Primary School 7/30 and Arizona Primary Preview
A Grand Canyon of difference between the candidates
Hey everyone, my apologies on the late sending time —this is was supposed to have gone out this morning. Nick usually does the actual publishing, and I managed to screw up the scheduling feature. Thank you to Twitter user @SCOTUSEnjoyer for pointing that it hadn't gone out.
-Opinion Haver
FEC Week
AZ-03: Aided by cryptocurrency money, Yassamin Ansari is enjoying the fruits of previous strong fundraising quarters, and overwhelming progressive pick Raquel Terán in the home stretch.
CA-12: We were wondering whether wealthy Bay Area donors were going to throw money at whoever was running against Lateefah Simon in a moonshot to prevent her election, and now we have our answer: no.
CA-16: How did Silicon Valley darling Evan Low manage to let himself get out-raised by former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo to the tune of a full million? Maybe because the legislature was in session for nearly the full quarter, and maybe because he expects cryptocurrency money to swoop in and save him.
CA-34: We kind of say the same thing about this election every quarter: David Kim’s a ground game-only candidate, never raises any money, etc. But he pulled in almost $100,000 this quarter. That’s still not great, but it’s a lot better than anything he raised the last two cycles.
DE-Sen: This is all kind of academic now that filing’s closed and all her opponents are total nobodies, but that’s still a lot of money.
DE-AL: See above.
MI-13: We really, really, hope the Detroit establishment slowly lining up behind Mary Waters counts for some votes, because she sure doesn't have the money to campaign any other way.
MN-05: Don Samuels is on track to spend almost exactly the same $1.4 million on this election as he did on the last, just without the outside spending on his behalf. Ilhan Omar has more than doubled her spending, from $2 million, to $4.5 million as of the second quarter FEC filing. The result has been moving from spending parity in 2022 to Omar spending nearly three times as much as Samuels this year.
MO-01: Cori Bush has managed to start raising heavily, and is even able to keep up her spending pace at roughly the same as Wesley Bell’s, with both of them dropping just over $1 million in the final quarter. What we don’t like is the look of those cash-on-hand figures. Bell has been buying himself a truly massive ad blitz with that in the closing 5 weeks of the campaign, whereas Bush practically needs to fundraise in real time to pay her bills.
WA-06: Hilary Franz *feels* like the favorite here, coming from a statewide office raising more money than her opposition. But state Sen. Emily Randall isn’t actually raising that much less, and Randall’s the one with support from labor, county parties, and Patty Murray.
WA-08: This district is on the edge of what we talk about. It’s only Biden+7. But it’s comprised of suburbs that are moving left, the Republican candidate is a joke with $4,000 on hand, and we couldn’t entirely ignore the amazing quarter from state CAIR director Imraan Siddiqi, who is running against incumbent Kim Schrier’s support of Israel’s continued assault on Gaza. $335,000 isn’t quite enough to fund a full campaign on, but, if spent properly, is enough to get his name out to a substantial portion of the electorate.
Outside $ Tracker
AZ-03
$1.4M in ads (presumably TV) for Yassamin Ansari from crypto group Protect Progress, which is functionally a front for Fairshake, the PAC funded by, and essentially acting as an arm of, Coinbase, one of the largest crypto companies. Hey look, here’s a letter Ansari signed calling for the government to replace the SEC chair with someone friendlier to crypto. What a coincidence!
$400K in TV ads attacking Raquel Terán and supporting Yassamin Ansari from Mainstream Democrats PAC. Mainstream Democrats PAC is run by billionaire tech mogul Reid Hoffman, currently attempting to remove antitrust champion Lina Khan from the FTC. They played in a few primaries in 2022 but were overshadowed by DMFI and AIPAC. Most of the money comes from Hoffman and oil billionaire Stacy H. Schusterman.
$130K in TV ads, $35K in digital ads, $3K in texts, and $1K in mailers for Raquel Terán from the Working Families Party.
$63K in mailers in two batches for Raquel Terán from the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC.
$30K of digital ads opposing Yassamin Ansari from Nuestro PAC. Nuestro PAC is run by Chuck Rocha, a Bernie Sanders 2020 alum, though its candidate choices have been more mercenary than ideological. The ad highlights that donors to Donald Trump and Kari Lake have also contributed to Ansari.
MO-01
$1.4M in ads attacking Cori Bush from crypto industry PAC Fairshake.
$200K in aggregated TV and digital ads and $41K in mailers for Cori Bush from the Working Families Party.
$124K in mailers in two batches and $75K in TV ads supporting Wesley Bell, as well as $61K in mailers attacking Cori Bush and supporting Bell, from Mainstream Democrats PAC.
$100K in TV ads for Cori Bush from Emgage Federal Action.
$85K in mailers in two batches supporting Cori Bush from the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC.
$57K of mailers in two batches supporting Cori Bush from Medicare for All PAC, which is run by Pramila Jayapal.
MI-13
$1.4M in TV ads and $159K of mailers attacking Mary Waters and promoting Shakira Hawkins from Blue Wave Action. The ads primarily exist to attack Waters and secondarily to prop up a seemingly random other candidate on the ballot in a transparent attempt to split the anti-Thanedar vote. The funders of the group are a mystery, but they clearly want Thanedar reelected. It could even conceivably be Thanedar himself.
$1.0M in ads (presumably TV) for Shri Thanedar from Protect Progress (see AZ-03 for more).
MN-05
$63K in paid canvassing for Ilhan Omar from Take Action MN.
WA-06
$1.5M in ads (presumably TV) for Emily Randall from Protect Progress (see AZ-03 for more). Randall is also a signatory on that letter.
$421K of mailers in five rounds, and $27K of texting for Emily Randall from Equality PAC.
$30K in “advertising” supporting Hilary Franz from Tomorrow’s Jobs PAC. The PAC was created early this year to funnel about $30K in medical industry funds to support Jeremy Gray in AL-02. They’ve been basically dormant (and out of money) since then, so we don’t really know who’s funding this.
MO-01
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch endorsed Wesley Bell this week. It’s a largely expected endorsement coming from the moderate-leaning Post-Dispatch, which has always endorsed against Cori Bush, aside from 2022, when her opponent was credibly accused rapist Steven Roberts. The Post-Dispatch sat that one out. Unlike the fiery NY-16 primary, the MO-01 contest, which is next week, has been almost bereft of surprise. Progressives lined up on one side with Bush, white moderates and AIPAC money lined up with Bell, and both campaigns since then have been diligently on-message.
DMFI released a final poll from its president’s personal polling form showing Bush down 48% - 42% to Bell, a slight expansion of the 43% - 42% lead they had Bell at last month. The lack of independent polling in this race is frustrating, but we do know where Bell and his allies see the race - Bell in the driver’s seat but not quite pulling away.
DE-Gov
Delaware has spent most of the year suffering through a polling drought, but there are finally some publicly released toplines to look at. Citizens for a New Delaware Way, a PAC set up to oppose LG Bethany Hall-Long in early July, released a poll from Slingshot Strategies showing Hall-Long tied with New Castle County Exec. Matt Meyer at 27% apiece, with former Delaware Department of Natural Resources head Collin O'Mara at 7%. The Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association, which is supporting Hall-Long, then released, potentially in response, a poll fielded by Public Policy Polling showing Hall-Long ahead 31% to Meyer’s 19% and O’Mara’s 9%.
Hall-Long is tied or leading in the polls, and has just been officially endorsed by the state party, which makes her the nominal favorite in this contest. However, as of this week, her campaign is officially in trouble. The state Department of Elections, after an extended forensic audit of her campaign’s records, concluded that, after beginning her campaign with a personal loan to the campaign, she “repaid” herself and her husband $30,000 more than the initial loan, despite publicly claiming that the campaign still owed her about $100,000. All in all, nearly $300,000 of campaign payments have been omitted from records filed to the state. Despite that being a crime under Delaware Law, State Elections Commissioner Anthony Albence—appointed by Gov. John Carney, who is Hall-Long’s most notable supporter—is choosing not to recommend Hall-Long for prosecution, or even a simple fine.
MN-05
Rep. Ilhan Omar released an internal poll from Lake Research Partners, showing her leading former Minneapolis City Councilmember Don Samuels 60%-33%. The Samuels campaign responded by pointing out that Omar put out a poll showing her leading Samuels 60%-21% before winning by a narrow 50%-48%. That poll, from Change Research, was one of the biggest whiffs of the cycle, and is perhaps a reason why Omar switched pollsters, but that poll was in the field in late May/early June, more than two months before the election, and before Samuels had begun advertising. This poll was in the field July 17-21, after three weeks of early voting have already happened.
The Omar campaign by all accounts was caught off-guard in 2022, basically assuming Samuels was a protest candidate until way later than they should have, and responded by organizing a field and mail operation, but opting out of TV advertising, as well as any substantial negative campaigning against Samuels. This time around, they took the threat seriously from the beginning. They're currently airing their third TV ad, and the way Samiels’s sexist comments earlier in the summer received heavy media attention suggests the Omar campaign was actually ready to pounce on his mistakes this time around.
Put another way, the 2022 poll was a statement that they didn't need to do the work to stop Samuels, and the 2024 poll was a reassurance that they have been doing the work. Though both polls found Omar leading with 60% of the vote, her favorability is strikingly different: in 2022, Lake Research found her favorability among primary voters a healthy if not spectacular 65%, with 33% holding unfavorable opinions. In the Change poll, the figures were 70% to 24%. While that’s somewhat better than the Lake poll, it’s substantially better than her numbers were in another, until-now unreleased May poll that had her favorability at 61% - 34%. Either the 2022 election took a major toll on the impression voters had of Omar, or the Change poll was simply bad.
TX-18
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee passed away on July 19. Though a cause of death has not been released by her family, the 74 year-old political veteran was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer only last month. Lee won renomination to Congress in March, meaning that the Harris County Democratic Party will need to hold a vote of precinct chairs to pick her replacement for the general election ballot. AS of now, it remains unclear when (or whether) a special election for the remainder of her term will be held, but, as it would have to happen after the selection of a new nominee, the new nominee would be overwhelmingly likely to win it as well. Houston is home to a million ambitious politicians, but no meaningful primary will be held in TX-18 until the regularly scheduled on in March of 2026.
LA-06
Louisiana political journalist Jeremy Alford reports that the Congressional Black Caucus is slowly coalescing around former Rep. Cleo Fields in the race for LA-06. The news isn’t shocking given how deeply the CBC reveres experience, but Fields served one term three decades ago—he’s hardly a creature of DC serving temporary exile in Louisiana.
Albany County DA
Incumbent DA David Soares, recently ousted by reformist challenger Lee Kindlon by a solid 55%-45% margin, isn’t giving up. The anti-bail reform, pro-child imprisonment prosecutor is now launching a write-in campaign in the general election. Undoubtedly inspired by Byron Brown’s victory as a softly GOP-aligned write-in candidate in Buffalo after losing his primary in 2021, and Allegheny County DA Stephen Zappala, who lost the Democratic Primary for renomination in 2023, switched parties, accepted the GOP nomination, and narrowly won in the general election that year. Given that there is already a Republican candidate in the race (Ralph Ambrosio), Soares has a tough climb ahead of him, but his goal might not be to win, just to drag Kindlon down.
Arizona Primary Preview
AZ-03 (West Phoenix)
Yassamin Ansari vs. Raquel Terán vs. Duane Wooten
For months, the speculation over this race was about AIPAC. The money hose they turned on other districts altered election after election in 2022, and for a while they seemed poised to jump in here too. Confusingly, the usual pattern was reversed: AIPAC seemed to be interested in Phoenix City Councilmember Yassamin Ansari, generally regarded as a progressive, in order to stop Raquel Terán, a woman so establishment she has served as both the Arizona Democratic Party Chair and Senate Minority Leader. The distinction was clearly about Israel, but both candidates only seemed to breach the issue behind closed doors in meetings and questionnaires the public never got to see. It turned out to all be meaningless anyway: it turns out this election isn’t about Israel after all; it’s about cryptocurrency.
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Okay, fine, that’s us being glib, but the truth is that AIPAC wound up staying out of the race (at least officially), and a last minute seven figure ad buy for Ansari happened anyway, courtesy of the Protect Progress Super PAC, which is derives its funding from all the biggest worst names in cyrpto, chief among them Ripple and Coinbase, which has been open about pumping tens of millions into political contests to secure a more favorable regulatory environment for the Sam Bankman-Frieds of the world, a goal Ansari has officially signed onto. We’ve said this a few times, but we hope she’s merely bought and paid for, because arriving at that conclusion sincerely would somehow be worse.
That’s enough negativity about scam business shill Yassamin Ansari. We don’t want to give the impression we’re interested in this election merely out of desire to stop her when Raquel Terán is legitimately exciting. Terán was an organizer for People First Future who cut her teeth fighting anti-immigrant legislation before winning an election to state legislature in 2018 and party chair in 2021. During her tenure running the AZ Dems, the party censured Kyrsten Sinema (before Sinema bailed on the party entirely). Terán was endorsed by Bernie Sanders in 2020, an endorsement he renewed this week. She’s laid out in her campaign a detailed policy platform that includes the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and national rent control. Progressives around the state, who have had years to get to know her, are excited by her candidacy, and she’s turned national progressives, such as the Working Families Party and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, into believers as well.
Now she just has to actually win the damn thing, a challenging prospect after Ansari outraised her $1.8 million to $1.2 million and benefitted from much more in outside spending: the aforementioned $1.4 million from Protect Progress, and another $400,000 from tech billionaire Reid Hoffman’s Mainstream Democrats PAC far outstrip the spending from progressives. Terán has her grassroots supporters, as well as organized labor (mostly - building trades endorsed the moderate, again). We shall see if it’s enough.
Pediatrician Duane Wooten is also in the race and will have a minimal impact.
SD-22 (Southwest Phoenix and suburbs)
Eva Diaz (i) vs. Leezah Sun
In 2022, the Democratic nominee and only candidate running for safely Democratic SD-22 dropped out of the race. Democrats needed to unite behind a write-in candidate, and chose teacher Eva Diaz, who won easily, and has since made little news in the Senate. That stands in contrast to her opponent, Leezah Sun, who was elected to the state house in 2022 but resigned halfway through her term in order to head off what was going to be a near-unanimous expulsion vote. As AZMirror summarized, Sun had “used her position to influence the outcome of a child custody arrangement, intimidated a school superintendent and threatened to kill a Tolleson city lobbyist by throwing her off of a balcony”. Sun’s Senate campaign has consisted of he refusing to talk to the press, and stealing Diaz’s lit.
SD-24 (Phoenix suburb of Glendale)
Mario Garcia vs. Analise Ortiz
State Rep. Analise Ortiz, a former reporter and ACLU state campaign director, is looking to move into an open state senate district, and we support her ambitions. Her voting record is progressive, her background is extremely promising, and her opponent is a business owner who really seems to like wingnut GOP politician Kari Lake. Much like SD-24, just about everyone is supporting Ortiz, while Garcia is going it alone.
HD-05 [Top 2] (North Phoenix)
Sarah Liguori (i) vs. Charles Lucking (i) vs. Aaron Marquez vs. Dorri Thyden
Arizona may be known for its high rate of legislative turnover, but both of the representatives for the 5th district resigning within a few days of each other last year was just goofy. The result is a pair of appointees - financial advisor Sarah Liguori and attorney Charles Lucking - facing off against a pair of old political hands - ex-Ruben Gallego staffer Aaron Márquez and campaign consultant Dorri Thyden. Thyden is so proud of the time she led a successful neighborhood crusade to shutter a drug detox facility that she highlights it on her website before any of the political campaign she’s worked on, and Marquez gives off alarmingly centrist vibes, perhaps because he runs a political group with predatory hedge fund manager/centrist former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. It looks like Lucking and Liguori, who have proven themselves to be normal Democrats, are the right picks here. The Arizona political establishment, aside from a handful of old party apparatchiks who seem to personally know Thyden, agree.
HD-06 [Top 2] (Rural northeast)
Mae Peshlakai (i) vs. Myron Tsosie (i) vs. Angela Maloney
This district covers the state’s extensive Navajo, Hopi, and Apache Indian Reservations, and as such, the politics of its elections tends to be far more local than other districts. None of the candidates are raising any money, and this is the one election the AFL-CIO is totally punting on. We just don’t know what the contours of this election are.
HD-08 [Top 2] (Tempe)
Janeen Connolly vs. Brian Garcia vs. Juan Mendez
Like HD-05, both of the incumbents in HD-08 are appointees. Unlike that district, both candidates have opted against running for full terms, resulting in a race where three candidates vie for two open spots. In theory. In reality, state Sen. Juan Mendez is probably getting one of them. We welcome Mendez, who is termed out of the upper chamber, to his new office. Mendez is one of the few open atheists in government, a staunch progressive, and always willing to lend a hand to other progressive causes or politicians. One of those other politicians is attorney Brian Garcia, currently running for the other seat. Garcia and Mendez are running as the Clean Elections Team, promising to reject fossil fuel money, support public education funding, end cash bail, and propose Medicaid buy-in legislation, among other promises. The Working Families Party and most of organized labor is behind this slate, which, though she’s less involved in the campaign itself, does include the state senator for the district, Lauren Kuby.
The odd candidate out in all this is Janeen Connolly, retired lobbyist (okay, technically not a registered lobbyist as she repeatedly stresses, but that’s what a “government relations” position means) for electric cooperative Salt River Project. Connolly is a self-funder who has given no indication she’d be a terrible legislator, but is clearly not going to be the progressive champion that the Mendez/Garcia team is promising to be.
HD-11 [Top 2] (South Phoenix)
Junelle Cavero (i) vs. Oscar De Los Santos (i) vs. Izaak Ruiz
Political consultant Junelle Cavero is an appointed incumbent who managed, the last time she ran for something, to lose to party pariah Catherine Miranda. On paper she could be in trouble here, but her only opponent (aside from incumbent Oscar De Los Santos who is definitely getting reelected) is recent Catholic University of America grad Izaak Ruiz, who hasn’t raised any money or put together a website.
HD-21 [Top 2] (Tucson and Mexican border)
Consuelo Hernandez (i) vs. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton (i) vs. Briana Ortega
Last cycle, Consuelo Hernandez easily secured for herself one of the primary spots with 43% of the vote, while the other was decided by a tight 30% - 27% margin in favor of Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, a state representative who was finishing up serving a partial appointed term in the state senate. HD-21 is a majority Hispanic district that combines part of Tucson with the border towns of Nogales and Bisbee, but Stahl Hamilton, who is not Hispanic and represented a white majority district in another part of Tucson, was able to win anyway. It’s an electorally tenuous position, and for reasons we’re not privy to, wasn’t something she managed to patch over. Hernandez is taking the unusual step of endorsing against her seatmate, and is supporting Briana Ortega, a lawyer running a largely self-funded campaign.
This is, to be clear, a bad thing. Consuelo is one of the conservative Hernandez siblings, and much like her sister Alma and brother Daniel, have an unbroken perfect record of taking the wrong side on every party issue and primary. Stahl Hamilton has retained support from organized labor and progressive groups in Tucson, but this is a very real threat to her, and to normal liberal Democrats being able to pass legislation if they ever get a majority.
HD-22 [Top 2] (Southwest Phoenix and suburbs)
Lupe Contreras (i) vs. Elda Luna-Nájera (i) vs. Betsy Munoz vs. Jen Wynne
HD-22 has two incumbents, but only one of them was elected. Lupe Contreras, a former state senator, placed first in the 2022 primary, and is a strong favorite for reelection. Contreras is a standard-issue Arizona Democrat, and was the Minority Leader during his last term in the Senate; we have totally neutral opinions about him getting another term. We can say much the same about our opinion of social worker and school board member Elda Luna-Nájera, appointed this year, who seems totally fine? She hasn’t been governing for long, and the political establishment seems to have coalesced around her, so she’s probably a reliable vote, at least. Betsy Munoz is a bit riskier. Running a low-budget, grassroots campaign and talking less about policies than how she doesn’t take corporate money, Munoz managed to secure the AFL-CIO endorsement, in lieu of Contreras, which we assume has to be payback for something he did in the senate. She’s also endorsed by the Abeytia/Jaramillo team, which is a good indication that progressives in the state like her.
Jen Wynne is a total ghost candidate with no website, social media presence, or even willingness to respond to basic media inquiries.
HD-24 [Top 2] (Phoenix suburb of Glendale)
Lydia Hernandez (i) vs. Anna Abeytia vs. Hector Jaramillo
The rule of thumb in contests like these, with only one incumbent running, is that it’s all a contest for the other slot, because they have their renomination locked up. However, Lydia Hernandez, the final remaining anti-choice Democrat in the legislature, is on the worst possible terms with the rest of the party, and only narrowly squeaked back into the house amidst a split field in 2022. Her two challengers have taken the unusual step of cross endorsing and campaigning together - practically running as a slate - in an attempt to make the election a referendum on her. Cartwright school board president Anna Abeytia and immigration attorney Hector Jaramillo both ran in 2022, and were defeated by Hernandez, who took 21% to their 19% and 9%, respectively. However, most voters in that election made progressive Analise Ortiz at lease one of their choices, and a fourth non-Hernandez candidate took another 9% of the vote. In one respect, voters who didn’t want Hernandez agreed on one candidate to back, but split their votes four ways for the other choice, though voter behavior is rarely actually that clean.
The Abeytia/Jaramillo campaign has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO and Reproductive Freedom For All, providing them with a base to organize from. Jaramillo has also received much more attention than he did in 2022, securing endorsements both from mainstream party sources like Raquel Teran, Phoenix DSA, and both the current and previous state senator for the district. No matter what, one of these two will be elected to the legislature, but going two for two would majorly clean up the caucus.
Pima County DA
Laura Conover (i) vs. Mike Jette
In 2020, Laura Conover, then a defense attorney and former public defender won a solid 56% of the vote in a three candidate contest to run the DA’s office for Pima County, home to Tucson and over a million residents. She’s stuck by her progressive prosecutor promises, established a conviction integrity unit, not sought the death penalty, and diverted low-level crimes like drug use. As predictable as the sun rising, that means there’s yet another cop-funded tough-on-crime opponent trying to unseat her over it. This one goes by the name Mike Jette. Jette, a former federal prosecutor, has been greatly aided by local media’s relentless focus on crime and sudden belief that Conover caused it all.
The case most central to Jette’s campaign is the homicide of teenager Isaac Benitez, dragged behind a car driven by two other teenagers. The Da’s office offered negligent homicide and manslaughter plea deals to two defendants out of fear that they wouldn’t be able to secure a guilty verdict, and Jette, with Benitez’s family in tow, has been hammering Conover over the plea deal ever since a judge opted to grant both defendants probation over further jail time roughly a month ago.
The candidates have raised roughly even amounts of money, but the Pima County Democratic establishment has mostly stuck with Conover. The famously conservative Hernandez siblings are a glaring exception. It’s nice to see Tucson Mayor Regina Romero and even Rep. Ruben Gallego stick up for Conover when she’s in a tough reelection.
Pima County Sheriff
Chris Nanos (i) vs. Sanford Rosenthal
Chris Nanos took over the job of Sheriff four years ago, and quite frankly just doesn’t appear to have known what he was in for. The previously managed jail is now in “full blown crisis”, one of the corrections workers is now suing the department for racial discrimination, the alleged sexual assault of one officer by another was so poorly run the county Board of Supervisors had to step in, and morale is so low a group of 86 deputies are now engaging in public dissension. Even still, we don’t know if retired deputy Sandy Rosethal would be an improvement. Rosenthal has signaled not just a willingness to work closer with border patrol, but has made it something of a campaign promise to enter a federal program that pays sheriff departments to aid in deportations. On top of which, Rosenthal has said he’ll be supporting the Republican candidate if he loses. Overall, he sounds much more like a conservative attempting to exploit dysfunction for campaign reasons than a man who legitimately wants to solve it.
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