Primary School 6/25
A brave new post-NYC primary world
New York Results
NYC
New York City voted! And some day, if we're very good boys and girls, they may even tell us who won. We've complained endlessly about New York election administration, and we're not about to stop now. A combination of New York state and city law prohibits opening the 111,000 (and counting) absentee ballots already received, or doing the ranked choice tabulations, for weeks. So we're going to stick to the broad strokes for now any vaguely close race could change next month.
The next mayor of New York City is probably going to be Eric Adams, might be Kathryn Garcia or Maya Wiley, and definitely won't be anyone else. Adams, at the moment, leads with 32% to Wiley's 22% and Garcia's 20%. Yang trails badly at 12%. The next Comptroller is probably going to be Brad Lander, although maybe, theoretically, Corey Johnson could still win. Lander is up by 31 - 23. The only Borough President that's really been decided so far is Brooklyn, where Antonio Reynoso leads Robert Cornegy and Jo Anne Sinon 28-19-18. Everywhere else is a close two person race: Vanessa Gibson and Fernando Cabrera in the Bronx, Mark Levine and Brad Hoylman in Manhattan, and Donovan Richards and Elizabeth Crowley in Queens. Alvin Bragg is currently up 33-30 over Tali Farhadian Weinstein for Manhattan DA; some of his opponents think he’s won, and even they are grateful to see Farhadian Weinstein lose.
The Council saw some progressive victories, including Marjorie Velázquez in CD-13, Tiffany Caban in CD-22, either Julie Won or Amit Bagga in CD-26, Jennifer Gutiérrez in CD-34, Chi Ossé in CD-36, Sandy Nurse in CD-37, Alexa Avilés in CD-38, either Shahana Hanif or Brandon West in CD-39, likely either Rita Joseph or Kenya Handy-Hilliard in CD-40, and Mercedes Narcisse in CD-46 (relatively speaking, at least). Moderates and machine victories were relatively common, especially in Manhattan where Eric Bottcher crushed the field, Gale Brewer easily made it back to the Council, and Shaun Abreu has an imposing lead (though in Abreu's case, the candidates finishing in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 8th formed an anti-Abreu RCV pact). They are in districts 3, 6, and 7, respectively. Rematches of special elections against Eric Dinowitz in CD-11 and James Gennaro in CD-24 went poorly. DSA-backed Adolfo Abreu fared quite poorly in CD-14, which was won by Pierina Sanchez. Most of the other races, between absentees and ranked choice iterations, aren't totally over yet. The City Council is going to move left, but how far just isn't clear at the moment.
Upstate
So, did you hear about Buffalo? You know, the place with the chicken wings, a lot of snow, a football team that was a joke until a couple years ago? Oh, and a socialist mayor. That's right, India Walton—nurse, activist, and proud democratic socialist—pulled off the upset of the year and took down four-term incumbent Byron Brown, who also happens to be a top Cuomo ally. We'd noted last week that it seemed like this sleepy longshot contest was starting to look like a close race, but even still, we were both blown away that it actually happened. Walton currently leads Brown 52-45, just over 1,500 votes. While there are absentees to count, the idea they could change the result is only true in a strict mathematical sense; Brown would need to win something in the neighborhood of 90% of them. It's over. He hasn’t conceded, but the Associated Press has called the race, and the chairman of the Erie County Democratic Committee (which supported Brown) publicly congratulated Walton on her victory. Brown is reportedly looking at a write-in campaign, financed by local business leaders and the police union. So is local rich crank and former Republican gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino, who’s reportedly considering both a write-in campaign of his own and supporting a write-in campaign by Brown. In the case of a Paladino write-in, at least...lol good luck.
When you have such a miraculous victory, the first person who deserves commendation is the candidate herself. Walton ran a fantastic campaign where she effectively reached out to people and communicated simply and directly how Brown wasn't working for them. She smartly chose her lines of attack, especially the way that the city had weaponized fines and fees against its poorest residents, then made people believe that she could shift the entire thinking of how the city operated. And all this was only possible because she had spent years before this fighting on the front lines of activism and protest against an unresponsive city hall. The next group that deserves special commendation is the Working Families Party. Months ago, when everyone else saw India Walton as some nurse on a suicide run against the most powerful man in Buffalo, they saw potential, stepped in, and provided invaluable resources, not only in money, but in the hundreds of volunteers they coordinated for the campaign. People's Action and the DSA also put in a lot of work, which obviously paid off.
It was a big night elsewhere upstate. In Rochester, scandal-plagued incumbent Lovely Warren lost to City Councilor Malik Evans by a blowout 30%+ margin. Two open seats on the City Council went to Stanley Martin and Kim Smith, who were backed by DSA and WFP, and progressives knocked out a caucus of Republican collaborators in the County Legislature. And both DSA and WFP chapters across upstate succeeded in getting members elected to city councils and other local offices in smaller towns and cities—Syracuse, Albany, Troy, Ithaca, Kingston, and Newburgh among them.
News
CO-07/CO-08
Colorado has an independent redistricting commission, and they just released the first draft of their proposal for the next decade's Congressional districts. While they're using preliminary population numbers, and can make changes before the final submission, some version of what they've put out there is likely to be enacted. You can look at it, as well as demographic details, here. Colorado is gaining a Congressional district in 2022, meaning there is going to be an open seat for someone to run in. While the draft makes some changes elsewhere, the most changes occur in the Denver suburbs, which grow from 2 districts to 3. Jason Crow, the Democratic incumbent in CO-06, winds up with a bluer district closer to the city. It's Ed Perlmutter in CO-07 where things get interesting. Most of the old CO-07 is put in the new CO-08, which stretches north from Denver and is safely Democratic. Unfortunately, he doesn't live in it. He lives in Golden, which is just across the border in CO-07, the "new district", which leans Democratic—Joe Biden won it by 9%, according to the estimates we've seen, but it voted (narrowly) for Trump and some Republicans in 2018 statewide elections. This district is pretty safe for Democrats at this point, but a guy like Perlmutter, who had to fight for his original election win in 2008, might want something he definitely doesn't have to worry about, instead of something he probably doesn't have to worry about. So, it's not clear which district he'll run in. But either way, there will be a new district, and that means what will probably be a high-stakes primary, eventually. One candidate who has publicly expressed interest so far is state Rep. Brianna Titone, who represents a swing district north of Denver. She would not only be a solid progressive in Washington, she’d be the first trans member of Congress—but considering that neither her campaign nor the districts themselves are official yet, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Especially because these districts kind of suck, and Colorado Democrats reportedly do not like them one bit, viewing the map as a weak Republican gerrymander. They're not really that much of a Republican gerrymander by any of the numerical metrics, but there are some awkward choices made, and the lack of any district with a substantial Hispanic population has riled some feathers.
OH-11
Shontel Brown scored her biggest national endorsement of the cycle: Hillary Clinton. This newsletter is many things, but it is not an attempt to relitigate the 2016 primary. That being said, Nina Turner was a higher up in the 2015 Ready for Hillary efforts before jumping over to the Bernie Sanders campaign as a spokesman, where she had a number of unkind things to say about Clinton. This is clearly a spite endorsement. Regardless of the motivation, it's probably worth money —worth money for both candidates as it turns out, considering Turner announced she raised $100,000 the day after the endorsement. On Wednesday, Turner was endorsed by Rep. Ted Lieu. Lieu is from California, not Ohio, but he has a large online following among #Resistance liberals who might not like Turner.
There was a debate this week. It was a mostly dry affair that, owing to the large number of candidates, had little in the way of back and forth between the candidates. It was notable mostly in that after fully ignoring Shontel Brown for six months, Nina Turner felt it worthwhile to indirectly push back on Brown's central campaign message, that Brown can work with Biden but Turner can't, by mentioning the need for Ohio to have "a partner, not a puppet" of the administration in Congress. Brown also let a few non-Turner candidates get under her skin. The moments were mildly amusing in their own right, but they mostly point to Brown’s inexperience as a candidate—ideally you're not snapping at minor candidates repeatedly in a debate if they say something you don't like, to the point where moderators have to step in.
The Cleveland Stonewall Democrats have also endorsed Nina Turner, following a candidate forum where Shontel Brown repeatedly misgendered a trans woman.
OR-06
Oregon is getting a new Congressional district next year, and although efforts to draw it have not yet begun, it already has a serious candidate: former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith, who announced she was running for the new seat (whatever it winds up being numbered) on Tuesday. Smith would be the first Black member of Congress from notoriously white Oregon, but her political career thus far has been sadly unremarkable. After her 8 years on the Multnomah County Commission (2011-2019), she tried and failed twice for a seat on the Portland City Council, and in the second election especially, major concerns were raised about her coziness with developers and police unions. Oregon could, and routinely has, done worse in the people it sends to Congress, but they could do better too.
Also, it’s not actually clear the new district will even be in Portland.
SC-06
Jim Clyburn is running for reelection. Yeah, we knew it was always a long shot that he'd retire, but that vaguely defined pact back in 2018 about not staying in leadership beyond 2022 included him, so there was a vague hope. It is not to be, apparently. (Though maybe he simply becomes a backbencher and lets reps born after World War II take over leadership, but we doubt it.)
TN-05
Minor conservative celebrity Robby Starbuck just announced he would be running as a Republican against Jim Cooper. Why is this Democratic primary news? Well, not only is the current district way too blue for a Republican, Starbuck doesn't actually live in it. Rather, he lives in Franklin, a large red suburb to the south. It is, of course, eminently possible that he's just running a hopeless race for the attention, but Republicans are in the process of deciding on Congressional maps for 2022 and where he lives would make a lot of sense for part of a new GOP district near Nashville that wouldn't have any existing Republican incumbents in it, if the GOP were to carve up Nashville to this Democratic district. It's nothing concrete, just another sign Tennessee Republicans will be eliminating this district if they can.
WA-06
Rebecca Parson is running against Derek Kilmer again, a rematch of 2020. It's hard to know how to feel about this one. On one hand, Parson ran a competent enough campaign by outside appearances and raised a decent amount of money, but on the other hand, the final result was 47% for Kilmer, 27% for a GOP candidate, and 13% for Parson, ultimately a pretty poor showing.
CT-SoS
Denise Merrill, three-term Secretary of State, announced her retirement on Wednesday. This is largely unexpected, and opens up a statewide office during a cycle where no one really expected much upward opportunity for the state's many ambitious politicians.
MD-Gov
In all likelihood, this candidate announcement is the death of a primary. Former Labor Secretary and DNC Chair Tom Perez had been rumored to be looking at a gubernatorial run for ages, but this Wednesday he finally pulled the trigger. Perez is a lot like Terry McAuliffe, and not just because they were both DNC chairs. They both represent a very mainstream liberal tendency within Democratic politics, and they both expected to absolutely bulldoze the field. In McAuliffe's case, he was stepping on more progressive candidates, and the inability of groups to his left to unify the field assured his victory. Perez, meanwhile, is blowing up a field made up of centrists like Comptroller Peter Franchot and PG County Executive Rushern Baker. At best, Perez is getting in the way of someone like John King, who is maybe slightly to his left? We're not excited about the prospect of Governor Perez, but it's not a disappointment either.
Also this week, nonprofit director Wes Moore launched his campaign. Moore would be a longshot in the best of circumstances. With Perez in, oof.
MA-Gov
State Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz launched a campaign for governor this week. This is fantastic news. Chang-Díaz has been a favorite of progressives in the state ever since she primaried out an incumbent state Senator in 2008, an effort that required taking on the establishment of the state, including the mayor and governor. Since getting elected, she's been very outspoken about the need for big changes in the state, and has clashed with Senate leadership. She announced she was considering running for governor all the way back in March, prompting a flurry of activist support before she was even in. As of now, the other candidates in the primary include Danielle Allen, a Harvard professor of some note, and Benjamin Downing, an ex-state senator from the Berkshires. While many other Democrats qualify as potential candidates, the most important potential candidate is a Republican: incumbent Charlie Baker. Baker is eligible to run for a third term, and he remains popular enough that he could win a third term. But he's basically stopped fundraising and a lot of Massachusetts politicos think he's set to retire after a draining second term. Needless to say, this race will look very different with him in it versus without.
NM-AG
Attorney General Hector Balderas is prevented by the state constitution from running for a third term, creating an open seat here in 2022. Over a month ago, State Auditor Brian Colón announced his intention to run for the office, and we were tempted to think that was the end of it. State executive term limits mean that politicians often glide effortlessly from one office to another. But this week, Bernalillo County District Attorney Raúl Torrez announced his intention to run for AG, meaning we have a race. Torrez was the first DA who George Soros ever funded, and he should be considered more of a test run, rather than the Krasner-style reformists Soros is better known for funding. Torrez is a far cry from those. He’s proud of some preliminary efforts he’s made to take on bad cops, sure, but otherwise he’s very much a normal prosecutor, and to the extent he's gotten involved in legislation, it's been to push for greater criminalization. Brian Colón is also no progressive, and in fact he recently stepped in to prevent teachers from getting COVID bonuses, an act of remarkable dickery that suggests he also wouldn't be inclined to do much good with the AG office. Like Torrez, he is leaning into "tough-on-crime" messaging, and his website greets visitors with a picture of Colón standing by police officers above a promise to "combat...violent predators."
RI-Gov
Dan McKee may have ascended to the office by circumstance, but he clearly intends to fight for it. His fundraiser this weekend pulled in $100,000 in a single night, a massive single fundraiser figure for a state as cheap as Rhode Island. The fundraiser was co-hosted by Kelly Coates, also a major backer of the conservative Democratic State House Speaker.
Minneapolis Mayor
In Minnesota, the state Democratic Party, officially known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), holds nomination conventions for each office, which give endorsed candidates both a party seal of approval and official resources. They're a bigger deal than in most states. Minneapolis just had one for mayor, and it was eye-opening. Incumbent mayor Jacob Frey not only failed to meet the 60% threshold for an endorsement, he came in second to community organizer Sheila Nezhad, 53-40. That means there will be no endorsement, not uncommon for mayoral races, but it does say a good deal about where party activist feelings are right now. Translating that into votes will by no means be simple, but it points to a competitive race, specifically between Frey and Nezhad.