On Tuesday, voters in Illinois, North Carolina, and Ohio will go to the polls for their downballot primaries (though North Carolina will hold its House primaries in June due to court-ordered redistricting), and the race to succeed former House Speaker John Boehner takes center stage. Below is our look at the key races to watch in all three states. Polls close in North Carolina and Ohio at 7:30 PM ET and in Illinois 30 minutes later. We’ll be liveblogging the results at DailyKos.com.
• OH-08 (R): With a huge sigh of relief, John Boehner left both the speaker’s chair and the House at the end of October, but the race to succeed him has not gone as planned. The successor Boehner appeared to prefer, Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds, abandoned his bid in December, a surprise move that turned the GOP primary into a two-way battle between state Rep. Tim Derickson and state Sen. Bill Beagle.
Until, that is, the radical anti-taxers at the Club for Growth came along and plucked businessman Warren Davidson from obscurity. The Club has spent $1 million promoting Davidson, who has also earned the endorsement of Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the founder of the same House Freedom Caucus—you know, the guys who pushed Boehner into early retirement. Winning in Boehner’s back yard would be a huge symbolic coup.
Boehner doesn’t seem to care about his back yard, though: He was most recently seen on Twitter bragging about the lawn in his "perfect” front yard. But what remains of the GOP establishment does care. It’s rallied around Derickson, who hails from Butler County, just outside of Cincinnati, where about half the district lives. An outside group called Right Way Initiative has been spending big to support him, and another organization, Defending Main Street, has been attacking Davidson. But Derickson, a farmer by trade, understands that getting labeled as the establishment candidate is not an asset with voters. He’s therefore gone his own way and he aired a memorable ad comparing DC politics to a cow pie.
Meanwhile, Beagle doesn’t have any major outside support, but he’s hoping to take advantage of the chaos. Beagle hails from the less-populated part of the district around Dayton, while his main rivals, like Derickson, come from the Cincinnati area. Beagle hopes that if he can run up the score in the north, he’ll be able to secure the plurality he needs to win. There’s yet a further wrinkle: Another businessman, Jim Spurlino, has been using his own money to promote himself as a conservative outsider. But Spurlino’s campaign took a turn for the weird last month, when he ran a spot claiming that an unidentified party tried to blackmail him out of the race. It’s easily one of the creepiest campaign ads we’ve ever seen.
Because of Boehner’s resignation, there will actually be two different GOP primaries on Tuesday: one for the GOP nod to fill the final months of Boehner’s term, and one for the regular two-year term starting in 2017. A special election will be held in June for the remainder of Boehner’s term, but Tuesday’s primaries are what matter. And with Donald Trump running at the top of the ballot, there’s no telling what might happen—not that John Boehner’s worried either way.
• OH-Sen (D): National Democrats were happy when they landed ex-Gov. Ted Strickland against Republican Sen. Rob Portman, but Strickland needs to defeat Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld in the primary first. While Sittenfeld has relentlessly argued that Strickland is too close to the NRA and has made more than a few not-so-subtle jabs at Strickland’s age (Strickland is 74, Sittenfeld is 31), polls have shown Strickland with wide leads.
• OH-14 (R): In 2014, tea partying state Rep. Matt Lynch held Rep. David Joyce to a 55-45 primary win, and Lynch is back for another try. Once again, Lynch has raised very little money, while Joyce and allied groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been spending big here. But the congressman also has one more advantage that he didn’t have last cycle. Joyce was facing primary voters for the first time back then: In 2012, Republican party leaders had handed him the nomination after the district’s Republican congressman abruptly dropped out of the race, so Joyce will enjoy more of the benefits of incumbency this time. While Romney only narrowly carried this suburban Cleveland seat, Democrats only have a pair of weak candidates to choose from.
• NC-Sen (D): Republican Sen. Richard Burr is not a top-tier Democratic target, but he could have trouble if there’s a blue wave in the fall. The Democratic establishment has largely consolidated behind Deborah Ross, a former state House majority whip. Ross faces Spring Lake Mayor Chris Rey and businessmen Kevin Griffin and Ernest Reeves in the primary, but none of them have much money or name recognition. A few polls have been released, and they’ve all shown Ross with a clear lead, and a recent SurveyUSA poll found Ross defeating Griffin 52-9. North Carolina has done away with its primary runoffs for the cycle, so a simple plurality is all that’s needed to win.
• IL-Sen (D): Republican Sen. Mark Kirk is one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the nation, and three Democrats are competing to take him on. Rep. Tammy Duckworth has the support of national Democrats, and she’s decisively out-raised and outspent her intra-party opponents. A pair of recent polls show Duckworth decisively defeating ex-Chicago Urban League head Andrea Zopp and state Sen. Napoleon Harris, and it will be a massive surprise if she doesn’t take the nod.
• IL-01 (D): Rep. Bobby Rush has the honor of being the only person to ever defeat Barack Obama in an election. Then-state Sen. Obama tried to unseat Rush in the 2000 Democratic primary for this safely blue Chicago seat but lost 61-30, and until now, no one has mounted another serious campaign against Rush. However, Chicago Alderman Howard Brookins has decided to give it a shot this year.
Brookins does have the support of powerful state House Speaker Mike Madigan, and he’s trying to tie Rush to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, whose popularity has cratered in recent months. Rush also barely turned in enough valid signatures to make the primary ballot in December, which suggests his campaign is not firing on all cylinders. But while Rush hasn’t spent much money, neither has Brookins, which makes it tough for the challenger to get his name out. Presidential primary turnout should also help the incumbent: Many Democrats who are only interested in the presidential race will largely just back the more recognizable names downballot or skip them altogether.
• IL-08 (D): Three Democrats are competing to replace Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth in this suburban Chicago seat. Businessman Raja Krishnamoorthi lost the 2012 primary to Duckworth 66-33, but he has the advantage this time. National Democrats have consolidated behind him, and he’s built up a massive warchest. While state Sen. Mike Noland and Villa Park Village President Deb Bullwinkel have some local support, neither of them has been able to air many ads on expensive Chicago TV, and outside groups haven’t played here. Obama won this seat 57-41, and it should stay blue in the fall without much trouble.
• IL-10 (D): In 2012, Democrat Brad Schneider narrowly unseated Republican Bob Dold!, but Dold returned the favor in a tight 2014 rematch. Schneider is back for round three, but he needs to get past Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering in the primary first. Both candidates have spent a good deal of money, and both have some influential supporters: Schneider has Nancy Pelosi in his corner, while Sen. Dick Durbin starred in a commercial for Rotering.
A recent poll for Schneider gave him a hefty 53-23 lead; Rotering never released contradictory numbers but she did air a negative ad against Schneider, which typically would indicate that she thinks she’s down. Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will have a tough race against Dold in this suburban Chicago seat. Obama won the district 58-41, but the area is still amenable to moderate-sounding Republicans, and Dold is a formidable candidate.
• IL-15 (R): Ten-term Rep. John Shimkus is accustomed to easy wins in this safely red downstate Illinois seat, but this year he faces a primary challenge from state Sen. Kyle McCarter. McCarter has the support of the anti-tax group the Club for Growth, and they’ve been running ads portraying Shimkus as a liberal. However, Shimkus and his allies at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have decisively outspent McCarter and the Club, arguing that Shimkus is the true conservative in the race.
• IL State House: Normally the president of the United States would never call for voters to oust a sitting state legislator in a Democratic primary, but 5th District state Rep. Ken Dunkin is no normal politician. Democrats hold exactly the number of seats in the Illinois House that they need to override Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s vetoes (in addition to a super-majority in the state Senate), but Dunkin has repeatedly made life difficult for his party. Most notably, Dunkin was the one Democrat who broke ranks on a key budget vote that would have reversed Rauner's cuts to social services.
State Democratic leaders have endorsed attorney Juliana Stratton’s primary campaign against Dunkin, and President Obama recently starred in a TV commercial for her. Rauner’s allies, meanwhile, are spending big to help Dunkin hold onto his safely blue Chicago seat: Of the $882,000 Dunkin has brought in, $800,000 of it came from the conservative group Illinois Opportunity Project. But Stratton has raised an even stronger $1.2 million for this closely-watched contest.