Yeah, Holly, but I question how respondents define “political extremism.” I suspect it’s usually a concern about extremism … on the other side.
Americans are really concerned about political extremism and polarization. In our recent FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll, 29 percent of respondents highlighted it as one of the most important issues facing the country, coming in behind only inflation.
As partisanship increases, the importance of candidate quality has declined a bit. But “moderates perform better electorally, other things being equal” is one of the more robust tendencies in election forecasting. Other things aren’t always equal, sure. But I’ve modeled this tendency in a lot of different ways over a lot of different elections, and people who deny it are basically not “following the science” (as much as I hate that phrase).
Pennsylvania has some of the biggest races tonight, particularly on the Republican side, and at stake in these races is the question of just how far right Republican primary voters are willing to go.
In the Senate primary, it’s essentially a three-way tie despite Trump backing Oz, and it’s possible that voters end up backing Barnette, who has had a late surge but remains more of a fringe candidate. In the gubernatorial primary, the picture is a bit clearer. It looks likely, based on the polls, that voters will end up nominating Mastriano, but similar to Barnette, he is also far to the right.
Consider it’s not just Republicans experiencing this problem in Pennsylvania. The fact that Fetterman looks like he’ll easily defeat someone like Lamb speaks to this as well.
This raises questions of electability. The conventional wisdom has long held that more moderate candidates have an advantage, particularly in statewide elections. But could that wisdom be outdated?
I am pretty fascinated by how involved AIPAC has gotten in the Democratic primaries. It’s a reminder that while support for Israel used to be a fairly uncomplicated, bipartisan issue, the situation has changed dramatically over the past few years, with progressive Democrats becoming more openly critical of Israel and its policies toward the Palestinians. AIPAC now has a new super PAC that’s poured millions into several races in support of candidates that are more traditional pro-Israel Democrats. We’ll see how it plays out, but I think that strategy has risks — it’s certainly not going to convince progressive Democrats that support for Israel should be less ideological. And it feels like it’s avoiding the bigger issue groups like AIPAC are facing, which is that pro-Israel stances are increasingly associated with right-wing politics, in part thanks to Trump’s friendly relationship with former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and evangelical Christians’ prioritization of America’s relationship with Israel.
Going back to amateur candidates, Republican strategists I talk to in D.C. are a little skittish on Bo Hines’ ability to win in the fall, in part because he’s green as a candidate, but also because his campaign sometimes seems to lack direction or purpose. He started out running in a western North Carolina district against an incumbent Republican, and has district-hopped nearly a half-dozen times before settling on the 13th. And his ads mostly feature him working out in the gym. In a good year for the GOP, it might not make a difference, but Biden would have carried this district narrowly and Republicans don’t want to have to worry about it too much come the fall.
Maggie made a good point earlier about the discourse differences among the Democrats running in Pennsylvania’s 12th. Plus, another pitch that progressive candidates make — beyond policy — is that they are more demographically representative of their districts. Sure, that’s not always the case, but liberal groups made clear their intention target districts where demographic changes favored progressives. Right now, most of the progressives we are watching tonight are trailing in their races:
How progressives are doing tonight
Senate, House and governor candidates endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Indivisible, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Sen. Bernie Sanders or the Sunrise Movement in Democratic primaries in Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania, as of 8:15 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Office | % Reporting | Vote Share | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Booker | KY Sen. | 35% | 70.0% | ✓ Won |
| Attica Scott | KY-03 | 8 | 33.7 | Trailing |
| Erica Smith | NC-01 | 50 | 29.0 | Trailing |
| Nida Allam | NC-04 | 42 | 32.9 | Trailing |
| Doyle E. Canning | OR-04 | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Jamie McLeod-Skinner | OR-05 | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Summer Lee | PA-12 | 39 | 30.9 | Trailing |
With 39 percent of the vote reported, Steve Irwin is currently in the lead in Pennsylvania’s 12th. He’s leading 51 percent to Summer Lee’s 31 percent — a big shift from the EMILY’s List poll that put Lee well ahead back in April.
Latest count in Pennsylvania’s 12th District Democratic primary
Results of the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District, as of 8:06 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Votes | Vote % |
|---|---|---|
| Steve Irwin | 19,898 | 51.1 |
| Summer Lee | 12,027 | 30.9 |
| Jerry Dickinson | 4,473 | 11.5 |
| Jeff Woodard | 1,918 | 4.9 |
| William Parker | 644 | 1.7 |
I haven’t been following PA-12 specifically, but I’ve heard from colleagues that there are some local issues that animate several of Pittsburgh’s Democratic primaries tonight at the state level. The question of unionization at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center — Pittsburgh’s largest employer — is one example.
Nate just mentioned Fetterman, who today had surgery in the wake of a stroke.
Fetterman up by 20 in early returns including from Allegheny County, which we’d expect to be strong for Lamb. He is probably going to win.
As background for folks to remember, Lamb first won his House seat in a special election in March 2018 by 0.2 percentage points, after his predecessor, Republican Tim Murphy, resigned. Murphy had been an anti-abortion advocate who had an affair and sent text messages to his mistress urging her to have an abortion. There were also reports of pending ethics inquiries into his alleged mistreatment of staffers. (Lamb is now running for the Senate seat.)
ABC News projects that state Sen. Wiley Nickel will win the Democratic primary in the North Carolina’s 13th district. He worked for the Obama campaign in 2008 and was endorsed by the former president in his race in 2018. He is a by-the-book Democrat and beat former state Senator Sean Searcy, who fashioned himself as more of a moderate with bipartisan appeal. The 13th is the most evenly divided between Democratic and Republican voters in the state, and in a neutral political environment, it would be expected to be extremely competitive. In the current environment, it favors Republicans, although with amateur candidate Bo Hines likely running on the Republican ticket in the district this fall, that is perhaps less certain. This will be a race to watch going into the fall.
Latest count in North Carolina’s 13th District Democratic primary
Results of the Democratic primary for North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District, as of 7:50 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Votes | Vote % |
|---|---|---|
| Wiley Nickel | 11,132 | 59.2 |
| Sam Searcy | 3,790 | 20.2 |
| Jamie Campbell Bowles | 1,412 | 7.5 |
| Nathan Click | 1,387 | 7.4 |
| Denton Lee | 1,083 | 5.8 |
Speaking of inflation, I mentioned earlier that this was the most important issue for over half of the respondents in our first FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll. Inflation was particularly important among Republicans, with 65 percent listing it as one of their most important issues compared to 42 percent of Democrats.
That subtle difference between progressive and moderate candidates seems like somewhat the case in Pennsylvania’s 12th, too, Amelia. The differences seem to come down less to specific policy content than to what Lee and Irwin are emphasizing and how they’re talking about it. For instance, they both support a $15 minimum wage, but that’s what Irwin brings up as a solution to inflation, whereas Lee’s response to inflation-related questions is to emphasize the role corporations play in cost of living increases and how she thinks those corporations should carry the burden of fixing the problem.
It’s 8 p.m. here on the East Coast and Pennsylvania polls are closed, which means it’s time to check in with Sixty-Six Ward’s turnout tracker. It uses self-reported voter turnout numbers as well as some statistical modeling to project turnout across Philadelphia’s 66 wards. It projects Philadelphia turnout to be above 200,000 voters, which is higher than 2018’s 174,000.
Turnout is also projected to be up from 2018 in the western parts of Pennsylvania:
Even if he pulls it out tonight, Cawthorn is likely to substantially underperform in the general election. But with North Carolina’s 11th at a R +14 in our partisan lean index, it’s probably not quite enough to put him at too much risk in what is likely to be a Republican-leaning year. In an environment like 2018, different story.
Going back to Cawthorn — no incumbent House member has so far lost renomination to someone other than another incumbent drawn into his district, and Cawthorn is certainly in a real danger zone. (An asterisk of sorts might be the case of Texas Republican Rep. Van Taylor, who was forced into a runoff after falling just short of 50 percent in Texas’s primary but then withdrew his candidacy because of an extramarital affair, causing him to abandon the runoff.)
That’s interesting, Maggie — the line between a progressive and moderate candidate in the Democratic Party these days isn’t always clear! The two front-runners in the Democratic primary in North Carolina’s 4th are being painted as progressive (Allam) and establishment (Foushee) candidates, which Foushee has objected to pretty strenuously, saying she’s also a progressive. Of course, their stances on Israel are different enough that AIPAC thought it was worth pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into Foushee’s candidacy — Allam has been very critical of Israel. But on most issues, Allam and Foushee are very, very similar.
Circling back around to Pennsylvania, given all that controversy around the attack ads in its 12th, it’s pretty interesting that Irwin’s response to being asked about whether he’s a progressive spoiler has been to kind of … paint himself as just another progressive kid grown up and made good. Here’s what he told Pittsburgh NPR: “It seems like yesterday I was on the front edge of the revolution. We had a machine politics situation in Pittsburgh … and I did exactly what this next generation of folks is doing.”
I agree, Nathaniel. And I’m not certain that Cawthorn’s repeated scandals will bruise him with primary voters in North Carolina? Should he advance to November’s election, he’ll be in friendly GOP territory, too, as the 11th District has a partisan lean of R+14.
One thing I keep thinking about re: Budd and McCrory is how the North Carolina primary was originally scheduled to be in mid-March, but litigation over the state’s congressional map meant the primary was pushed back two months to May. If you look at polls of the race, mid-March is when Budd overtook McCrory, who had led in every single poll before, and never looked back.
Alex, I think we should be prepared for Cawthorn to gain as more votes are counted. In the last couple primaries — especially Ohio Senate and Nebraska governor — the Trump-endorsed candidate gained as election day votes were counted. (Trump, of course, has famously discouraged absentee voting.)
Budd is one of our question mark candidates when it comes to the Big Lie. As I mentioned earlier, Budd was one of a group of Republicans in Congress who voted not to certify some of the election results, but since then has given mixed messages. In an interview with the Associated Press (which was later picked up by the Daily Mail), Budd was asked whether Biden won the 2020 election fair and square and he responded, “He did. He’s the legitimate president.” He was then asked if he accepted the fact that Trump got 7 million fewer votes than Biden and said, “I do.” But his spokesperson recently told Newsweek that Budd “had grave concerns about the elections process in 2020 and that’s why he voted against certifying the 2020 election results.” I reached out to Budd’s campaign by email and text to try to clarify his position but never received a response. Now that he’s the nominee, I will need to follow up again!
As I wrote in a post toward the beginning of tonight’s live blog, I’ll be keeping an 👀 on the competitive Republican primary in North Carolina’s 11th District, where there appears to be a concerted GOP effort to deny Rep. Madison Cawthorn a second term. To be sure, limited polling suggests that the race is very much Cawthorn’s to lose, but results so far show a tight race between him and state Sen. Chuck Edwards. So far, Edwards is ahead with roughly 38 percent of the vote compared to Cawthorn’s 27 percent. In North Carolina, either candidate would only need to earn 30 percent of the vote, plus one vote, to avoid a runoff.
Latest count in North Carolina’s 11th District GOP primary
Results of the Republican primary for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, as of 7:53 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Votes | Vote % |
|---|---|---|
| Chuck Edwards | 14,104 | 37.9 |
| Madison Cawthorn* | 10,160 | 27.3 |
| Matthew Burril | 3,497 | 9.4 |
| Rod Honeycutt | 2,502 | 6.7 |
| Bruce O’Connell | 2,459 | 6.6 |
| Wendy M. Nevarez | 2,172 | 5.8 |
| Michele V. Woodhouse | 1,818 | 4.9 |
| Kristie Sluder | 548 | 1.5 |
With about 40 percent of the vote reported in North Carolina’s 4th District Democratic primary, state Sen. Valerie Foushee is leading with 50 percent of the vote. Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam is trailing about 15 points behind, with 34.5 percent of the vote, and Clay Aiken (yes, that Clay Aiken) is trailing way behind Foushee and Allam, along with a number of other candidates. This race was another very expensive fight over a safe Democratic seat, with Foushee getting lots of support — and then criticism for that support — from the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC. Allam had racked up a bunch of endorsements from progressive stars, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while Foushee had more traditional endorsements from groups like EMILY’s List.
Latest count in North Carolina’s 4th District Democratic primary
Results of the Democratic primary for North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District, as of 7:47 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Votes | Vote % |
|---|---|---|
| Valerie P. Foushee | 20,748 | 50.0 |
| Nida Allam | 14,344 | 34.5 |
| Clay Aiken | 2,839 | 6.8 |
| Ashley Ward | 2,156 | 5.2 |
| Crystal Cavalier | 442 | 1.1 |
| Stephen J. Valentine | 432 | 1.0 |
| Richard L. Watkins | 422 | 1.0 |
| Matt Grooms | 134 | 0.3 |
Latest count in North Carolina’s GOP primary for Senate
Results of North Carolina’s Republican primary for the U.S. Senate, as of 7:56 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Votes | Vote % |
|---|---|---|
| Ted Budd | 143,116 | 55.9 |
| Pat McCrory | 70,139 | 27.4 |
| Mark Walker | 23,294 | 9.1 |
| Marjorie K. Eastman | 8,225 | 3.2 |
| David Flaherty | 2,481 | 1.0 |
| Kenneth Harper Jr. | 1,901 | 0.7 |
| Jen Banwart | 1,042 | 0.4 |
| Charles K. Moss | 955 | 0.4 |
| Benjamin E. Griffiths | 906 | 0.4 |
| Debora Tshiovo | 902 | 0.4 |
| Leonard L. Bryant | 850 | 0.3 |
| Lee A. Brian | 789 | 0.3 |
| Lichia Sibhatu | 707 | 0.3 |
| Drew Bulecza | 648 | 0.3 |
Good evening, everyone! For insight into the salience of cultural-war issues in the suburbs, I’m paying attention to Pennsylvania’s 17th District, comprising the northwestern suburbs of Pennsylvania. It’s a swing district in a swing state currently held by Democrat Conor Lamb. There are two Democratic candidates and three Republican candidates vying to replace him. Polls close in Pennsylvania in a few minutes.
A rise in celebrity candidates would definitely fit with what the researchers have been tracking over time, Alex! They went back and looked at celebrity candidates by decade back to the 1920s.
There’s been a lot of understandable attention paid in recent days to Pennsylvania Republican Senate contender Kathy Barnette, who polls suggest has surged into contention, prompting a statement from Trump that she’s not capable of winning the general election in November. Since 2020, I have been conducting online panel surveys with Pennsylvania residents, and I can clearly see the growth in Barnette’s support in a recent poll that just came out of the field (May 13-16).
Where did that support come from? When I surveyed these same Barnette supporters back in December 2021, only 21 percent were with her. According to the same poll, another 28 percent of her backers were then unsure. While 10 percent supported Oz, fifteen percent were with Sean Parnell, the original Trump endorsee who later dropped out of the race after his estranged wife won sole custody of their children in court. In fact, more of Parnell’s supporters went to Barnette than either Oz or David McCormick, another leading contender.
Yes, Maggie! The race in Pennsylvania’s 12th District has been an expensive one, (millions!) and rife with attack ads. A local paper, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, reported that those attacks are being condemned by other Democrats: “This month, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, state House Minority Leader Joanna McClinton, D-Philadelphia, and a group of Allegheny County progressive Democrats sent a letter to the Irwin campaign condemning the attack ads, which they said are spreading misinformation about Lee. The letter calls on Irwin’s campaign to join them in criticizing the ads.”
I’m here tonight covering the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s 12th district. It’s one of the races that Meredith is watching, too, given that it’s basically a showdown between progressive, Bernie-endorsed State Representative Summer Lee and Steve Irwin, a mainstream Democrat who has worked as a party fundraiser and corporate lawyer. There is LOTS of money being thrown around in this race — it’s 5th in spending out of 17 districts with more than $2,600,000, plus another nearly $5 million in outside spending. Most of that outside spending is being directed against Lee, who has dealt with a deluge of attack ads, largely funded by the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.
OK, Maggie, Amelia and Monica, I hate to brag but I sort of predicted this last year (and I want to shamelessly plug this fun Confidence Interval video!) 🤪
We’ve got a fair bit of the vote reported in the Democratic primary for North Carolina’s 1st District. It’s an open seat due to Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield’s retirement, and state Sen. Don Davis is crushing former state Sen. Erica Smith by 43 percent, with about 40 percent of the vote counted. Davis (the more moderate of the two, ideologically) put out a poll recently showing himself with a 13-point lead, and was endorsed by Butterfield, so him winning wouldn’t be a surprise, but that margin is impressive if it stands.
Latest count in North Carolina’s 1st District Democratic primary
Results of the Democratic primary for North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, as of 7:47 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Votes | Vote % |
|---|---|---|
| Don Davis | 18,674 | 69.4 |
| Erica D. Smith | 7,115 | 26.5 |
| Jason A. Spriggs | 562 | 2.1 |
| Jullian C. Bishop Sr. | 547 | 2.0 |
ABC News projects that Cheri Beasley will win North Carolina’s Democratic Senate primary. She’ll likely face Rep. Tedd Budd in November, as Nathaniel wrote. This race will be a fun one to watch this fall: While North Carolina is a battleground state, with Biden losing it by just over 1 percentage point in 2020, Republicans are still favored to hold the seat, according to nonpartisan analysts, due to Biden’s drop in popularity since entering office and ongoing concerns surrounding inflation and COVID-19.
When I was poking around on Oz’s candidacy and how it fits into the bigger context of celebrity candidates I found a really interesting study that included some data on where amateur candidates are coming to politics from. It seemed like the kind of thing you all might be into:
That’s what I think, too, Amelia. Voters are increasingly frustrated with institutions and think outsiders will shake things up.
In all seriousness, though, I think voters like the idea of an amateur candidate because it implies a kind of purity — someone who hasn’t been tainted by the muck of politics. But then of course they don’t have experience doing the actual job of politics. That’s one reason why I think amateur/celebrity candidates maybe have a more natural fit in the Republican Party, since a “less is more” approach on the governance side is certainly more appealing to Republican voters.
Oz — an amateur, a celebrity and maybe a carpetbagger as Dan points out! 😂
Related to amateur candidates is out-of-state candidates, or at least those without deep roots in the state or a record of prior office there. Tonight, Oz and McCormick are two Pennsylvania Senate candidates who recently lived and worked elsewhere.
The Associated Press has called the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in North Carolina for Trump’s and the Club for Growth’s endorsed candidate, Rep. Ted Budd. With more than 200,000 votes counted, Budd leads former Gov. Pat McCrory, 57 percent to 27 percent.
cough cough Dr. Oz cough cough
Isn’t the dream to be both an amateur and a celebrity, Alex? 😉
Curious how y’all would distinguish between an amateur vs. a celebrity candidate? One could argue, at this point, Cawthorn is sort of both. And we know Americans can’t resist a celebrity politician!
Yes, Sarah, I think those candidates are the future. Cawthorn may have said it best when he admitted he had “built my staff around comms rather than legislation.” An increasing number of politicians are realizing that they can just go on Fox News and throw the base some red meat and still be a successful politician (if “success” is measured in things like fundraising and winning reelection).
Speaking of Cawthorn —
Sarah, I think that even if Cawthorn wins the 30 percent he needs, it’s clear that he went too far with his shenanigans for a lot of western North Carolina voters. Ultimately, the people electing candidates in primaries are quite partisan and do truly want their preferred policies enacted. If it’s clear you aren’t focused on that, expect blowback. At the same time, Cawthorn has been in the minority during his two years in Congress and when politicians are in the minority there is little (these days) for them to do other than message about how awful the majority is. So … I don’t think Cawthorn is the future of Congress, but I think his focus on messaging over governing while in the minority has become the absolute norm in Washington, D.C., and will continue to be.
Trump did endorse a totally inexperienced candidate in North Carolina’s 13th District, Sarah — Bo Hines. I wrote about him on the live blog earlier, but the guy is basically a clean slate as far as political experience goes. He’s 26 and a former football player (so he’s leaning hard into that all-American athlete vibe), and although he’s never held political office before, he has worked for some high-profile Republicans, including Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb. That’s not to say that Hines’s political dreams came out of nowhere, though. When asked about his ambitions back in 2015, he replied, “Governor of North Carolina, and the ultimate goal would be president.” So he’s had political power on the brain for a while — what he wants to do with it is another story, though. He described his work for Holcomb as “minimizing bureaucracy in Indiana.” I guess we’ll see how that inexperienced-but-ambitious profile plays with voters tonight.
Well, there’s no question that political amateurs are becoming a bigger part of the equation on Capitol Hill. Among both Democrats and Republicans, the share of amateurs winning House primaries where no incumbent is running has increased to roughly 40 to 50 percent in the past couple of cycles. In other words, the types of races where you see turnover in House membership are producing lots of general election candidates who don’t have traditional political experience commonly associated with getting to Congress. I do think it’ll be an interesting test of the interest in governance to see how these members in the GOP behave when their party is in the majority.