Primary School 6/11
a bunch of actual elections happened and we're still stuck on NYC
Results
Texas runoffs (6/5 municipal elections)
First, a note: Texas municipal elections are nonpartisan, so the implications in terms of partisanship are limited; we’re still going to note the winning party in places where that’s relevant, because the policy implications matter even though voters weren’t presented with an obviously partisan choice.
Arlington Mayor
Republican Jim Ross held off centrist Michael Glaspie, whose partisan affiliation was not clear, in the Arlington mayoral runoff, but Glaspie managed to come much closer in the runoff (which he lost by a little less than nine percentage points) than the first round (when he came in a very distant second place with 21% of the vote to Ross’s 47%.)
Dallas Council
In May, Mayor Eric Johnson’s attempts to retaliate against the city council for voting to modestly trim the police budget’s overtime fund flopped, as did a broader attempt by the city’s conservative political class to gin up a backlash. On Saturday, those failures continued, with the more progressive candidate winning every ideologically-defined council runoff. Incumbents Carolyn King Arnold and Adam Bazaldua won their runoffs with ease over more conservative challengers in Place 4 and Place 7, respectively, while progressive Jesse Moreno prevailed over moderate Sana Syed in the open Place 2 and centrist Jaynie Schultz defeated conservative Barry Wernick in Place 11. And in Place 14, incumbent councilor David Blewett—who voted for that initial budget restraint, but hastily walked it back in order to win the endorsement of conservative former opponent Elizabeth Viney in the runoff—lost to urban planner Paul Ridley by a punishing 21-point margin, 60.5% to 39.5%.
Fort Worth Mayor and Council
Republican Mattie Parker fended off Democrat Deborah Peoples, the Tarrant County Democratic Party Chair and the 2019 runner-up to outgoing mayor Betsy Price. Fort Worth will remain one of the largest US cities with a Republican mayor (it and Jacksonville have about the same total population.) However, it will no longer be under Republican control: Mayor Pro Tem Jungus Jordan (yes, that’s his name) lost his District 6 seat in a runoff with Democrat Jared Williams. Democratic and Democratic-aligned councilors have at least a nominal majority on the Fort Worth council now, and with Fort Worth’s weak-mayor system, the council is where the real power lies.
McAllen Mayor
Republican Javier Villalobos defeated Democrat Veronica Vela Whitacre by a narrow margin. This is bad news, and an indictment of Texas Democrats’ failure to invest in the Rio Grande Valley; it is also something that probably wouldn’t have happened in a partisan election, because even Joe Biden (who did historically terrible in the RGV) won McAllen quite easily.
Plano Council
Most Plano races were decided in the first round, so the runoffs were a pretty lowkey affair, but moderate Republican Kayci Prince (who had the support of local Democrats) fended off more hardcore Republican and NIMBY Justin Adcock, and Democrat Julie Holmer actually picked up the seat vacated by hard-right failed mayoral candidate Lily Bao.
San Antonio Council
San Antonio had three ideologically-driven council runoffs on Saturday, and the left won two of them. Progressive Councilor Roberto Treviño lost to more moderate opponent Mario Bravo in District 1, but San Antonio DSA’s two endorsed candidates won: Jalen McKee-Rodriguez unseated incumbent Jada Andrews-Sullivan in District 2, and Teri Castillo picked up the open seat in District 5.
Virginia results (6/8 Democratic primaries)
It was a bad night for the left in Virginia—not disastrous, but probably the worst result since Massachusetts in 2020. Not only did former Gov. Terry McAuliffe easily win the nomination for a second term, moderate Del. Hala Ayala defeated progressive Del. Sam Rasoul in the LG race, and incumbent Mark Herring defeated Del. Jay Jones in the AG race. In fairness, Herring’s 13-point win was tighter than expected, but it was still a double-digit loss. In the House of Delegates, all of the challengers from the left flopped badly, with the exception of Clean VA, Sunrise, and Tidewater DSA-supported Nadarius Clark’s victory over moderate incumbent Steve Heretick by a margin of 46-42. Del. Lee Carter, who ran for governor out of what at times seemed like a frustration with the House of Delegates, lost reelection to Michelle Maldonado 44-38. If it had just been Carter, the results of the night would have been more mixed, but fellow progressive Ibraheem Samirah fell to Irene Shin by just 3%, in an unequivocal triumph of local establishment forces over a sitting progressive. Del. Mark Levine, whose LG bid failed badly, also lost his primary after not investing in his reelection bid, but he lost to Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who is ideologically similar. Progressive prosecutorial candidates lost their bids against incumbents in Charlottesville and Richmond, but reform-oriented candidate Ramin Fatehi won by an even larger margin than expected in Norfolk’s open race, which was nice. Progressive Del. Elizabeth Guzmán also easily turned back a well-funded challenge from Rod Hall, who had the backing of much of the Virginia Democratic establishment even after Guzmán ended her campaign for lieutenant governor to run for reelection.
New Jersey results (6/8 Democratic primaries)
The machine swept the contested primaries; that isn’t all bad, because that means anti-vaxxer Assemblyman Jamel Holley got routed in his attempt to unseat state Sen. Joe Cryan, but it does mean that progressive Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle will not be headed to the state senate, and Camden Mayor Vic Carstarphen will get a full term. Abolish the line.
Portland, ME (6/8 municipal charter commission election)
Portland, with a population of 66,000, is the largest city in the state of Maine, and every ten years the city votes on whether or not to amend its charter (basically the city’s constitution). In 2020, the city voted yes, which means they had to elect a Charter Commission to review the charter (if there’s one thing New England loves to do, it’s constantly vote on local issues). Normally a sleepy affair, this time around local activists organized the Rose Slate, full of progressive candidates. The slate won every seat it contested, which, along with a couple unaffiliated progressive wins in district races, gives progressives a majority on the commision, which could lead to some big changes in the city. For one, Portland has long been governed by a council-manager system, where at-large city councilors appoint a city manager to handle most of the executive functions of the city. While efficient for smaller towns, this system can become unresponsive to public sentiment as cities grow larger, especially when the actual elected positions are all at large. The Rose Slate has spoken highly of moving to an elected mayor position, which means we could soon be talking about that primary. They’re also looking at implementing a district system for the city council (probably too small-scale for us), and have the power to make non-electoral changes to the city’s charter to dictate the treatment of, for instance, minorities or workers in the city.
News
FL-20
The special election in South Florida to succeed deceased Rep. Alcee Hastings may be months away, but state Rep. Omari Hardy just pulled in a major ally: not a politician, but prominent lawyer Mitchell Berger, who will be fundraising for Hardy. Berger’s support is almost certainly going to mean a lot of money for a candidate running as a progressive and without major institutional allies, but it does raise the question of why an old friend of the Clintons is interested in him.
KY-03
State Rep. Attica Scott is considering running for Congress against incumbent Democrat John Yarmuth. Yarmuth, a newspaper editor, was one of a handful of surprise liberal flips from Republicans in the 2006 wave, and for a time it would have been accurate to place him in the progressive wing of the party. But times have changed, and he hasn’t. In fact, in early 2019, his refusal as Budget Chairman to move forward any Medicare for All bills led the Louisville DSA to float the idea of a primary challenger. He eventually co-sponsored a Medicare for All bill, and no challenger emerged that year.
Attica Scott, who represents downtown Louisville, is perhaps the most reliably progressive Democrat in the state house, and is no stranger to primary challenges—her political career began in 2011 by winning an open seat to the Louisville Metro Council, but she won her current state house seat by beating a socially conservative incumbent in 2016. Local activists wanted her to run for governor in 2019 and against Yarmuth in 2020, but she demurred both times. Like Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley, who successfully ran against incumbents seen as progressive, she'll be able to make an argument that she shows up when Yarmuth doesn't. Last year, she was charged with felony rioting for her attendance at Black Lives Matter protests. The charges were later dropped.
As with every other candidate who announces this early, we have to talk about redistricting... and KY-03 is a doozy. While it’s not quite as bad as TN-05, a district so inevitably going to get cut up that its very fate is synonymous with federal anti-gerrymandering legislation getting passed, KY-03 is also a lighter blue hub in a sea of red, and quite easy to slice three ways if Republicans want to. Unlike TN-05, cutting up KY-03 would annoy Republican incumbents a fair bit, but the chances of that alone being enough to save the district are low.
OH-11
Nina Turner's campaign announced this week that they'd hit the $3 million mark for campaign contributions, an extremely impressive amount for a primary campaign. She'd hit $1.55 mill at the end of March, which means she's raising at a pace of about $700,000 a month now, with another two still to go in the campaign. She also unveiled yet another set of endorsements, this time including several elected officials from Akron (the district includes a bit of the Akron area), as well as ex-state party chair David Pepper. It’s striking how Shontel Brown was able to come into the race with scores of local endorsements, but has struggled in that realm since then, while Turner has dominated. Brown also released her second ad this week, a positive spot where her mother urges voters to pick her. It’s not good, but it’s nowhere near as misconceived as her first ad.
Atlanta Mayor
The abrupt, unexpected retirement of Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms created a vacuum in this year’s mayoral race, which suddenly found itself without a frontrunner. Councilors Andre Dickens and Antonio Brown entered shortly after the mayor retired, but they weren’t the electoral juggernauts Bottoms was; that void was still there. Former Mayor Kasim Reed is now here to fill it, announcing his bid for a return to City Hall last night.
Is that good? No. Reed was a pension-cutting, police-budget-increasing moderate in his first mayoralty, if that’s any indication of how a potential second stint would turn out, and his last term in office was rocked by a federal corruption investigation which secured guilty pleas from several city employees, including a member of Reed’s cabinet.
FL-HD-94
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, a pretty mainstream Democrat, endorsed socialist Elijah Manley in the Democratic primary for this to-be-scheduled special election caused by the impending resignation of state Rep. Bobby DuBose, who will be required to resign in order to pursue his congressional campaign. Manley worked on Trantalis’s 2018 campaign, which explains that, but it’s still a very useful endorsement to have in a district which includes a large portion of Fort Lauderdale, and it’s unusual to see an open socialist like Manley notching mainstream endorsements.
NY Corner
NYC Endorsement Highlights
Mayor
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams: NY State Nurses Association (second choice), the Bronx Democratic Party, Bronx state Sen. Jamaal Bailey, Bronx CM Kevin Riley, Queens CM Karen Koslowitz, Uniformed EMS Officers Union Local 3621 and Uniformed EMTs, Paramedics, and Fire Inspectors FDNY Local 2507
Former NYC Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia: Planned Parenthood NYC PAC (first choice), Brooklyn Assemb. Bobby Carroll, National Organization for Women NYC (second choice)
Ray McGuire: Planned Parenthood NYC PAC (fourth choice)
NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer: Planned Parenthood NYC PAC (second choice)
Maya Wiley: AOC, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Brooklyn state Sen. Julia Salazar, Brooklyn Assembs. Maritza Davila and Emily Gallagher, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, NY State Nurses Association (first choice), National Organization for Women NYC (first choice), Working Families Party (now sole choice, suspending co-endorsement of Dianne Morales), Planned Parenthood NYC PAC (third choice)
Andrew Yang: Uniformed Firefighters Association
Comptroller
Manhattan state Sen. Brian Benjamin: Planned Parenthood NYC PAC (third choice)
Council Speaker Corey Johnson: Planned Parenthood NYC PAC (second choice), NYC Central Labor Council, CM Francisco Moya
Brooklyn CM Brad Lander: Planned Parenthood NYC PAC (first choice), the New York Times editorial board, Bernie Sanders
Brooklyn BP
CM Antonio Reynoso: Bernie Sanders
Manhattan DA
Tahanie Aboushi: Bernie Sanders, Queens Assemb. Zohran Mamdani
City Council
AOC’s Council endorsements include five of the six members of the DSA city council slate: Adolfo Abreu in the Bronx’s District 14, Tiffany Cabán in Queens’s District 22, Jaslin Kaur in Queens’s District 23, Alexa Avilés in Brooklyn’s District 38, and Brandon West in Brooklyn’s District 39; she also endorsed Marjorie Velázquez in the Bronx’s District 13, Jen Gutiérrez in Brooklyn’s District 34, Sandy Nurse in Brooklyn’s District 37, and Shahana Hanif in Brooklyn’s District 39 (a co-endorsement with Brandon West.) Also worth a look are the endorsements made by AOC’s Courage to Change PAC, which endorsed candidates who took the PAC’s policy pledge (and occasionally ranked those candidates too); it wades into far more races. The lone DSA candidate AOC did not personally endorse, Michael Hollingsworth of Brooklyn’s District 35, is ranked equally by CtC with his leading opponent Crystal Hudson, an establishment favorite nonetheless running with a pretty progressive platform and support from some major progressive groups.
Bernie’s Council endorsements include Abreu, Cabán, Kaur, Moumita Ahmed in Queens’s District 24, Hollingsworth, and Avilés.
News
Buffalo Mayor
The Buffalo Teachers Federation endorsed India Walton over Mayor Byron Brown in the June 22 Democratic primary. Walton, a democratic socialist with the backing of the Working Families Party and DSA, has had a late surge in fundraising, and the teachers’ union endorsement only adds to our impression that she’s gaining on Brown fast.
NYC Mayor
Man, what a week.
Scott Stringer faces a second accusation of sexual harassment. Dianne Morales fired dozens of staffers involved in a unionization effort, costing her the support of the first New York elected official to back her campaign. Maya Wiley became the progressive consensus choice seemingly overnight as it became clear there was no saving the campaigns of Stringer or Morales (or redeeming their political careers), and immediately pulled together a list of impressive endorsements including Rep. Jamaal Bowman, DSA-affiliated state Sen. Julia Salazar, DSA-affiliated Assemb. Emily Gallagher, erstwhile Stringer endorser Assemb. Maritza Davila, the Working Families Party, the New York State Nurses Association, and—the biggest one of them all—AOC. And Eric Adams faces a sudden firestorm over whether he actually lives in Brooklyn, or in Fort Lee, New Jersey—a controversy that prompted him to give a hurried tour of a Brooklyn apartment that he claimed to be his, and release the EZPass records associated with his official car, as journalists and Twitter sleuths quickly figured out that he had attended Zoom forums from the Fort Lee residence and that the Brooklyn apartment looks an awful lot like the one Adams’s son lives in, complete with shoes and fridge contents that appear to belong not to Eric Adams, but his son.
[exhale]
That was a lot.
Also, we got some more polls. Eric Adams is now clearly leading, replacing Andrew Yang as the frontrunner, but what isn’t clear is who has the best shot to take him down. According to the most recent Emerson poll, taken in June after AOC’s endorsement and the broader progressive consolidation around Maya Wiley, Adams leads with 23%, with Wiley at 17%, Andrew Yang at 15%, Kathryn Garcia at 12%, and Stringer at 9%. An Ipsos poll released around the same time, but conducted earlier, shows Adams leading with 22% and Yang and Garcia closest to him at 16% and 15%, and Stringer and Wiley further back at 10% and 9%, respectively.
Comptroller
Brooklyn CM Brad Lander has been the only progressive in the crowded Comptroller field for the entire race, but it looked like his strong campaign was going to get crowded out by the money and name recognition of Council Speaker Corey Johnson (who had been all but officially running for mayor before the fight over the city’s 2021 budget tanked his chances, and he belatedly dropped down to Comptroller to keep the dream alive.) That may be changing. Lander snagged endorsements from Planned Parenthood NYC, the New York Times, and Bernie Sanders, which should help him immensely in unifying left-leaning voters and peeling off some of the affluent white liberals who make up Johnson’s Manhattan base.