This week on The Downballot, cohosts David Beard and David Nir dove into some big developments in the Democratic primary for Wisconsin's extremely competitive Senate race this week, and a controversial move by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to meddle in a GOP primary for a key House seat in Michigan. They also looked at a snap election that has been called in Italy.
On this episode, they once again brought on Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer to do a deep dive into the many, many races on the docket in the month of August—including primaries in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Washington, and New York.
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A lot is unfolding in Wisconsin, and Nir walked listeners through the high-stakes, competitive Senate race happening there. On Monday, one of the Democrats running to take on Ron Johnson, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, dropped out of the race and endorsed Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who has led in most polling and in fundraising. And then, on Wednesday, former Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, who had been heavily self-funding his own campaign, also dropped out and endorsed Mandela Barnes. “So obviously a really good week for Barnes, who to my mind is the most electrifying and interesting candidate running in that race,” Nir said.
If elected, Barnes would be the state's first black Senator, among other achievements—though, as Nir pointed out, he doesn't quite have the primary “completely sewn up.” There is still one other notable candidate in the race, state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, but she has generally trailed Barnes on most metrics. Generally, the state Democratic party has begun consolidating behind Barnes, which may make him very tough to beat, according to Nir.
“Honestly, the only frustrating thing is it would've been nice to have had the past year to all rally around Barnes. Obviously, Ron Johnson is one of the most-hated Republican senators among progressives in this country,” Nir added. “But at the same time, I'm not worried about Barnes having the resources he'll need for this race. We have seen it time and time again; Democrats in competitive senate primaries in recent years have seen their fundraising explode after they win their primaries.”
Moving across the Atlantic to Italy, some snap elections have been called after incumbent Prime Minister Mario Draghi—who led on a platform of national unity—resigned soon after the populist Five Star Movement, and then the right-wing parties League and Forza Italia, all subsequently left the national unity coalition.
The elections will be held on Sept. 25. Currently, the right-wing coalition of the League, Forza Italia, and Brothers of Italy are the favorites to win the election and form the next government. If they do, Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni is the favorite to become the first female prime minister of Italy.
As Beard explained, the Brothers of Italy are polling neck-and-neck with the center-left Democratic Party for first place.Nevertheless, the other two right-wing parties are polling significantly stronger than any potential allies for the Democratic Party, which makes it hard for the center-left to form any sort of coalition to actually win the election and govern the country moving forward.
Nir and Beard then welcomed Daily Kos Elections Editor Jeff Singer back onto the show to preview all the big races with the listeners. Coming up this Tuesday, Aug. 2, there are primaries in five states: Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington. In Kansas, in particular, the race to watch on the ballot is not a primary, but rather the constitutional amendment that Republicans have put before voters. If it passes, it would amend the state constitution to say that it does not include a right to an abortion.
The biggest race to watch in Arizona is the race for governor, where Republican incumbent Doug Ducey has termed out. Originally, it seemed there was going to be a big, crowded Republican primary to succeed him, but the field has narrowed dramatically. It has now turned into yet another proxy battle between Donald Trump and a governor he once loved and now hates. Trump's candidate is Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor who has fallen very deep into the far-right conspiracy rabbit hole. Ducey, meanwhile, is backing Karrin Taylor Robson, who's a member of the Arizona Board of Regents, which governs higher education. Robson is very wealthy and has been using her money to outspend Lake, but most polls still have Lake up by varying margins.
“Even though Lake is in the lead, or maybe because she's in the lead, she's already laying the groundwork to cry foul for a loss, Singer warned. “She said, ‘We're already detecting some stealing going on.’ And this is a Republican primary she's talking about. But Lake's opponents will remind everyone that she was an Obama and Hillary Clinton supporter just a few years ago.”
The Democratic side has become a duel between Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who's one of the few Democrats who hold statewide office, and the former mayor of Nogales, Marco Lopez. There have been far fewer polls here. But Hobbs has led in what we've seen. And she's enjoyed this huge financial edge. So it would be a surprise if she's not the Democratic nominee, Singer said.
Moving over to Missouri, where Sen. Roy Blunt is retiring, there are a number of Republicans running in the primary to replace him—most notably Eric Greitens, who is attempting a comeback. “So tell us about that race,” Beard requested.
As Singer explained, it hasn’t been so clear cut thus far:
Greitens looked like the front-runner at the beginning, mostly because of name recognition, even though he resigned in 2018 because of multiple scandals. He has several opponents, but the two main ones look like Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler. Hartzler has endorsement from Missouri's other senator, Josh Hawley, who the internet has had some fun with over the last week or so. But Trump's not so keen on the Congresswoman. He recently said, "She sought my endorsement, I told her no." Which as far as Trump goes, that's actually pretty nice, but not what she wanted. Greitens meanwhile has been on the receiving end of a very well financed super PAC, that's one ad's quoting testimony from his ex-wife alleging that he abused one of their sons and Schmidt has. He's taken his share of attack ads from Greitens's and Hertzler, but nothing to the same degree and some recent polls show him ahead.
Moving up to Michigan, the governor's race has seen a number of Republicans competing to take on Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer. As Singer put it, “If you asked me about this race in May, I would've given you a very different answer than I'm giving now.”
That month, two major candidates, former Detroit Police Chief James Craig and wealthy businessman Perry Johnson, were thrown off their Republican primary ballot after too many of their signatures were ruled fraudulent. Craig, who was the frontrunner until then, is running a write-in campaign, but he struggled to get traction. So now, Singer explained, candidates who were the underdogs are suddenly getting some second life.
Of the five candidates, the frontrunner now looks like Tudor Dixon, a conservative radio host with the backing of some very influential Republicans—including the DeVos family and Betsy DeVos herself. Dixon is running quite far to the right, and says she wants to outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. Her main opponent is wealthy businessman Kevin Rinke, who has been been running ads suggesting that because DeVos resigned from Trump's cabinet riot for Jan. 6, Dixon is being controlled by never-Trumpers.
Wyoming's primary is also being watched with intense closeness. “Of course, this is Congresswoman Liz Cheney in her fight for survival. Does she have any chance?” Nir inquired.
Singer noted that things are looking bad for the now-outcast Republican:
If you believe the polls, no. It's looking very bad for her. Cheney knew she was taking a huge risk when she voted to impeach Trump, and kept trashing him afterwards, and joined the January 6th committee. That was a huge, huge risk in one of the most Republican states in the country. Cheney's hoping that she can encourage Democrats to cross over and vote for her in the Republican primary against Trump's candidate. But certainly, Harriet Hageman, who ran for governor in 2018, but the polls show Cheney far behind. If she wins, she's earned an upset for the ages.
Lastly, the trio covered two New York congressional races, which were delayed from New York's regular primary due to redistricting fallout from the New York courts.
Singer started with New York's 12th district, where two Democratic incumbents are facing off. While it is not unusual in a redistricting year to see two incumbents running against each other in a primary, it is rare is that they're both 30-year incumbents (Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler), Singer pointed out. “I don't think we've ever seen an incumbent versus incumbent race with two people who have so much seniority between them,” he added.
While it remains a safely Democratic district, it has been transformed and thanks to new maps, combines Manhattan’s Upper East and Upper West Sides for the first time in over a century. Maloney represents about 60% of the seat and Nadler represents most of the remaining 40%. But now, there is another complication. Attorney Suraj Patel, who lost to Maloney by a close 43 to 39 margin in 2020, is also running. There aren't many policy differences between the three candidates, but they are emphasizing different things, Singer noted:
Maloney's talking about how important it's to keep a woman in office, especially in this day and age. She ran an ad saying, "You cannot send a man to do a woman's job." Nadler has been highlighting that he's the only remaining Jewish member of New York's delegation. Patel, who would be the first Indian American to represent New York in Congress, has also been positioning himself as an alternative between the two. We don't have any recent polls to go off of, so this could be anyone's race.
Singer pointed out another special election, in New York's 19th District, as one to keep an eye on:
This seat in the Hudson Valley is open because representative Antonio Delgado, a Democrat, was picked to become Lieutenant Governor by Kathy Hochul, after her first choice was arrested in a campaign finance scandal. The fact that Delgado resigned from his swing district to become Lieutenant Governor of New York, which is not usually a very powerful position, surprised a lot of people. But it's off a special election.
And because it's for the final months of Delgado's term, it's going to happen using the map that's been in place since 2012, instead of the new one. This is New York's 19th, which has been a swing district for a long time. Biden won it by a narrow 50 to 48 margin, four years after Trump won it 51 to 44, so quite competitive here.
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