Today is primary day in three states. In two of the three (Alabama and Texas), it is actually primary run-off day as the first round of voting occurred prior to COVID-19 becoming a household word. In the other state (Maine). today is the actual primary day. Maine uses ranked-choice voting in its primary which means that voters are casting votes for all rounds of the election today. In all three states, there are senate primaries to choose challengers, and the results could matter in November.
In Alabama, you have former Senator and Attorney General Jeff Sessions seeking to get his job back against former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville. Besides his coaching experience, Coach Tuberville appears to have relocated to Florida until just recently and has some ties to some hedge fund fraud. All of which makes him Trump’s type of candidate as Trump wants to stick it to Attorney General Sessions for only bending the law into a pretzel on some occasions and actually realizing that it would be unethical to head an investigation into a campaign in which he played a significant role. Now, it’s going to be hard for Democrats to keep this seat in November, but I would rather be running against the former coach for Auburn (the “second” school in Alabama) in the hopes that some Alabama fans who would normally vote Republican might have trouble voting for somebody from Auburn. Additionally, the scandal involving Coach Tuberville might just become a big deal by November allowing us to narrowly keep the seat over a flawed Republican candidate. While Democrats rightly loathe the positions that Jeff Sessions took as Attorney General, Alabama is still a deep red state. If Trump and Sessions decide that they have to make nice after the primary, I think it would be almost impossible to beat Sessions in November.
In Texas, you have almost a replay of the recent Kentucky primary. The preferred candidate of the national party is a moderate, white, female, military veteran (MJ Hegar). The other choice is a progressive, male, African-American, state legislator (Royce West). And, like in Kentucky, you have an incumbent Republican member of the party leadership (John Conryn) who will be a favorite for re-election but could be beatable with the right candidate.
Finally, there is Maine. There, Senator Jellyfish (Susan Collins) managed to avoid a primary by voting with Trump most of the time when her vote was necessary. That leaves a three-way battle to choose her opponent. Again, there is a preferred candidate of the party — House Speaker Sara Gideon. But also in the mix is Betsy Sweet, a progressive activist who ran for Governor in 2018 (finishing third). Also running is Bre Kidman, a lawyer and activist. With ranked-choice voting, usually the person who finishes first is able to hold the lead, but that depends in large part on two factors: how big the lead is and how many other candidates are running. With only three candidates running, it is more likely that the supporters of the third-placed candidate will mostly support the same candidate (when you have five or six candidates, the odds are greater of a more even split with different trailing candidates representing different parts of the party). In this case, the race may come down to whether Speaker Gideon can get close to or exceed 50% on the first preference vote. If the race for the lead on first preference votes is close between Speaker Gideon and one of the other two, Speaker Gideon may not get enough second preference votes to win.
In the Maine general election, it looks like there will be at least two (and maybe more) candidates besides Senator Collins and whomever wins today’s primary. As such, there is a real chance that Maine could come down to second and third preferences unless Trump drags Senator Collins down to defeat.
Given that two of these primaries involve seats rated as top contenders to flip and the third involves a seat that could flip in a wave election, today’s results could play a significant part in deciding who runs the Senate in 2021.
