Primary School 6/26
a miniature issue for a slow news week
Virginia Results
State Senate
Progressives gained a lot of ground in the Virginia Senate in Tuesday’s primaries. Anti-abortion, child-bride-having, Republican-curious, banned-from-the-local-jail state Sen. Joe Morrissey got utterly destroyed by former Del. Lashrecse Aird, and state Sen. Chap Petersen (a pro-assault rifle, pro-Confederate-monument, pro-right-to-work centrist who described himself as “a Joe Manchin type” and “one of a few Joe Manchins in the [Virginia] Senate”) was felled by Fairfax County Democratic Party official Saddam Azlan Salim. In addition to the defeats of the two most conservative Democrats in the state Senate, progressive Fairfax County Board of Education member Stella Pekarsky beat moderate state Sen. George Barker in a district almost entirely new to him; progressive former Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2021, beat moderate former Del. Hala Ayala, the losing nominee for lieutenant governor in 2021, for an open seat in Northern Virginia; and in a race with relatively lower stakes, state Senate President Louise Lucas, a mainstream but fiercely partisan Democrat, defeated her colleague Lionell Spruill, also a mainstream Democrat but much friendlier with Republicans. In less exciting news, Dominion Energy-favored Del. Angelia Williams Graves won an open seat in Norfolk, and state Sens. Creigh Deeds, Jeremy McPike, and Dave Marsden turned back challenges from their left (Deeds and McPike narrowly, Marsden comfortably.) State Sens. Barbara Favola and Lamont Bagby won landslides against cash-strapped and less ideological challengers, and liberal Del. Suhas Subramanyam defeated his more progressive former colleague Ibraheem Samirah for an open seat in Loudoun County.
State House
The state House was considerably lighter on progressive-vs-moderate primaries for a body with 100 seats instead of the Senate’s 40, but it didn’t completely lack them—and progressives have a lot to like about the results of the few clearly ideological contests in the state House. Dels. Nadarius Clark and Kelly Convirs-Fowler, two Hampton Roads progressives facing Dominion-funded challengers in substantially altered districts, won—Clark in a landslide, Convirs-Fowler with a narrow 28% plurality. Fairfax County School Board member Laura Jane Cohen beat Chap Petersen-backed self-funder Eric Schmidt by a wide margin in HD-15, establishment favorite Makya Little was narrowly upset by progressive Rozia Henson next door in HD-19, and progressive/establishment consensus choice Rae Cousins won a landslide over Dominion-funded anti-vaxx Richmond City Councilor Ann-Frances Lambert in HD-79. Destiny LeVere Bolling in HD-80 isn’t really a progressive, but her landslide victory is still worthy of some celebration given her opponent, self-funding Trump-supporting conservative John Dantzler. Progressives did take some losses; Fairfax County School Board member Karen Keys-Gamarra, supported by much of the local establishment despite her fondness for calling any and all critics “retarded”, defeated both a progressive and a vastly more…normal establishment alternative in HD-07. In HD-55, wealthy establishment favorite Amy Laufer beat ER nurse Kellen Squire after sending out underhanded mailers which twisted Squire’s (many) inartfully-worded past statements to falsely paint him as opposed to abortion rights. And Del. Delores McQuinn coasted over a progressive challenger in HD-81. In the less ideological primaries, establishment favorite Kannan Srinivasan won HD-26, Albemarle County School Board Chair Katrina Callsen won HD-54, university administrator Bonita Anthony won HD-92, and former Del. Alex Askew won HD-95.
Local
Northern Virginia’s trio of reform prosecutors—Parisa Dehghani-Tafti in Arlington, Steve Descano in Fairfax County, and Buta Biberaj in Loudoun County—all won over challengers backed by police unions and other opponents of criminal justice reform. Arlington and Fairfax sheriffs Jose Quiroz and Stacey Kincaid also won new terms, though only by a 40-34 margin in Quiroz’s case. In county board elections, Arlington voters elected one pro-Missing Middle candidate, Maureen Coffey, and one anti-Missing Middle candidate, Sandra Cunningham—putting the incremental policy’s future in doubt by giving skeptical yes votes Libby Garvey and Matt De Ferranti the third vote they need, but not dooming it outright like the election of two anti-Missing Middle candidates would have done. Mainstream Democrat Jimmy Bierman and progressive Andres Jimenez beat moderate opponents (a former Republican operative in Jimenez’s case) for open seats on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, while incumbent board chair Jeff McKay and incumbent board member Dan Storck won renomination. Finally, to the south in Prince William County, voters delivered a major upset: Deshundra Jefferson, a community activist and self-described progressive, defeated county board chair Ann Wheeler in a race that turned on concerns about environmental challenges resulting from the rapid development of Northern Virginia’s booming data center industry, which Wheeler strongly supported as chair.
News
CA-Sen
Adam Schiff just became the 25th member of the House to be censured by the body. The reason why is essentially that House Republicans don't like him, and the consequences are non-existent. In short, it's the best thing that's happened to his campaign since its launch. The censure vote is getting endless cable news coverage, and Schiff is fundraising relentlessly off of it. It will also almost certainly make his ads, since if you're running in a heavily Democratic state and have evidence Republicans hate you more than anyone else running, why wouldn't you use it?
DE-Sen/DE-AL
U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester has been the heir apparent to Tom Carper's Senate seat from the moment he announced his retirement. This week she made it official with a campaign announcement. Her primary is expected to be a formality; it does, however, mean she is no longer running for her House seat, which means candidates to replace her can begin announcing campaigns. State Sen. Sarah McBride, who would be the first transgender member of Congress, is seen as an early favorite for the seat, and her announcement reinforced that impression with endorsements from politicians across the ideological spectrum (including state Sen. Bryan Townsend, who ran for this seat himself in 2016 and had been floated as a candidate to replace Blunt Rochester this time around.) Progressive organizations are expected to back Delaware State Housing Authority Director Eugene Young, who weeks ago said he would run for Congress in the event that Blunt Rochester ran for Senate—but a number of progressive Delaware politicians backed McBride at her launch, like state Reps. DeShanna Neal and Sophie Phillips. State Treasurer Colleen Davis is also considering a run, and there may be an older, more conservative politician or two willing to give it a shot as well.
DE-Gov
The Senate and House races aren’t the only release valves for the buildup of political ambitions among Delaware Democrats; with Gov. John Carney term-limited, his job is another attractive option to politicians seeking a promotion. New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer starts with a heck of a name-recognition advantage: nearly 60% of Delawareans (and a higher share of Delaware Democrats) live in New Castle County. He also has a quality which can be a double-edged sword: a knack for shameless self-promotion, like this op-ed using the near-death of Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin at an NFL game in Cincinnati as a story hook for an essay promoting funding and pay raises for emergency medical services in New Castle County, or this op-ed that could pass as a high school world history essay about the war in Ukraine, or this one using criticism from the local police union as an excuse to brag about police pay, or this one using criticism from an editorial board about government transparency as an excuse to brag about government transparency. No matter the story, Matt Meyer can find a way to tie it into an elevator pitch about how great Matt Meyer is. For now, he’s the best gubernatorial candidate by virtue of being the only one; it’s been three weeks since Meyer’s announcement, and nobody else has made any public moves towards a run for governor, including obvious alternatives like Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long or state AG Kathy Jennings.
RI-01
An endorsement roundup as this week’s filing deadline approaches:
EMILY’s List for Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA for former state Rep. Aaron Regunberg
State Rep. Enrique Sanchez for state Sen. Ana Quezada
State Sens. Mark McKenney, Meghan Kallman, Robert Britto, and Melissa Murray for state Sen. Sandra Cano
TX-32
After Colin Allred announced his Senate candidacy, state Rep. Julie Johnson was one of the first to indicate her interest. This week, she announced her congressional campaign with early support from the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, the Human Rights Campaign, and U.S. Reps. Ritchie Torres and Mark Takano, the co-chairs of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus. We suppose Johnson would be acceptable in a swing district, but this is a hideously gerrymandered district meant to cram as many Democrats as possible into it so that the Dallas area doesn’t have swing districts for Republicans to worry about. That sucks, but as long as this district is a Democratic vote sink, it deserves better than a Bloomberg endorser who thought New York City’s last Republican mayor was the best on policy, the only candidate who cared about Texas, and the only candidate who could beat Donald Trump. This week’s other new entrant to the race isn’t much better, unfortunately…
Former Dallas City Councilmember Kevin Felder filed to run for Congress, though he hasn't said publicly whether he's running or just considering it. Felder was elected to the Dallas City Council on his fifth try, in 2017, and only served one term before getting flattened in his reelection campaign in 2019-4th place with less than 15% of the vote. It likely had something to do with how he'd just been indicted for the hit and run of a teenager. (Felder did get his charges dismissed in 2022, on the condition he take a defensive driving class.) He made an unsuccessful comeback bid in 2021, but didn't try again in 2023. Felder is bordering on perennial candidate status, barely ever represented any of the district, has a giant black mark on his record, and has shown little ability to raise money despite being a realtor.
TX-HD-146
Texas Monthly’s Sasha von Oldershausen just published an investigation into the office of state Rep. Shawn Thierry, of Houston. Thierry was first elected in 2016 without a primary, getting handed the Democratic nomination after incumbent state Rep. Borris Miles withdrew post-primary to accept the Democratic nomination for a state Senate seat. Thierry flew under the radar for years afterwards, but recently drew (overwhelmingly negative) attention in May of this year when she voted with Republicans for multiple laws targeting transgender children, citing a bunch of right-wing anti-trans talking points as the reason for her vote and preemptively casting her critics as racist because she’s a Black woman. Thierry comes across as not just a bad boss, but as an obsessive, controlling, and nightmarish person to be around, let alone work for. In one instance, she was so angry that she wasn’t informed quickly enough about a pair of potted plants being delivered to her office that she smashed them by throwing them across the room. Current and former Thierry employees also say she had them stay past two in the morning to redecorate her office, “account in writing in five-minute intervals for every single action they took”, and experiencing regular panic attacks as a result of her abusive behavior. In response to the allegations, Thierry denied everything and said the staffers were making stuff up because they were gay. No, really; she rattled off a list of staffers who she perceived to be disgruntled and said she believed each was either gay or bisexual.
Baltimore Mayor
Baltimore just can’t seem to get rid of Sheila Dixon. After Martin O’Malley’s election as governor in 2006, then-city council president Sheila Dixon stepped in as mayor, winning a full term in the 2007 election. It wasn’t long before law enforcement came knocking at Dixon’s door; by January 2009, she had been indicted by a grand jury for perjury, theft, fraud, and official misconduct, and in January 2010, she resigned after she was convicted on a misdemeanor embezzlement charge relating to her theft of hundreds of dollars in gift cards intended for needy families. For most politicians, that would be the end; for Dixon, it was merely a temporary setback. She ran for her old job as mayor in 2016, narrowly losing the Democratic primary to Catherine Pugh and garnering 22% of the general election vote as a write-in candidate. After Pugh’s own resignation amidst a corruption investigation in 2019, Dixon ran in the 2020 election, this time narrowly losing to Brandon Scott. Scott, who ran as a progressive in 2020, hasn’t been brought down by a corruption scandal; in fact, he looks like he’ll be the first mayor since O’Malley to actually run for reelection—and it looks like he’ll face none other than Sheila Dixon. Again.
In an appearance on Fox45, a conservative local news channel owned by Baltimore-based right-wing broadcasting giant Sinclair, Dixon teased yet another mayoral run while fielding softball questions from a conservative commentator. As the Baltimore Banner notes, Fox45 appeals to a considerably different audience than Dixon’s longstanding base of older Black voters: conservative and moderate white voters, who voted for neither Dixon nor Scott in 2020.
Minneapolis City Council District 10
Twin Cities DSA almost achieved a clean sweep for its candidates at the initial round of DFL endorsement conventions for Minneapolis and St. Paul’s city council elections this year. The endorsement conventions grant winners the official Democratic(-Farmer-Labor) Party seal of approval as well as access to official party resources, and the left has gotten quite good at winning them as of late—something which Minneapolis city council candidate Nasri Warsame was well aware of at the initial Minneapolis Ward 10 endorsement convention. Warsame’s camp stormed the stage when it looked like incumbent councilor Aisha Chughtai, a DSA-affiliated member of the council’s left-wing bloc, was set to receive the DFL endorsement at the initial convention. Warsame’s team’s violent intervention derailed the proceedings and forestalled the DFL endorsement of Chughtai—but it also got him banned for life from seeking the DFL endorsement for any office. A do-over convention was held this week (with Warsame removed from the ballot) and Chughtai, unsurprisingly, won the endorsement, completing DSA’s sweep of DFL conventions.