I think people outside of the Northeast (and maybe some from the Northeast as well) might be surprised by just how machine-y the politics still are. There are plenty of political dynasties that live on, voting is not particularly easy and primaries are often closed to voters not registered with a party.
Wow, Amelia. I mentioned Smith’s race in our preview of the New Jersey primary because of the changes to the district and his vote on infrastructure, but if the race keeps trending in this direction it suggests that a higher-profile conservative, Trumpy candidate might have been able to threaten Smith.
Our friend Leah Askarinam had a great piece a few years back about women lieutenant governors and the difficult of launching from that position to the top spot. She interviewed several sitting LGs, including now-Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, for their thoughts.
In retrospect, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that New Jersey’s incumbents are winning easily. Only one congressional incumbent has lost a primary in the Garden State since 1980 — and that was in an incumbent-versus-incumbent race in 2012.
Kaleigh, it is a sadly high number. We did a big look at where women have held political office back in 2020. With the caveat that it’s a little dated now, I was surprised at how many states haven’t elected women to high offices like Senate and governor. Some big, blue states like California and Illinois have never elected a woman governor!
So even if you have a centrist either way, Geoffrey, the centrist Democrat now suffers simply because of the name “Democrat”? The beliefs haven’t necessarily changed as much as the associations with branding?
Maggie, the Dakotas are a good example of how the nationalization of politics has probably marginally helped Republicans more than Democrats. The Democrats used to win one or even both Senate seats in those states and sometimes the House seat, too — Democratic Rep. Earl Pomeroy was North Dakota’s at-large member for 18 years — but now it’s very hard for a Democrat to overcome the party label in those states. Democrats have benefited elsewhere, but our institutions are biased toward rural states, especially the Senate, of course, so the GOP’s huge edge in rural places is a bonus for them.
How did the Democrats fall from congressional incumbent holders to literally broke and boarding up the windows so fast? That’s just kind of wild to me.
I’m also watching women candidates tonight, and as always the Center for American Women and Politics is a great source of information. They just tweeted pointing out that both of the women in New Jersey’s congressional delegation are running unopposed, so not a lot of suspense there. But here’s something I didn’t know — New Jersey has never sent a woman to the Senate.
Polls have now closed in South Dakota and New Mexico. Nothing is reporting yet, but hey. The journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.
In New Jersey’s 4th congressional district, 33 percent of the expected vote is now reporting, and Smith is still ahead — but by a little less than before. He has 59 percent of the vote to Crispi’s 35 percent. Still a sizable lead, but it does look like the same-day vote might be Trumpier, as Nathaniel predicted.
Amelia, for sure — and there are two other examples this cycle I can think of immediately who are trying to replicate the feat: Deb McGrath in Wisconsin’s 3rd is the daughter of former Rep. Al Baldus, and Reagan Dunn in Washington’s 8th is the son of former Rep. Jennifer Dunn. But it’s far rarer to serve concurrently!
But this was a general!
Kaleigh, in the U.S., 43.5 percent turnout would be above-average for a midterm!
I know no one is arguing that Democrats are going to make a comeback in South Dakota anytime soon, but any time we talk about Democrats in South Dakota, I think back to the news in 2019, when the party closed up shop there, as it had significant financial troubles in keeping their offices open. We’ll talk about this later on the live blog, but it does raise an interesting question about what you does if your political party is out of favor in the state you live in.
While we wait for our first results from Mississippi, New Jersey and South Dakota, there is one election we have full results for already … the Ontario provincial election that occurred just five days ago in Canada! There, incumbent Progressive Conservative party leader Doug Ford was reelected as Premier with 40.8 percent of the vote, giving his party another majority government. Ford is the brother of the late, former Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford, who made international headlines for his numerous scandals. The Liberal Party, meanwhile, failed to regain official party status, holding just eight seats in the legislature. The party leader, Steven Del Duca, had to step down after failing to even win his own seat. The downfall of the Liberal Party in Ontario has been dramatic: Until 2018, the party had won every provincial election since 2000 and had been in power for the past 15 years. However, many Ontarians were frustrated by a historically low voter turnout, with just 43.5 percent of eligible voters casting a ballot.
Still slow-going on the counts in New Jersey. There’s hardly anything in yet from the 10th District in Newark, but what little there is has Democratic Rep. Donald Payne Jr. up 81 percent to 14 percent on Imani Oakley, who was trying to run to his left.
Interestingly, Jacob, following a family member’s footsteps isn’t too uncommon – Columbia political scientist Daniel Smith, who studies political dynasty, told the New Jersey Monitor that in the past 20 years, about 7 percent of U.S. Representatives have had a family member precede them in office. For those who are watching the numbers, it’s early still — only 11 percent of the vote is reported — but Menendez has 77 percent of the vote.
One of my favorite pastimes (yes, I’m a nerd) is learning about some of the more, ah, aspirational candidates in primaries. One who caught my eye was Democrat Mario DeSantis in New Jersey’s 1st District, who called himself “the good DeSantis.” Despite this stroke of marketing genius, however, Mario is currently losing 80 percent to 20 percent to Rep. Donald Norcross.
Amelia, I was trying to think of the last time a father and son served together in Congress. I believe it was when Ron and Rand Paul served together from 2011-13, and before that when Ted and Patrick Kennedy served together from 1995 to Ted’s death in 2009.
Whoa, Amelia, I didn’t realize that either. Now I’m curious: Which states have never had a woman senator?
Despite a tight race last time, Noem doesn’t seem in danger from her primary challenger, Steve Haugaard. He’s criticized her from the right, especially over vetoing a 2021 bill that would have banned transgender girls from participating in high school sports, but she signed a similar one in 2022. He’s also criticized her for not focusing on the state and for her potential national ambitions, and for flights on a state-owned plan that launched an ethics complaint. But Haugaard has had some trouble of his own. Trump has endorsed Noem, and she’s been ahead in polls and in fundraising.
My understanding is that Herseth Sandlin is pretty happy as president of Augustana University. The other name that gets brought up for South Dakota Democrats is Brendon Johnson, who’s the former U.S. Attorney for South Dakota and also the son of former Sen. Tim Johnson. He’s been more politically active of late. He led the effort to legalize marijuana in the state, spearheading a successful constitutional amendment initiative in 2020. But the state Supreme Court struck it down, so put back down those lighters, South Dakotans.
Interestingly, Geoffrey, there’s actually a pending lawsuit that would blow up the incumbent-protecting “organization line” system that has gotten further than many observers thought it might …
Another fun topic from New Jersey — what about political dynasties? When Albio Sires, the outgoing Democratic representative in New Jersey’s 8th congressional district, announced he was leaving office, he also endorsed a candidate with a name that should be familiar to New Jersey voters — Robert Menendez Jr, the son of New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez. The younger Menendez, who has never held public office before, is an attorney and a commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He’s in the running alongside two other candidates — David Ocampo Grajales and Ane Roseborough-Eberhard — who also don’t have experience in elected office.
Smith had a lot of institutional support, thanks to his getting the “county line” in each county in his district. This is a good reminder to readers that New Jersey’s party organizations are very powerful, as their endorsement gives a candidate the “county line” on primary ballots, which ensures prominent placement on the ballot and usually ensures victory.
Amelia, with 14 percent of the expected vote reporting, Smith currently leads Crispi 67 percent to 28 percent. These are just early votes, so things might get Trumpier as the election day vote reports, but it looks like he’s at least starting the night in strong position.
What’s interesting to me about Smith, Geoffrey, is that Trump called for a challenger — then didn’t endorse anyone. So I kinda wonder how strong that protest vote will be?
Jacob, Herseth Sandlin might’ve missed her chance! But Sutton’s profile was pretty pitch-perfect for South Dakota, and he had a heck of a story about overcoming adversity as a former bronc rider who was paralyzed from the waist down when he was 23 years old.
What’s interesting to me, Geoffrey, is that while the Republicans shifted that seat, the seat also maybe shifted the Republicans. Noem was a tea-party favorite when she ran, but then she got a lot of flack from the tea party for not joining the caucus and keeping her distance from that faction in Congress. And Johnson, her successor, has been more of a centrist, joining the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, voting against former President Trump on several key issues, voting to establish the Jan. 6 Commission and voting to keep Liz Cheney as conference chair.
Amelia, I was wondering if Smith might attract a more serious challenge from his right because of his vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill and because his district got notably redder — R+13 to R+28, according to our partisan lean metric. So watch for a notable protest vote!
And let’s not forget that, in 2018, Democrats very nearly won back the South Dakota governor’s mansion for the first time in decades. Noem beat state Senate Minority Leader Billie Sutton by only about 3 points.
To the broader point about running in politically unfriendly territory, a couple races in California serve as a good example of how to try it: run as an independent or even as a member of the more popular party. For example, former Republican Anne Marie Schubert is running as an independent for California attorney general, and former Republican Rick Caruso is running as a Democrat for mayor of Los Angeles. Both are running more to the right than where the Democratic Party is, but they aren’t doing it as Republicans!
As always, it’s worth watching how the candidates who are challenging more moderate Republicans from the right will fare. One example is New Jersey’s 4th congressional district, where the state’s longest-serving congressman is being challenged from the right by Mike Crispi, a conservative YouTuber, and by Steve Gray, a former FBI agent. Rep. Chris Smith broke party lines to vote for Biden’s infrastructure bill last year, sparking Trump’s ire. Interestingly, even though Crispi has the support of longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone, he hasn’t managed to snag Trump’s endorsement. Smith has plenty of traditional conservative bona fides — he started his career in the nascent anti-abortion movement more than four decades ago — but, of course, now he’s perceived as mainstream. In a state like New Jersey, toppling an incumbent like Smith in a primary could be a particularly tall order.
We are such a world away from a Democrat holding onto a South Dakota seat, like with Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, whom Noem only narrowly beat to win the Mount Rushmore State’s lone House seat during the 2010 red wave.
That’s an interesting point about crime, Amelia. Also, it reminds me that in our partnership with Ipsos, in which inflation and increasing costs was the top issue by far. Crime was coupled with “gun violence” and came in at number three, and I’d like to see the crime and gun violence issues broken out into separate issues and also see if that’s changed since the most recent mass shootings.
Galen, I’m also curious what ground Dems can make — and how — in some of these seats that have gone Republican over the last decade. That’s certainly the case in South Dakota, which had a Democratic incumbent in 2010 who very narrowly lost to Kristi Noem, by 2 percentage points. But that gap just got bigger and bigger over the next couple of cycles, and by the time you get to the 2020 election, the two Democrats who were going to run weren’t able to obtain enough signatures to get on the ballot. This year, there also won’t be a Democrat on the ballot, because the guy who was going to run had to drop out two days after announcing his candidacy because of a series of tweets he made.
Tonight is definitely a House-focused evening. This won’t be answered until the general election in November, of course, but I’m really interested to see if, in states like California and New Jersey, Republicans are able to make inroads in some of the more suburban seats. New Jersey Democrats did a fairly good job of shoring up most Democratic incumbents in the state in the redistricting process, but if the political environment is favorable to Republicans, you could see a lot of those races still being competitive. California, I think will be especially interesting in this regard, too.
I’ll be watching four races tonight: the Republican primary for South Dakota’s governorship, the Democratic race for the new 1st Congressional District in Montana, the Iowa Democratic primary for Senate and New Jersey’s Republican primary for the 5th Congressional District. I’m thinking mostly about the power of incumbency. Except for the Montana district, which is open, incumbents are expected to win all of these races. And Sen. Chuck Grassley is seeking reelection to his eighth representing Iowa. He’ll turn 89 before Election Day in November.
Latest count in New Jersey’s 7th District GOP primary
Results of the Republican primary for New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, as of 8:24 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Votes | Vote % |
|---|---|---|
| Tom Kean Jr. | 2,028 | 55.1% |
| Erik Peterson | 724 | 19.7 |
| Phil Rizzo | 389 | 10.6 |
| John Flora | 239 | 6.5 |
| John Isemann | 157 | 4.3 |
| Kevin Dorlon | 114 | 3.1 |
| Sterling Schwab | 27 | 0.7 |
That’s a familiar trend, Sarah! As Maggie and I wrote in 2020, fears of crime rarely match up with reality — even when crime is high, we are not good at estimating our risk of actually being a victim of crime.
I agree with Nathaniel on members in danger of losing their primaries, and I’ll toss in someone who could have a sleeper race on his hands: New Jersey’s 4th District Rep. Chris Smith. He’s one of the longest serving Republicans in the House, he just got a large swath of new, more conservative territory from the neighboring 3rd District and, oh, Trump has called for his ouster (though he didn’t go as far as endorsing one of Smith’s several opponents).
Noteworthy to see New Mexico politicians debating abortion, Maggie, since abortion providers are working to make the state a refuge for people who can’t get abortions in the neighboring states. (Of course, a single member of Congress won’t have much of an impact on that, but still!)
This isn’t really a question we are going to be able to answer today, but the lineup tonight makes me think of it nonetheless: What does it look like to run a well-funded, ambitious Democratic campaign in a state like Iowa, which has shifted so dramatically toward Republicans over the past 10 years? There are relatively few conservative-to-moderate Democrats who have well-established independent brands and are willing to loudly break with their party in the ways you might need to to win in Iowa. And even then, partisanship is probably going to prevent that win anyway. So whoever wins the Democratic Senate primary in Iowa tonight — either Finkenauer or Franken — how aggressively are they going to break with their party?
Yeah, that is likely to be a really big talking point tonight, Amelia. Ronald Brownstein had a piece over at CNN today that made this point, and what I thought was particularly interesting is that he found that in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, anxieties about public safety were higher than the actual crime rate. There just seems to be this feeling of dissatisfaction among voters on crime, even if what’s happening on the ground doesn’t fully match people’s anxieties.
I’m watching two races tonight: the Republican primaries for South Dakota’s at-large Congressional seat and New Mexico’s first district. I think one thing that has been interesting to me in these two races is the different ways that candidates from the same party can try to distinguish themselves from one another. The South Dakota race is very much your classic case of a centrist incumbent being challenged by Big Lie candidate who is a lot further to the right. The New Mexico race seems harder to pin down, with two candidates who agree with each other on most things, to the point that their biggest point of contention is how to legislate abortion restrictions — with Michelle Garcia Holmes supporting federal bans on abortion and Louie Sanchez taking a strong stance on state control.
I’m interested to see signs for how Democratic voters are feeling about crime. That’s something that can be hard to pinpoint as a voting issue, even if people are concerned about it generally, but there are a couple of races that pivot on the issue in California. San Francisco voters are deciding whether to keep their district attorney, Chesa Boudin, who was elected as a progressive prosecutor but has subsequently been accused of being too soft on crime and is now facing a recall election. And Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso has made fears of rising crime into a centerpiece of his candidacy as well. On the one hand, it’s not surprising that crime is on the ballot — violent crime is going up. But Democrats elected a number of progressive prosecutors in recent years, so it’s noteworthy to see whether this is a trend that can only hold up when crime is low.
Well, Sarah, as with every week, I’m watching for the Big Lie contenders. But this week, as I mentioned earlier, there are a lot fewer serious candidates running who have said they believe the 2020 election was illegitimate. Of the big races and front-runners, it hasn’t been as much of a part of the election cycle. For many candidates, we couldn’t find evidence of any stance on 2020 whatsoever. That’s not to say there are no Big Lie believers in the running tonight, they just tend to be fringier candidates. Take Fadde Mikhail, a Republican running in the nonpartisan primary in California’s 26th District, which is held by Democratic Rep. Julia Brownley, who is unlikely to lose the nomination. Mikhail said he believed Trump won the 2020 election when our colleagues at ABC reached out and, speaking of ghosts, told them: “I can personally say with 100% certainty that I know several deceased people that received ballots.”
I’ll be watching for any potential upsets of incumbents. There are a few House members on the ballot today who will probably win, but there are reasons to think they could be vulnerable: Steven Palazzo for his campaign-finance scandal, Young Kim because of redistricting, David Valadao because of his impeachment vote …
It’s going to be awhile yet before we start (emphasis on “start” because a lot of people vote by mail) to get results in California. Polls close at 11 p.m. Eastern, but as we all know, there are six other states hosting primaries today, and in three states — Mississippi, New Jersey and South Dakota — the polls have already closed, so what are some of the big trends folks are watching tonight?