Primary Colors: 2018 Edition

Believe it or not, primary season has moved beyond the halfway point.  Not including a few upcoming runoffs, 30 states have held primaries that will determine which candidates will appear on the general election ballot. 

July will effectively serve as a “vacation” from primary season with the exception of runoff elections in Alabama, North Carolina and Georgia.  In Alabama, Rep. Martha Roby failed to capture a majority of the vote in the Republican Primary, meaning that she will have to face off in a runoff with Former Congressman Bobby Bright, who represented the district as a Democrat from 2008 to 2010; before losing the 2010 general election to Roby.  Bright has challenged Roby in the Republican Primary eight years later; southern politicians appear to have a habit of switching parties frequently.  Roby’s primary vulnerability comes from her decision to retract her endorsement for then-candidate Trump after the “Access Hollywood” tape came out.  Roby only won re-election with 48 percent of the vote in 2016 while President Trump carried her district with more than 60 percent of the vote; several of her constituents opted to support write-in campaigns.   Despite her criticism of Trump during the 2016 election season, President Trump has endorsed Roby on Twitter, saying “Congresswoman Martha Roby has been a consistent and reliable vote for our Make America Great Again agenda.  She is in a Repulican Primary run-off against a recent Nancy Pelosi voting Democrat.  I fully endorse Martha for Alabama 2^nd Congressional District!” 

While President Trump did not have quite as much luck getting his preferred candidates over the finish line in the 2017 Republican primaries, he has done quite well for himself in 2018; most notably in South Carolina.  On primary day, President Trump signaled his support for Katie Arrington in the Republican primary for South Carolina’s 1^st Congressional District over incumbent Congressman Mark Sanford, tweeting out “Mark Sanford  has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA.  He is MIA and nothing but trouble.  He is better off in Argentina.  I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love.  She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes.  Vote KATIE!”   His endorsement put her over the top and allowed her to clear the 50 percent threshold, avoiding the need for a runoff. 

Two weeks later, President Trump held a rally for incumbent Governor Henry McMaster, who ascended to the governorship after the President appointed Nikki Haley to her current position as the US Ambassador to the United Nations.  McMaster failed to clear the 50 percent threshold in the June 12 Republican primary, forcing him into a runoff.  The President’s last minute trip to the Palmetto State appeared to have paid dividends; McMaster defeated his primary opponent John Warren and will advance to the general election, where he will almost certainly secure a full term as Governor of South Carolina.  President Trump also endorsed Rep. Dan Donovan of New York over his predecessor Michael Grimm, who had to resign in early 2015; shortly before beginning a prison sentence for federal tax evasion, fraud, and perjury.  Grimm tried to portray Donovan as a squish but he had no platform to talk considering the fact that he had plead guilty to hiring illegal immigrants.  Donovan defeated Grimm by a nearly 2-to-1 margin in the Republican Primary.       

While two Republicans have lost their bids for renomination to primary challengers, both of these individuals did not hold any leadership positions in Congress.  The one Democrat who has lost renomination, on the other hand, had a major role in the House Democratic Caucus.  Rep. Joe Crowley, Chair of the Democratic Caucus, suffered a defeat of a magnitude not seen since now-Rep. Dave Brat’s upset victory over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014.  Crowley, a frequent guest on the Clinton News Network who many thought would become Speaker of the House should the Democrats manage to take control of the lower chamber, lost his primary race by double digits to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; a relatively unknown former Bernie Sanders staffer who proudly identifies as a Democratic socialist.  She has called for abolishing ICE and said that she would not rule out impeachment.  Ocasio-Cortez should not have any trouble winning the general election in a district where President Trump barely managed to capture 20 percent of the vote.

Ocasio-Cortez’s victory led to an almost overnight change in the rhetoric of high-profile Democrats.  Senators Kamala Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand, both of whom have their eyes on a 2020 Presidential bid, have spoken out in favor of abolishing ICE, although Harris suggested abolishing ICE two days before Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise victory during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Kasie DC.” Democrats who have not even made it to Capitol Hill yet apparently see promising to abolish ICE as a winning campaign strategy.  Three additional candidates who hope to ride into Washington on a “blue wave” this fall have also vowed to support the abolition of ICE.  Two of the three candidates hope to represent red districts won by President Trump; calling into question the idea that Democrats have nominated  “centrist” candidates in red districts.  Ocasio-Cortez’s victory proves that the next set of primaries, the 2020 Presidential primaries, will a competition to see who can move farthest to the left.  It would not come as much of a surprise if the Democratic Party platform looks identical to the Green Party platform in 2020.  Elections have consequences, especially primaries.   

 

Going back to 2014, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his primary to Dave Brat, who ran on an America First immigration policy that would become the centerpiece of Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign.  Cantor had advocated for a DREAM Act that would have given amnesty to the illegal immigrants known as “dreamers.”  Cantor’s loss came at a time when a flood of illegal immigrant children poured into the United States, leading to many of the images of children in cages used by the mainstream media as examples of the Trump Administration’s intolerable cruelty. Unlike in 2018, where the Democrats moved even further to the left overnight, the Republicans did not seem to get the message the voters tried to send them through Brat’s victory.  Jeb Bush, who saw himself as the frontrunner for the Republican Presidential nomination in the 2016 Presidential Election, referred to illegal immigration as an “act of love” in December 2014.  Bush and all other pro-amnesty fizzled out in the Republican Presidential primaries of 2016.  Even after the American people made it clear that they did not want amnesty by electing Donald Trump President of the United States, 34 House Republicans wrote a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan demanding that he hold a vote on a bill to protect “dreamers” before Christmas.  At least the Democrats actually listen to their voters.          

Primary season will resume on August 7 and conclude on September 18, with one exception.  Louisiana will hold a “jungle primary” on the same day the rest of America holds a general election.  Should a candidate receive or exceed the magic number of 50 percent of the vote, he or she will automatically win.  Assuming none of the six US representatives from Louisiana decide to retire, most of the incumbents should have no trouble clinching the 50 percent threshold.  If a candidate fails to reach 50 percent, the top two candidates, regardless of partisan affiliation, will advance to a runoff on December 8.  For more information on the dates of upcoming primaries, check out my political calendar.     

One of the most interesting primaries will, believe it or not, take place in Kansas; which few political observers consider a swing state.  President Trump appointed term-limited Governor Sam Brownback United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom earlier this year.  Following Brownback’s resignation, Lieutenant Governor Jeff Colyer took over the governorship.  Colyer hopes to win a full term but he has attracted a primary challenger in Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who served as the chair of the President’s short-lived Commission on Election Integrity. Kobach has made combatting illegal immigration and voter fraud a centerpiece of his tenure as Secretary of State, passing one of the toughest voter ID laws in the country.  The Democratic field includes several teenagers, as Kansas does not have any age restrictions on its gubernatorial candidates.  The Kansas Primary will take place on August 7.    

While President Trump has stayed neutral in most Republican primaries, he has endorsed Rep. Ron Desantis in the Republican Primary to succeed term-limited Rick Scott as Governor of Florida.  The Florida Primaries could have brought a similar upset along the lines of what took place in New York’s 14^th Congressional District with the ouster of Clinton loyalist Debbie Wasserman-Schultz but her 2016 primary opponent Tim Canova has decided to run as an independent after initially filing to challenge her again in the Democratic Primary.  A defeat of Wasserman-Schultz would have allow the Bernie Bros to enjoy the sweet taste of victory; during her tenure as chair of the Democratic National Committee, she did everything she could to undermine Bernie Sanders’ insurgent candidacy to ensure that Hillary Clinton would win the Democratic nomination for President in 2016.  Wasserman-Schultz resigned her post in disgrace at the 2016 Democratic National Convention after leaked DNC e-mails shed some light under her behind-the-scenes maneuvering to derail the Sanders campaign.  Sanders ended up endorsing Canova, who failed to unseat Wasserman-Schultz in the Democratic Primary, but ended up capturing more than 40 percent of the vote.     

Expect President Trump to play a major role in campaigning for his desired candidates in both the primary and general elections.  The elections of 2018, both the remaining primaries and the general election, will have consequences that will determine the direction of the Democratic and Republican Parties heading into the 2020 Presidential election.