2018: The Year of the Outsider

Primary season resumed last week after a brief hiatus in July, which consisted of runoffs in three states where a candidate must receive at least 50 percent of the vote before advancing to the general election.  The results of the primaries that took place this week demonstrated that a trend that first began in 2016 continues into 2018. 

In Illinois, the two major candidates for Governor both had no political experience prior to running for office.  It will most likely go down as one of the most expensive gubernatorial races in United States History, considering the fact that both candidates have net worths exceeding $100 million.  Multi-millionaire Bruce Rauner, a Republican, beat Incumbent Democratic Governor Pat Quinn in 2014.  Four years later, Governor Rauner has extremely low approval ratings, likely because he alienated the conservative base when he signed a bill requiring all doctors to refer anyone requesting an abortion to a doctor who will provide one; even if it goes against their religious beliefs. Rauner’s family has donated to Planned Parenthood over the years, maybe that explains why he signed that bill in addition to another bill that would expand taxpayer funding of abortion and  keep the procedure legal in Illinois should Roe v. Wade take its rightful place in the ash-heap of history. The sky-high crime rate in Chicago and the state’s “junk bond” status probably do not help Rauner’s cause all that much.  Rauner has repeatedly refused to deploy the Illinois National Guard to help put a stop to the carnage in the Windy City. Conservatives who cannot stomach voting for Rauner have an option in supporting Sam McCann, who has decided to run on the Conservative Party ticket.  Rauner will face off against fellow billionaire JB Pritzker in the general election.    

An outsider cruised to the front of the pack in the Republican Primary field for Indiana’s Senate Election.  The two other candidates, Congressmen Luke Messer and Todd Rokita, spent the entire season cannibalizing one another and competing to see which candidate had demonstrated higher loyalty to President Trump and his agenda. Mike Braun, an outsider who had previously served in the State Legislature, ended up winning the primary and will face off against Incumbent Senator Joe Donnelly, who has to defend his seat in a state that President Trump won by nearly 20 points.  Braun had referred to his two opponents as the “swamp brothers.” Both of the polls released since the primary show Braun beating Donnelly by narrow margins.   

Tennessee also had an impressive list of candidates running for the Republican nomination for Governor.  Congresswoman Diane Black had developed an exemplary conservative voting record during her time in Washington, most recently proposing a bill that would make it a felony to cross the border illegally as opposed to a misdemeanor.  She ended up coming in third in last Thursday’s Republican Primary to businessman Bill Lee, who has no political experience whatsoever.  At the same time that Lee captured the state’s Republican nomination for Governor, the wrestler known as Kane became the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee; the state’s third-most populous county.      

The Republican establishment had hoped to recruit one of Michigan’s several representatives in Congress to run for the Senate seat currently held by Democrat Debbie Stabenow.  Republicans definitely feel emboldened about the Senate race in Michigan after President Trump narrowly carried the state in 2016, making him the first Republican to win there since 1988.  Ultimately, all of the state’s GOP Congressmen elected to run for re-election or retire.  For a while it looked like Stabenow would end up facing off against Robert Ritchie, also known as Kid Rock.  Rock ultimately decided not to run and the primary race came down to two outsiders who had no political experience whatsoever; Sandy Pensler and John James, who ended up winning the primary Tuesday night.

Next week, Republicans in Wisconsin will choose which candidate they would like to see go up against Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin. Like Michigan, Wisconsin narrowly voted for President Trump in 2016.  The establishment has rallied around State Senator Leah Vukmir while voters may end up choosing Kevin Nicholson, who has won the endorsements of Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, two of the most anti-establishment Republicans in Washington.  A video recently emerged of Vukmir describing President Trump as “offensive” back in 2016, suggesting that should he win the Republican nomination, many Republicans would end up holding their noses to vote for him just to prevent a President Hillary Clinton.  Breitbart has also reported that Vukmir hired a bunch of “Never-Trumpers” on her campaign staff.  Vukmir appears to support President Trump right now, as demonstrated by this tweet, but her past statements about the President, in addition to her hiring of “Never-Trumpers” on her staff may pave the way for the outsider Nicholson to emerge victorious in the Republican Primary.  

With less than three weeks to go until the Republican Primary runoff in Oklahoma, voters have the option to choose another outsider.  Outgoing Republican Governor Mary Fallin has an approval rating of 11 percent.  Her extremely low approval rating probably explains why Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb, one of the Republican candidates hoping to succeed her, failed to make it into the second round. Either Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett or Businessman Kevin Stitt will end up facing off against Democratic candidate Drew Edmonson, who clinched his party’s nomination in the first round of voting. Edmonson will inevitably do his best to tie whoever ends up winning in the Republican runoff to Fallin.

Republicans have also nominated outsiders in a few longshot races out in California.  Businessman John Cox came in second in the state’s “jungle primary” for Governor, beating out Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Vilaraigosa, a Democrat.  Cox has an uphill battle as the general election gets closer.  Hollywood celebrites who don’t sympathize with the causes of #TheResistance will also appear on the ballot in two Congressional districts as the Republican standard-bearer.  Antonio Sabato, Jr. will hope to unseat Julia Brownley in California’s 26^th Congressional District.  Former soap actress Kimberlin Brown Pelzer hopes to unseat incumbent Democrat Raul Ruiz in California’s 36^th Congressional District. On paper, Brown Pelzer should have an easier race, considering the fact that President Trump only lost her district by nine points, as opposed to the 26^th District, which the President lost by more than twenty points.  The Republican Congressional Campaign Committee has included the Palm Springs-based 36^th district on its list of targets for the 2018 election.  The district has elected outsiders in the past.  Mary Bono, the fourth wife of entertainer Sonny Bono, represented the district until 2012.  Bono himself had represented the district until his unexpected death in 1998, following his tenure as mayor of Palm Springs.  

The insider-outsider dynamic has also taken shape in a few House primaries on both the Republican and Democratic side.  In North Carolina, Pastor Mark Harris defeated incumbent Republican Congressman Robert Pittenger.  The unearthing of some of Harris’s old statements, specifically one where he suggests that wives should submit to their husbands, demonstrates that nominating an outsider does not always lead to an automatic victory in the general election.  In several House seats in Massachusetts, the real races will take place in the primary; not the general election.  Two longtime Congressmen, Michael Capuano and Stephen Lynch, will face primary challenges from Washington outsiders.  Capuano will face off against Boston City Councilwoman Ayanna Presley while Lynch will have to defend himself against Brianna Wu, who became a central figure in the “Gamergate” controversy.  Whoever ends up emerging victorious in both primaries will run in the general election unopposed.

Even after the election of President Trump, the ultimate outsider, the appetite for outsiders remains very strong.  A Gallup poll released last month asking Americans what they view as the most important problem facing the nation found that 19 percent of Americans view “dissatisfaction with government” as the nation’s most pressing issue; slightly behind immigration. Voters’ dissatisfaction with government makes sense considering the fact that more than a year after President Trump’s election, construction still has not really begun on the much-promised border wall and Republicans in Congress failed to rally around a plan to repeal Obamacare despite promising for four straight election cycles that they would get rid of the healthcare law.  The Republicans have also failed to pass budgets that represent the current President’s priorities, such as the wall, instead electing to pass “omnibus” bills that include all of the previous President’s priorities, such as funding Planned Parenthood and the National Endowment for the Arts.  Undoubtedly, the group of people who list “dissatisfaction with government” as the nation’s most pressing issue includes people who despise President Trump and thus may not agree that electing outsiders will automatically cause their dissatisfaction with government to disappear.   

Many of these people instead believe that electing more women to Congress will automatically solve all of the problems facing the nation, which they view as a direct result of toxic masculinity.  The phrase “year of the woman” first came about in 1992, following the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill controversy.  Voters across the country elected quite a few Democratic women to the United States Senate that year, including Senators Patty Murray and Dianne Feinstein, who still serve today; former Senator Barbara Boxer, who recently retired; and former Senator Carol Moseley Braun, who lost her re-election bid six years later.  This quartet of female Senators joined Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat, and Senator Nancy Kassebaum, a Republican whose voting record made her virtually indistinguishable from a Democrat.           
    

The Democrats want 2018 to go down in the history books as another “year of the woman” (but not conservative women, of course.)  Hopefully, for the sake of the country, historians will instead remember 2018 as “the year of the outsider,” where American voters enshrined a group of brave Americans, regardless of their race or gender, with the responsibility to fix the problems career politicians in both parties have failed to solve for decades as they enjoyed “French work weeks,” six-figure salaries, and taxpayer-funded healthcare.  Electing outsiders remains the last viable option for Americans who hope to see the America First agenda championed by President Trump and rejected by the elites in both parties become a reality.