Yesterday's Primaries

 

Our friends over at Electoral-vote.com give us the top-line results from yesterday's most-watched primaries:

Governor, Wisconsin: The polls said Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong (D) would win her party's nomination in a walk. The aggregators all had her up an average of 23-25 points. The two polls of the race conducted in August (and therefore after Mandela Barnes dropped out) had her up 22 points (44% to 22%) and 18 points (42% to 24%) on the more moderate David Crowley.

The race went down to the wire, with the counting of the ballots continuing into the wee hours of the morning. But finally, with a bit more than 98% of the vote in, it was called... for Crowley. As of 1:00 a.m. PT, Crowley has 39.78% of the vote to 39.37% of the vote. The last big tranche of votes was from Milwaukee, and they put Crowley over the top, as he outpaced Hong by about 5% there. NBC News was the first to call the race for Crowley, but the AP, Decision Desk HQ and other outlets followed suit soon thereafter. [snip]

U.S. Senator, Minnesota: Here, the progressives had a stronger candidate, and got the result they wanted. Looking to replace the retiring Sen. Tina Smith (DFL-MN), the more progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (DFL) trounced the more moderate Rep. Angie Craig (DFL), 59.0% to 39.4%. Flanagan has twice won statewide, and is not prone to saying unwise things that can easily be turned into Republican campaign ads. Between Flanagan and El-Sayed, the lefty wing of the Democratic Party is going to be watching the upper Midwest with great interest on election night.

The Republican in the race, as expected, will be former TV sports reporter Michele Tafoya. She is somewhat the opposite of Flanagan, as she has no political experience and a pretty long history of saying stupid things. The most recent poll of this matchup gives Flanagan a 7-point lead over Tafoya, 51% to 44%. It's a pretty old poll (conducted in late May), but that matches our gut feel, as Tafoya is certainly the weaker candidate and Minnesota is just barely swingy these days. The race raters all have it as either "Likely D" or "Safe D."  

U.S. Senator, South Carolina: An important election, though one that did not offer much in the way of surprises. The Donald Trump-backed Darline Graham (R), sister of Lindsey, took 32.7% of the vote, which was not enough to avoid an August 25 runoff, but was enough to be one of the two candidates to advance. Her opponent will be Rep. Ralph Norman (R), who claimed 24.6% of the vote. Lindsey was not especially popular in South Carolina, Darline is a cipher, and Trump's endorsement doesn't have quite the oomph it once did, so this one could certainly go either way.

Governor, Minnesota: Speaking of Trump's endorsement, it did not get the job done on the Republican side of this primary. The President backed loyal sycophant, and all around nutter, Mike Lindell. Lindell was left crying into his MyPillow, because he got thoroughly outclassed by Speaker of the Minnesota House Lisa Demuth, with 43.4% of the vote for her and 32.5% for him. Although the President bends over backwards to maintain a pristine batting average, this is his seventh endorsee to go down this primary season, a higher total than for any other election held while he was in office.

On the Democratic-Farmer-Labor side, Sen. Amy Klobuchar easily dispatched her several challengers, hauling in nearly 90% of the vote. Klobuchar is popular, has won statewide four times previously, it's barely a swing state anymore, and there figure to be Democratic tailwinds this year. Add it up, and it's hard to see how Klobuchar does not get chosen as the successor to Gov. Tim Walz (DFL). Early polling has the Senator up about 10 points.

CT-01: This seat is D+12, so it's going to stay in Democratic hands. However, there was a "generational change" election here yesterday, with 78-year-old incumbent John Larson (D) gunning for a 14th term against three younger upstarts. The Representative is going to have plenty of time to wave his fist at clouds, and to shout at kids to get off his lawn, come January 3, because he was knocked off by 47-year-old former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin. It is not often that a 13-term member gets primaried. (our emphasis)

Crowley upsets Hong in Wisconsin, Flanagan gets the nod for Senator in Minnesota, Trump-endorsed Graham in South Carolina couldn't avoid a runoff, and Trump-endorsed crackpot Lindell in Minnesota loses his bid.  We can live with those results.

Results from other primaries are at the link above.