the outcome in Maryland’s three open House primaries. Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. won an uncompetitive race for the seat of retiring Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger; Biden Commerce Department official April McClain Delaney won Trone’s open seat, previously held by her husband John Delaney, which encompasses Western Maryland and the outer DC suburbs of upper Montgomery County; and state Sen. Sarah Elfreth rode more than $4 million in spending from AIPAC to a 36%-25% victory over former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn in central Maryland’s open 3rd district. Further down the ballot, Baltimore progressives swept every competitive election, defending all of their city council seats, easily reelecting Mayor Brandon Scott over former Mayor Sheila Dixon, electing Councilman Zeke Cohen as Council President (and unseating incumbent Nick Mosby in the process), defending all the city council seats they already held, and defeating two moderate, business-aligned councilmen: the 12th district’s Robert Stokes fell to union leader Jermaine Jones, and in the 11th district moderate/conservative ringleader Eric Costello lost to Marine veteran Zac Blanchard, an urbanist who ran a publicly-financed campaign. This is a transformative shift in the makeup of the Baltimore City Council, and we look forward to seeing what they can do. For more context and detailed results, click here to read our Maryland preview, updated to include results.
AIPAC (through several super PAC conduits this time) scored another victory in Oregon’s 3rd congressional district, based in Portland. State Rep. Maxine Dexter fell short of a majority but finished well ahead of Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal, the sister of Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal; at the time of writing the margin stands at 47%-33%. Portland’s reactionary turn in local politics continued with the defeat of timidly reform-oriented DA Mike Schmidt, who lost to ex-Republican prosecutor Nathan Vasquez by about seven points. However, contests further down the ballot went alright; for more context and detailed results, click here to read our Oregon and Idaho preview, updated to include results.
To the east, Democratic incumbents in Congress, state legislatures, and key local offices held on, including Fulton County DA Fani Willis and Rep. David Scott—with one exception. DSA achieved a milestone, electing its first state legislator in Georgia and only its second in the Deep South, as community organizer Gabriel Sanchez unseated state Rep. Teri Anulewicz 57%-43% in a safely Democratic district based in the Atlanta suburb of Smyrna. For more context and detailed results, click here to read our Georgia and Kentucky preview, updated to include results.
Outside $ Tracker
NJ-03
$220K in TV ads supporting Herb Conaway from VoteVets. The ad mentions Conaway’s time in the military briefly, but focuses on his time in the legislature, mostly focusing on reproductive choice.
$115K in advertising supporting Herb Conaway from 314 Action
$145K in mailers supporting Herb Conaway from With Honor Fund II
NJ-08
$300K in TV ads attacking Ravi Bhalla from Bold America
$66K in mailers and $71K in digital ads attacking Robert J. Menendez from America’s Promise. The ad focuses on the ways Menendez Jr has been supporting or refusing to turn against Menendez Sr. There’s also a truncated Spanish-language version.
$26K in mailers and $20K in digital ads supporting Robert J. Menendez from Bold America
$7K in door hangers supporting Robert J. Menendez and Joe Biden from The Turnout Project, a super PAC funded by various New Jersey unions
NJ-09
$5K in lawn signs supporting Bill Pascrell and Joe Biden from Committee to Build a Better Economy, another super PAC funded by New Jersey unions (primarily the New Jersey Education Association through its associated group Garden State Forward)
NY-16
$2.27M in advertising, $108K in production costs, $7K in phone banking, and $178K in mailers attacking Jamaal Bowman from United Democracy Project (AIPAC). The ad is familiar for anyone who follows anti-Squad messaging from AIPAC. It hits Bowman for voting against the infrastructure bill and the debt limit deal, framing them as votes against Biden’s agenda, and even saying he put Social Security at risk.
$2.24M in advertising and $105K in production costs supporting George Latimer from United Democracy Project (AIPAC)
$140K in digital ads supporting Jamaal Bowman from the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC. One ad highlights his background as a teacher, another touts his pro-education/pro-gun control agenda, and a final 6-second clip shows off his endorsement from AOC.
$65K in mailers and $3K in texts supporting Jamaal Bowman from the Working Families Party
$51K in mailers supporting Jamaal Bowman from National Nurses United
$23K in mailers supporting Jamaal Bowman from Emgage
$50K in mailers supporting George Latimer from DMFI PAC
$12K in mailers attacking Jamaal Bowman from DMFI PAC
VA-10
$884K in TV advertising and $10K in digital ads supporting Dan Helmer from Protect Progress. The ad hits three main points: Helmer was in the military, is currently in the state legislature, and was endorsed by the Washington Post.
$89K in digital ads and $549K in TV ads supporting Dan Helmer from VoteVets. VoteVets’s ad is pretty similar to Protect Progress’s, but instead of mentioning the Washington Post's endorsement, mentions a piece of legislation he wrote banning Jan 6 insurrectionists from public office. The bill did not make it out of committee.
$131K in mailers supporting Suhas Subramanyam from The Impact Fund
$28K in mailers supporting Dan Helmer from With Honor Fund II
$15.5K in digital ads and $44K in mailers attacking Eileen Filler-Corn from Virginia Democratic Action PAC
NJ pre-primary reports
News
LA-06
For at least one cycle, Louisiana will get a second Black-majority, safely Democratic congressional district. That’s the practical effect of the Supreme Court’s decision invoking the closeness of this year’s congressional elections to put a lawsuit on hold which sought to overturn a new map (itself the result of a previous lawsuit which had successfully argued Louisiana deprived Black voters of their due representation by only drawing one Black-majority district.) While the Supreme Court may hear a challenge next term which would shred what remains of the VRA’s protections for majority-minority districts, in 2024, Louisiana will use a map with a second Black-majority district winding from Baton Rouge to Shreveport via Alexandria and Lafayette, and Republican Rep. Garret Graves will have to either wage an uphill primary against a colleague or try to hold a distinctly Democratic-leaning district against the odds.
MI-13
Detroit’s Black Democratic establishment was determined to get itself a seat in Congress after the 2022 victory of Shri Thanedar left the city without Black representation in Congress for the first time since 1955. They had settled on a candidate: Adam Hollier, a former state senator and an official in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s cabinet who narrowly lost a crowded primary to Thanedar in 2022. They had gotten significant buy-in from the statewide Democratic establishment, including endorsements from Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and state House Speaker Joe Tate, as frustration grew with Thanedar’s attention-seeking antics and poor constituent services (so poor, in fact, that the Detroit area’s other representatives, Rashida Tlaib and Debbie Dingell, have had to pick up the slack.) They had seen some promising early signs from the Hollier campaign, namely in terms of fundraising. And it all fell apart this week as Hollier was disqualified from the ballot after Thanedar successfully challenged his nominating petitions. While it remains to be seen whether Hollier’s backers will shift their support to another candidate, Thanedar is a much safer bet for reelection now; Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters and attorney Shakira Lynn Hawkins have much less money than Hollier did, and Waters’s progressive stances—she is foregrounding a Gaza ceasefire in her congressional campaign in a direct appeal to this district’s Uncommitted-voting Muslim population—may give them some pause.
NJ-03
The Congressional Black Caucus PAC endorsed Assemb. Herb Conaway, the frontrunner for this seat and the choice of all three county Democratic parties which cover the 3rd congressional district. If Conaway wins, he will be the first Black member of Congress from South Jersey. Conversely, the PAC Elect Democratic Women (which, as the name suggests, works to elect Democratic women to Congress) endorsed his colleague and opponent, Assemb. Carol Murphy, one of two women running for this seat. (The other, business owner and anti-county line activist Sarah Schoengood, has trailed in fundraising and polling.)
NJ-08
All along, the biggest problem for Rep. Robert J. Menendez’s reelection plans has been the very reason he’s a congressman in the first place: his father, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, currently standing trial on federal corruption charges in Manhattan. Menendez began running negative ads earlier in the month, and recently released a second one. Both attack the ethics of his main opponent, Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, but leave the Congressmember out of the ad copy itself and leave the dirty work to an unseen narrator. Now, the younger Menendez is addressing his opponent head-on—sort of. In a new ad, Rep. Menendez speaks directly to the camera:
My opponent wants to run against my father, because he’s scared to run against me. That’s on him, because I’m focused on fighting for you.
He then goes on to say he’s defending abortion rights and seeking to lower prescription drug costs, standard Democratic fare. He doesn’t directly attack Bhalla (or even mention him by name); the purpose of this ad seems to be to remind viewers that Congressman Robert J. Menendez is a different person from Senator Robert “Bob” Menendez. It’s not a closing message that shows confidence in the face of Bhalla’s challenge, and FEC reports bear that out: Bhalla and Menendez have blanketed the district with about a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of mailers apiece, and the incumbent has additionally poured $187,000 into digital advertising and $80,000 into field campaigning (i.e. canvassing.) Bhalla has ample resources and is using them to mount a serious challenge, and Menendez is (wisely) running scared. Whether this ad, to the extent that it gets aired, will help Menendez (by separating him from his father) or hurt him (by reminding voters who his father is) is anyone’s guess—but it serves as a reminder that the younger Menenedez, and his electoral fortunes, are stuck in the shadow of Senator Menendez.
Speaking of Bob Menendez’s shadow, the senator isn’t yet done looming over New Jersey politics: he’s now collecting signatures to run for reelection as an independent. Will Rob stay loyal to his father, or will he support the Democratic nominee (likely Andy Kim, who hasn’t shied away from attacking the senator’s corruption) as the party seeks to preserve its narrow Senate majority? Unlike several other members of New Jersey’s Democratic House delegation, Menendez did not endorse Kim after New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy dropped out of the Senate race in March, and he is sure to face questions about his father’s potential independent run ahead of June’s Democratic primary.
Allies of the congressman are worried too—BOLD America, a mysterious super PAC funded at least in part by the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers (the SMART Union), has started spending on a few mailers to boost Menendez and a $300,000 ad campaign attacking Bhalla, and The Turnout Project, a different super PAC funded by a coalition of New Jersey unions, paid for $7K worth of door hangers promoting Rob Menendez together with Joe Biden.
It’s neither here nor there, but the Menendez campaign really believes in this “Better Not Call Ravi” thing—they even went live with a website earlier this month—and it’s kind of terrible? It reads like an ad consultant really wanted to do a Better Call Saul riff because Ravi Bhalla is a lawyer, couldn’t think of anything clever, and just ran it anyway.
NJ-10
After a rocky week involving multiple judicial do-overs, both Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver, the frontrunner for this Newark-based seat, and former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks, the North Jersey political director for likely U.S. Senate nominee Andy Kim, will remain on the ballot. At first, it appeared that a challenge by McIver to Claybrooks’s petitions—and a challenge filed by Claybrooks to McIver’s in response—could get both women knocked off the ballot, but a pair of Administrative Law Judges declined to remove each candidate from the ballot, then did so again after Secretary of State Tahesha Way wasn’t satisfied with the evidence addressed (and unaddressed) in their original rulings. (In the case of McIver, it appears the ALJ may have just run out the clock, because she used hearsay rules to exclude evidence which is not hearsay—text messages by agents of McIver about their efforts on behalf of McIver—from a hearing in which hearsay is permitted.)
Ballot positions were also drawn for the special primary election, and McIver won the top ballot position in Hudson and Union counties, while former Donald Payne Jr. staffer Shana Melius got the top slot in Essex County, home to Newark and a little over half of this district’s electorate. McIver, the party establishment favorite in Essex and Union, was also expected to get the top slot in Essex, where the ostensibly random ballot draw has a statistically implausible record of favoring the machine’s chosen candidates.
McIver has also begun to consolidate labor support, starting with 32BJ SEIU.
One of McIver’s opponents got very bad news this week: Linden Mayor Derek Armstead, who was allegedly caught on tape opposing the hiring of Jewish people in city government and calling Newark, which he is running to represent, “a hellhole.” That news came courtesy of a former assistant Linden schools superintendent, who sued the mayor and other city officials for antisemitic discrimination and retaliation against the whistleblowing assistant superintendent. The assistant superintendent, Paul Oliveira, shared recordings with the Star-Ledger and NJ.com; in the recordings, Mayor Armstead, school board president Marlene Berghammer, and Superintendent Atiya Perkins discuss plans to exclude Jewish applicants from hiring, and Armstead additionally makes a derisive comment about traditional headwear worn by Orthodox Jewish men. Armstead calls the allegations “hogwash” and says the city’s actual hiring numbers disprove the claim of discrimination, but…there are recordings. (“Nobody respects someone who comes into a room and starts tape recording people,” says Armstead. Also says Armstead: “Paul is off his rocker. I can’t fathom why he would take this approach. It’s disheartening. Paul can go to hell with gasoline drawers as far as I’m concerned.”) We’d be surprised (and dismayed) if Armstead’s campaign can survive this.
Another McIver opponent reached a milestone of viability: New Jersey Redevelopment Authority COO Darryl Godfrey announced that he had raised over $100,000 since launching his campaign, helped along by a $50,000 contribution from the candidate himself. (Godfrey, a former banker, had previously promised a willingness to self-fund.)
VA-10
As Virginia’s June 18 primary draws closer, super PACs and other independent expenditure committees have started intervening in the primary to succeed Rep. Jennifer Wexton, whose district covers a swath of Northern Virginia including Loudoun County, Manassas, and rural areas to the west. The main beneficiaries—and targets—of this spending are the three candidates who seem to have separated themselves from the rest of the pack: state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam, Del. Dan Helmer, and former state House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn. Some familiar characters are intervening to help Helmer and Filler-Corn. The cryptocurrency industry’s new PAC of choice, Protect Progress, is spending more than $900,000 to promote Helmer, and VoteVets, a favorite pass-through super PAC of moneyed centrist donors, is spending an additional $600,000 and change promoting Helmer as well. Filler-Corn benefited from a low-six-figures TV ad buy from Democratic Majority for Israel earlier this month, but she’s also taking incoming fire from a new group called the Virginia Democratic Action PAC; the group, which has not yet disclosed its donors, paid for a $44,000 round of mailers and $15,500 in digital ads attacking Filler-Corn for her work as a lobbyist and the manner in which she lost her job as leader of the House Democratic caucus. Filler-Corn didn’t lose her job because she left the chamber or willingly stepped aside for new leadership; Filler-Corn’s tenure as leader ended when her own caucus grew so frustrated with her that they ousted her without even naming a replacement. The specific reasons for her ouster were unclear at the time and remain that way today, but the fact remains that it was her fellow Democrats who stripped her of her title. Subramanyam, for his part, has benefited from a more innocuous source: the Indian American Impact Fund, which seeks to elect South Asian Americans to public office, has thrown down $177,000 in mailers supporting Subramanyam.