The Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Primary

Tuesday’s primary elections might as well be called “The Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” primary.  A total of eight states will have primaries on Tuesday but only one of them will get all of the attention.  While voters in Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota will all head to the polls tomorrow; all of my fellow political junkies across America will direct their eyes towards California.  The combined population of the “seven dwarf” states equals around 60 percent of California’s population.  The results for California, which will have the biggest impact on the outcome of the midterm elections, will probably come in later than all of the “seven dwarf” states because of its location in the Pacific Time Zone.    

In Alabama, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has included Alabama’s 2^nd Congressional District on their list of targets because Incumbent Republican Martha Roby only won re-election with 48.8 percent of the vote in 2016 after distancing herself from Trump in the wake of the “Access Hollywood” tape.  She has attracted a primary challenger in the man she defeated in the 2010 “red wave,” Former Democratic Congressman Bobby Bright.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, who ascended to the governorship last year after the resignation of Governor Robert Bentley, will seek a full term in office.  Alabama could have also had a Senate seat on the ballot this fall, as Governor Bentley initially scheduled the special election to fill the remainder of Jeff Sessions’ term in the Senate to coincide with the 2018 general election but Ivey moved it up to last fall, a decision that would ultimately cause Republicans a great deal of embarrassment.  In spite of her retrospectively foolish decision to move up the special election date, Ivey has high enough approval ratings that she should not have any trouble winning re-election.  Alabama will hold runoff elections for tomorrow’s primaries, if necessary, on July 17.        

The Republican Congressional Campaign Committee has included Iowa’s 2^nd Congressional District, which President Trump carried, on its target list while the Democrats hope to flip Iowa’s 1^st and 3^rd Congressional Districts, which President Trump also carried. Iowa’s Brave incumbent Republican Governor Kim Reynolds, who recently signed into law a “heartbeat bill,” will seek a first full term in office after ascending to the governorship last year following Terry Branstad’s confirmation as the United States Ambassador to China. 

While Mississippi has two Senate races on the ballot this fall, only one of them will hold a primary election on Tuesday.  While the primary for the regularly scheduled Senate election for Roger Wicker’s Senate seat will take place tomorrow, the special election to fill the remainder of Thad Cochran’s term in the Senate will come in the form of a jungle primary on November 6, where the top two candidates, regardless of partisan affiliation, will advance to a runoff election that will take place three weeks later. It looked like Wicker would have to ward off primary challenger Chris McDaniel, who had previously challenged Cohcran in 2014.  However, McDaniel ultimately decided to jump ship and challenge appointed Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Special Election to fill Cochran’s seat; meaning that Wicker will have virtually no challenge shoring up his party’s nomination and in turn, winning the general election.   Mississippi does not have a gubernatorial election until next year and all four of its House seats look safe for the respective incumbent parties. A runoff election for tomorrow’s primaries, if necessary, will take place on June 26.  

In Montana, red-state Democratic Senator Jon Tester will at last learn the fate of his opponent.  While all four of his potential Republican opponents have relatively little name ID, a recent poll shows Tester trailing a “generic Republican” opponent by 13 points.  President Trump and the Republicans have made defeating Tester a top priority after he engaged in character assassination against Dr. Ronny Jackson, President Trump’s nominee to serve as Director of the Veterans’ Administration.  Unlike some of his counterparts in other red states, Tester has not tailored his voting record to the more conservative electorate in his state; voting against many of President Trump’s cabinet and judicial nominees.  In addition, the Democrats will try to seize the state’s sole House seat, currently represented by Republican Greg Gianforte.  The Democrats hoped to humiliate Republicans when the seat became vacant after Rep. Ryan Zinke resigned to become the Secretary of the Interior by defeating the Republican candidate in the special election in a state where President Trump won by double digits.  While the Democrats ultimately failed to capture the seat, they considered their loss a victory because their candidate outperformed Zinke’s Democratic opponent in 2016.  Of course he did.  Have these people ever heard of the incumbency advantage?  Also, special elections generally have lower turnout than regularly scheduled elections.  Montana does not have a gubernatorial election until 2020. 

New Jersey voters will also head to the polls tomorrow, just seven months after they gave Democrats complete control of the state government by electing Democrat Phil Murphy Governor.  Despite their success in the gubernatorial race last fall, scandal-plagued incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Menendez has very low approval ratings that could theoretically make him vulnerable in such a blue state.  Although money can’t buy everything, Menendez’s likely Republican opponent Bob Hugin has outraised the two-term Senator.  The Democrats would like to make a clean sweep of all 12 of New Jersey’s Congressional districts, although such a scenario seems unlikely. They have their best targets in the open seats in the 2^nd and 11^th Districts, which President Trump narrowly carried and New Jersey’s 7^th District, which President Trump narrowly lost.  The Republicans have included New Jersey’s 5^th Congressional District, which President Trump narrowly carried, on their list of targets. The district had a Republican representative until 2016, when incumbent Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer defeated longtime Rep. Scott Garrett.    

Of all of the states on the ballot tomorrow, New Mexico is the only state besides California that will have both a Gubernatorial and a Senate race.  Republican Governor Susana Martinez cannot run for re-election because of term limits.  Two of the state’s three representatives in Congress have established themselves as the frontrunners for the primaries in their respective parties.  Michelle Lujan Grisham from the 1^st District hopes to capture the Democratic nomination for Governor and Republican Steve Pearce from the 2^nd District would like to capture his party’s nomination for Governor. The Republicans have announced their decision to target New Mexico’s 1^st and 3^rd Districts while the Democrats hope to target New Mexico’s 2^nd District.  At this point, it looks like Republicans have largely written off the Senate race.  Only one Republican, businessman Mick Rich, has declared his intention to run against incumbent Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich despite the fact that Heinrich only captured his seat with 51 percent of the vote in 2012.       

South Dakota’s incumbent Republican Governor Dennis Daugaard can also not run for re-election because of term limits established by the Constitution of his state.  The governorship has remained in Republican hands for the past 44 years and it does not look like that will change anytime soon.  It looks like the biggest race will take place in the Republican Primary, which has come down to a battle between Attorney General Marty Jackley and Congresswoman Kristi Noem. Because of Noem’s candidacy for Governor, her House Seat, the sole House seat in sparsely populated South Dakota, will also have a new occupant this fall.   

While all of the focus for Tuesday’s primaries will revolve around Federal and statewide races, the results of state legislative races may end up having an equal amount of impact down the road.  36 of the 43 states with more than one congressional district give all of the power for drawing new Congressional districts to the State Legislatures.  With just two years to go until the next constitutionally mandated Census, the elections this year will really have an impact on those maps; especially where the next elections will not take place for another four years.  Of all of the states with primaries tomorrow, only two of them (California and New Jersey) have independent commissions that draw the districts. 100 percent of Alabama’s Senate and House seats will appear on the ballot this November and the winners of this year’s state legislative elections will have the power to draw Alabama’s next Congressional maps, where the state will likely lose a seat.  In New Mexico, every member of the House of Representatives will have to face re-election this year while the Senate will not hold any elections for another two years.    

South Dakota only has one seat in Congress and that looks unlikely to change after the 2020 Census.  On the other hand, Montana currently has one seat in the House of Representatives and may actually gain a seat after the 2020 reapportionment.  Mississippi does not have any state legislative seats on the ballot this year; it has its legislative elections in odd-numbered years.

Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about California, the “Snow White” of Tuesday’s primaries. I have merely decided to devote an entire column to discussing all of the hot races in California, which I will post on Monday.  Watching the results of the “seven dwarfs” primaries will serve as a nice little appetizer while waiting for the main course: the results of the California primary.    

Tuesday’s primaries unofficially serve as “halftime” for primary season 2018 the same way the All-Star Game serves as the unofficial halfway point for the Major League Baseball Season.  Primary season first began on March 6, with Texas.  Primary season will end on September 11, with New Hampshire and Rhode Island.  The only state that does not have a primary this spring or summer is Louisiana, which will have a “jungle primary” on November 6, with a runoff taking place on December 8.  After tomorrow’s primaries, more than half of the United States population will have already had their primary day; not including runoffs.

Just 154 days remain until the Political World Series: Election Day 2018.