A Big Upset, Trump’s Endorsement And More From The June 26 Primaries

And with that, the FiveThirtyEight live blog is hitting the hay. This morning (which seems like eons ago) on our site, I posed four questions that I wanted to see answered tonight. I got much more emphatic answers than I was expecting.

• Can progressive Democrats notch another win against the national party? / Will incumbent Democrats get a scare? A definite yes. If you are a progressive Democrat, tonight was the most satisfying night of 2018 so far. In the upset of the year, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez emphatically defeated Rep. Joe Crowley, the No. 4 Democrat in the U.S. House, in New York’s 14th Congressional District, 58 percent to 42 percent. Two other New York City incumbents, Yvette Clarke and Carolyn Maloney, just barely escaped with wins. Bernie Sanders-endorsed Ben Jealous also triumphed in the Democratic primary for Maryland governor, 40 percent to 29 percent, over his establishment-backed opponent. And in New York’s 24th District, Dana Balter defeated the DCCC’s hand-picked candidate, Juanita Perez Williams. However, don’t run off cherry-picking these results. Establishment Democrats have still won far more primaries overall on the year, and they even defeated progressives in a few high-profile races tonight: in Colorado’s 6th District and Colorado’s 1st District, for example.
• Does a Trump endorsement pack any punch against a Trump-like candidate? It looks like yes again. Everyone thought the New York City primary to watch tonight would be the GOP one in the 11th District, but Rep. Dan Donovan defeated ex-Rep. Michael Grimm 64 percent to 36 percent. Although Grimm is definitely Trumpier, Trump endorsed Donovan, and Staten Island (which fell hard for Trump in 2016) apparently listened. And in the GOP primary for South Carolina governor, Trump ally Gov. Henry McMaster defeated outsider businessman (sound familiar?) John Warren, albeit by a smaller-than-expected 7-point margin.
• Can the Year of the Woman overcome even a multimillion-dollar juggernaut? Nope. Wealthy men defeated strong female candidates in the Democratic primaries for Colorado governor (Jared Polis over Cary Kennedy), Maryland’s 6th District (David Trone over Aruna Miller), and New York’s 1st District (Perry Gershon over Kate Browning).
• Anything else? Mitt Romney won his Republican primary in Utah, sending him on a glide path to the U.S. Senate. Mick Cornett and a Republican To Be Named Later will face off in August in a GOP runoff for Oklahoma governor. Polis will face George W. Bush cousin Walker Stapleton in the Colorado gubernatorial general election. Republican Reps. Doug Lamborn (Colorado’s 5th District) and Markwayne Mullin (Oklahoma’s 2nd) avoided getting Mark Sanford-ed. And Democrats chose Antonio Delgado to be their standard-bearer in the sure-to-be-competitive New York 19th District.

July is fairly devoid of primaries, so the election liveblog will be taking a bit of a summer vacation. We’ll be back with you in August refreshed and with a nice new tan. Thanks for joining us for the final installment of Act I!

Looks like soon we’re wrapping up for the evening, so I’d like to reiterate one last time the not-so-hot take that primaries are extremely idiosyncratic and one ought to be cautious about global conclusions from local events. On the one hand, Ocasio-Cortez’s win was extremely impressive in New York 14 tonight against the establishment Democrat Joe Crowley; on the other hand, Chelsea Manning received only 6 percent of the vote in her challenge to establishment Democrat Ben Cardin in Maryland’s U.S. Senate primary. (Cardin won with 81 percent.)

I think pundits might do better to focus on the particular combination of attributes that Ocasio-Cortez brought to the table: young, Latina, from the community, media-savvy enough to draw a lot of coverage from lefty outlets (but not very much from mainstream outlets, which she may not have wanted anyway), ran some good ads, very openly and proudly a progressive Democratic socialist, but also running against an old white dude who, while mostly a party-line Democrat, was asleep at the wheel in a district that had undergone a lot of demographic change. And the race was maybe in an in-between zone whereas it was just competitive enough that her voters were exited and turned out, but also enough to the periphery of the radar that Crowley’s voters didn’t.

Which of those elements were most essential to her success? Which of those factors might be replicated elsewhere? It’s hard to say. My personal bias is to think being cut from the cloth of the district is pretty important, whereas candidates who are famous for other reasons, such as Cynthia Nixon (who hasn’t made up her deficit with Andrew Cuomo in the polls) aren’t going to resonate in the same way and won’t have the same underdog quality. But maybe the combination is pretty unique — and will be hard to replicate — given that she’s the first challenger to defeat a Democratic incumbent for the U.S. House since 2014.

Totally, Seth. People point to Amy McGrath as the outsider insurgent in Kentucky’s 6th District, for example. But McGrath actually never said she’d oppose Pelosi. Rather, Jim Gray, the former Lexington mayor who was perceived to be favored by establishment folks, openly said he’d vote for new Democratic leadership.

I’m still wondering just how ideologically different (if that’s the right concept) the “progressives” are from the “establishment” Democrats, and how that would translate into things like voting for Pelosi for Speaker, sponsoring/voting for an impeachment resolution for Trump, holding open a Supreme Court seat, etc.

ONE LAST, LAST UTAH THING: Utah is the only open Senate seat where a woman is not in a competitive position to take over. Jenny Wilson will be the Democratic nominee, but she’ll have an uphill battle against a former GOP presidential nominee. Meanwhile, in Tennessee, Rep. Marsha Blackburn is in a competitive race with Gov. Phil Bredesen to take over Bob Corker’s seat. And in Arizona, it looks like Martha McSally is leading polls for the GOP nomination, and Kyrsten Sinema is pretty much unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

As we begin to wrap up here, I’m going to self-congratulate about the fact that I picked New York 14 as the race that illustrated the dynamics in the Democratic Party. It may or may not do that, but it’s clearly the story of the night. What I wonder about is how these dynamics and results — in that contest and beyond — are going to play out as far as addressing the issues facing the country. The policy context of the day is weighing heavily on my election-watching.

So we’ve all talked about Ben Jealous’s win in Maryland. Just also want to point out the margin — as of now he’s leading by double digits. That’s not really a nail biter, and it’ll be interesting to go back through those results with a fine tooth comb and see exactly where things went wrong for Baker (who seemed to be a slight favorite heading into this).

One last thing about Utah, because I previously ranked it the 2nd Most Interesting State (behind Louisiana). Mia Love, the Republican representing the 4th District, is actually in a competitive race with Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams. Democrats were thrilled when McAdams entered the race. McAdams gained some national attention earlier last year when The Salt Lake Tribune discovered that he had spent three days living as a homeless person, the first night sleeping on the street and the second at a homeless shelter. It’s going to be a fascinating race where Trump really is in no position to help out the GOP incumbent.

Looks like John Curtis, another Republican facing a primary challenge, easily won his party nomination for a Solid Republican seat in Utah’s 3rd District. He faced Chris Herrod, who had a right-wing base that was a real threat to Curtis in a three-way special primary last year. But in a head-to-head race, Curtis ran away with the nomination this time around.

Anger at Oklahoma government over the budget crisis and teacher’s strike is spilling over into state-legislative races. In fact, it’s a bloodbath in OKC:

To build on what David said here and expand my earlier comment about coordination, my hunch is that if Democrats were having a full-blown tea party, leaders could coordinate around this reality in 2020, advancing candidates who would appeal to this wing of the party. Having a little bit of a tea party makes things much more potentially unpredictable.

Progressive/insurgent Democrats did better than I expected them to tonight, but that might have been my error in underestimating that wing of the party’s strength. So I’d say that’s one area where I updated my priors. But I don’t think we should move wildly in the “Democrats Have a tea party!” direction because of tonight. We might see something on par with what the GOP saw in 2010/2012, but we’re definitely not there yet.

I’m thinking about 2020, too, but with a somewhat different take than Nate’s. Different things are happening for Democrats in different districts, primaries are lively and in at least a few cases unpredictable. That makes me think that national coordination for the party will be a real challenge.

I think if your priors were properly measured and sensible, they haven’t moved too much. But today was a reminder to those who pooh-pooh the president’s endorsement that it might still matter. And it was a reminder that progressives were probably going to score a big win at some point. But I think personally what surprised me the most is that women lost a lot of high-profile Democratic primaries. I haven’t crunched the full numbers yet, but it feels like, after doing really well early in the cycle, the success rate of female Democratic candidates is falling back down to earth a little bit.

I’m having a hard time coming up with a solid thesis statement for tonight because we saw so many conflicting trends. We saw self-funders defeat women in the Maryland 6th District Democratic primary and Colorado gubernatorial Democratic primary. But we also saw a young woman oust a well-funded incumbent in New York. And despite seeing the Bernie Sanders wing of the party struggle in past races, we saw Ben Jealous win a governor’s nomination tonight. I think tonight’s results just made these trends a little harder to sort out. But hey, there’s still August primaries to help clarify!

Micah, it maybe makes me think that a super-leftish Democrat might have more of a chance to win the 2020 presidential primary if she were a young minority woman instead of an old white dude. That’s a 2020 prior rather than a 2018 one, though.

It feels like we’re entering the 4th Quarter of tonight’s round of primaries, so let me ask this: Have tonight’s results caused you to update any of your 2018 priors as of yesterday? Even so as just to be more confident in certain hypothesis?

Cornett has advanced to the Oklahoma gov. runoff, and Stitt has just pulled ahead of Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb for the second slot.

Here’s a race that wasn’t on my radar heading into the night: Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin has won his primary in Oklahoma’s 2nd District with just 54 percent over a fractured field. He had initially pledged to serve just three terms, but he decided to run for a fourth term in 2018 anyway

We just passed 11 p.m. Eastern, and to be honest, I thought things would be a lot quieter by now. We’re still looking at who will advance to the GOP runoff for Oklahoma governor; waiting for a likely AP call for David Trone in Maryland 6; confirming that Rep. Yvette Clarke has pulled out a win in New York 9; and, for the truly devoted, seeing who Democrats nominate in New York 19 and New York 23.

Trump just retweeted this cartoon, and I’d like to remind people that the American Lifeguard Association strongly advises against wearing a suit and tie while surfing.

Worth noting that Mary Fallin (Oklahoma GOP governor) had a 25 percent approval rating in the last round of Morning Consult polling. I think the GOP still takes the seat, but 25 percent is not great.

If Kevin Stitt, a political outsider, had won in Oklahoma, that to me would read like a serious sign for where the party might go.

That’s a really good point, Julia (on the GOP tea party being Obama-focused). Democratic enthusiasm is certainly a result of Trump’s election. But it seems like a lot of the core values the left-wing folks are advocating for — single-payer, free college, etc — were tenants before Trump’s election. The ideology isn’t a response to Trump — it’s a response to Bernie Sanders.

Nathaniel, I knew I could count on you. Lamb appears to be tied with Stitt for 2nd, about 5 points behind Cornett. I agree with your assessment about Lamb.

Julia, I’m very interested in that Oklahoma race. If Todd Lamb is the Republican nominee, I think Democrats have a real shot there in November with former Attorney General Drew Edmondson as their nominee. Lamb can easily be tied to the administration of outgoing Gov. Mary Fallin, who is brutally unpopular amid a budget crisis that led to four-day school weeks and a memorable teacher’s strike earlier this year.

re: Democratic tea party, I agree with Seth that the observation of chamber norms, etc. is important and with Nate that there’s a high risk of dumb takes. The other question I have, though, is how Trump-focused this movement is. The tea party was really focused on Obama, and the main objection to Republican leadership was that it was willing to make compromises. It remains to be seen whether something like this happens on the Democratic side.

I think it’s worth not getting too head of ourselves on the Democratic tea party thing. In 2010, the GOP nominated Sharon Angle, Ken Buck and Christine O’Donnell to *senate races* and in 2012 they nominated Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock. There were some really good candidates and some enthusiasm that came with that. But so far, the Democratic insurgency of 2018 doesn’t seem to have the same force as the GOP 2010/2012 version.

Looks like Mitt Romney won the GOP primary against Mike Kennedy, who actually won more support than Romney in the Utah Republican Convention. Kennedy’s strategy was to tie himself to Trump and go after Romney’s record (e.g. “Romneycare”). Romney’s win is unsurprising, but I think it’s significant for one major reason: Utah remains the only red state where a major statewide Republican candidate can criticize Trump and still win a primary (and likely general) election.

In the Game of Trones in Maryland’s 6th District (pun shamelessly stolen from Daily Kos Elections): Liquor store magnate David Trone leads Emily’s List endorsee Aruna Miller 40 percent to 32 percent with 85 percent reporting. Rich dudes threatening to go 3-for-3.

I’m not sure if anyone else cares about Oklahoma, but a quick note: It doesn’t look like it’s been called, but former Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett is ahead with 93 percent reporting. If this becomes official, he’ll have beaten a businessman with no political experience and the sitting lieutenant governor, Todd Lamb, who was trying to distance himself from the unpopular incumbent, Mary Fallin.

What interests me is that this conservative state might inform the eventual direction of the Republican Party. Cornett came off as the most pro-governance of the serious contenders, offering some tentative support for a bill that raised teacher pay this spring. His record as mayor of Oklahoma City is well-regarded. He’s very conservative but with a streak of pragmatism as far as governing goes.

I guess I think those takes will probably be dumb, unless they’re willing to look at the Democratic playing field systematically instead of cherry-picking just one or two races. Like, do you have a theory that explains both why Ocasio-Cortez won but also why establishment-ish Democrats did well in Colorado and why Cynthia Nixon doesn’t seem to be going anywhere?

The other issue is that the tea party sometimes unseated incumbents — or at least supposedly strong general election candidates in open-seat races — in swing state and districts. New York 14 is extremely blue, by contrast, so there’s no risk to Democrats in the general election.

The Democratic tea party story is a fair one. Self-identified progressives are winning a substantial chunk, if not a majority, of Democratic primaries. Should Democrats actually take the House, the real test will be how different those Democrats are from establishment ones. Are they much more liberal? Are they of a similar ideological stripe but much less wedded to chamber norms? These are similar questions we had on the GOP side in 2011.

Like any narrative, it’s going to be overstated in reaction to tonight, but it was probably understated going into tonight.

It’s clear that there’s energy on the progressive side of the party, and they have notched a few wins (Ocasio-Cortez and Kara Eastman being the two biggest) and had a few other impressive near-wins. But overall, the scorecard is still tilted well toward establishment Democrats. The numbers make it clear that the fever isn’t running as high among Democrats in 2018 as it was among Republicans in 2010.

It seems like we’re going to get a wave of “The Democratic tea party!” stories. I’m already seeing the first few takes in that genre. How legit is that narrative at this point do you think?

In the Democratic primary for Maryland’s U.S. Senate race, the good news for Chelsea Manning is that she came in second place to heavy, heavy favorite incumbent Sen. Ben Cardin. The bad news is that she took just 6 percent of the vote to Cardin’s 81 percent.

And we’ll have another data point there with Maryland’s 6th District, Nathaniel. But right now David Trone, who spent nearly $10 million on his race through June 6, is leading the Democratic primary in a Solid Democratic district.

Just to add to that — there were two female candidates in the Colorado gubernatorial race, but their vote totals combined didn’t come anywhere near Polis’.

One of my “four key questions” going into the night was who would prevail when pitted head to head in a Democratic primary: an extremely rich self-funder or a female candidate in the Year of the Woman. In Colorado, it was the rich self-funder (Polis), and in New York’s 1st District, it will be too. Venture capitalist Perry Gershon has defeated Suffolk County Legislator Kate Browning 36 percent to 30 percent. He’ll go on to face GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin in a light-red district.

It’s worth noting that Hogan performed slightly worse against Baker than he did against Jealous in recent head-to-head polls.

Yvette Clark is looking safer. Her lead is up to 2 percent — or about 550 votes — with 96 percent of precincts reporting.

From the fourth-place finisher in the Colorado Republican gubernatorial contest:

There’s a lot of discussion in my Twitter feed about the speaker issue, because Crowley was a potential alternative to Nancy Pelosi. I wonder if the ultimate effect is to turn that position into the national face of the party, public-facing, instead of a legislative floor leader and tactician.

In addition to New York’s 11th District, there was a competitive GOP primary in Colorado’s 5th District, where Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn is seeking re-election. After he had some trouble getting on the ballot, it looked at one point like he might not make it to the primary. But it seems that the well-funded primary challengers split the anti-Lamborn vote.

Yeah, Leah, there have been so many young candidates this cycle that I’ve taken to joking on Twitter about starting my own super PAC, FOMO (Fund Opposing Millennial Overachievers), to prevent anyone younger than me from being elected to Congress. (It was hard enough when Elvis Andrus became the first MLB player younger than me; where does the time go?) Ocasio-Cortez’s primary win in a deep-blue district pretty much guarantees that it will happen now.

Nothing too crazy happening in the Utah Senate race right now — Romney is ahead of Kennedy with 76 percent of the vote. It’s also worth remembering when you look at maps of Utah that a lot of Utah is Salt Lake City and some nearby smaller cities. It can be easy to accidentally rely on stereotypes (e.g., the West is all deserts and cowboys!) and get a warped impression of how people are distributed.