Preliminary Primary Notes

 

The guys at Electoral-vote.com stayed up last night and came up with some storylines from yesterday's primaries in six states.  Here are a few highlights we've taken from four of those states, but for the fuller picture, please go to this link.

California

In the much-watched California gubernatorial election, things are still up in the air. With a shade over half the votes reported, Steve Hilton (R) has 27.6% of the vote, Xavier Becerra (D) has 25.5%, Tom Steyer (D) has 19.6% and Chad Bianco (R) has 11.3%. Bianco is done for; he barely won his home county (Riverside), and there's no way he can add enough votes to climb into second place. It will probably be Hilton and Becerra in the general, but there are enough votes still uncounted in Los Angeles and San Francisco that it's plausible for any two of the top three candidates to survive.  [snip]

In the Los Angeles mayoral race, reality TV star Spencer Pratt (I, but really R) has 29.1% of the vote, while City Councilwoman Nithya Raman (I, but really D) has 21.6%. We can't find anyone who has a heat map of the race, so we can't tell where the missing votes are, but nobody has called it for Pratt, so the missing votes must be substantially from the southern and eastern portions of Los Angeles...

Iowa

As the polls predicted, the race to replace Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) will pit Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) against state Rep. Josh Turek (D). Turek is the more moderate of the two Democrats who were in the running, was most certainly the "establishment" candidate, and has shown himself to be a skilled campaigner.

It is, of course, more probable than not that the Senate race will go to the same party that wins the gubernatorial race. So, if there's a blue backlash in the Hawkeye State in November, then it could certainly propel both [Dem State Auditor Rob] Sand and Turek to victory. One interesting thing about the Senate race is that the Hinson campaign has outraised the Turek campaign about 2-to-1 (roughly $6 million to $3 million), but that obscures the fact that most of the super PAC money has flowed in Turek's direction. In particular, VoteVets spent just shy of $10 million to help Turek secure the nomination...

Montana

In pretty much every important swing-y contest, the Democrats got what they wanted yesterday. That includes the U.S. Senate race in Montana. On the Republican side, it's going to be Kurt Alme, who conspired with Sen. Steve Daines (R) to claim the nomination by gaming the paperwork-filing process. On the Democratic side, in a mild upset, it's going to be Air Force Lt. Col. Alani Bankhead, who beat the more experienced and somewhat better known Reilly Neill, a former state representative.

Bankhead, by all indications, is not a serious candidate. She did little campaigning, and raised a grand total of $15,240, of which she spent only $5,775 (by contrast, Neill raised $277,088). The reason that "not a serious candidate" is good news for the Democrats is that it is expected that Bankhead will either withdraw from the race, or will not spend much energy on campaigning. That will help clear the decks for the blue team's actual candidate, former University of Montana president Seth Bodnar (I). It is possible that between not having a (D) next to his name, Alme's undemocratic gamesmanship, and the unfriendly-to-Republicans political climate, Bodnar could attract enough independent and crossover votes to win this thing.

New Jersey

Yesterday, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) communicated, through his staff, that he will be away from Washington even longer than expected (and he's already been gone-without-a-trace for 3 months). We wonder if we will ever find out what is wrong with him, such that it precludes him from even making a video or posting a photograph assuring the voters he (ostensibly) represents that he is OK.

The ideal opponent to face Kean, in the EVEN NJ-07, would probably be a moderate woman who is young and vigorous and a veteran. And that is who the Democrats will have, as Rebecca Bennett easily outclassed the other three contenders for the Democratic nomination, taking 45.5% of the vote, to 20% for her nearest competitor. Will Kean even be able to campaign? Will New Jersey voters insist that he explain himself, and why he's been absent? Will he have to drop out, and be replaced by GOP pooh-bahs in the Garden State? These are all questions that undoubtedly are giving NRCC Chair Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) ulcers right now.

We hope Republicans across the country are getting ulcers right now, too!