With the presidential nominations effectively wrapped up, the focus of primary season shifts to Congress.  States face conflicting incentives in terms of primary scheduling.  First, for presidential primaries, an early primary increases the chance that a state will vote before the nomination is effectively decided.  But, especially a state with a part-time legislature that only meets in the Spring, a Summer primary allows the legislature to wrap up its business (with appropriate goodies for the districts of favored legislators facing a tough race) and gives the legislators time to spend back in their district campaigning.  Second, it saves money for a state to combine presidential primaries with the primaries for other offices.  Thus, only some of the states with early primaries for president also have the primaries for other offices on the same day.

This week, three states have primaries for “other” offices.  The first is actually a special election.  That election is to fill the seat created by Kevin McCarthy deciding that he did not want to return to just being a member of the House after he lost the vote of no confidence (technically motion to vacate the chair) last fall.  For regular elections, California uses a “top two” primary in which, regardless of the vote for the leading candidate, the second-placed candidate advances to the general election.  For special elections, if the leading candidate gets a majority, that candidate wins.  If not, there will be a runoff between the top two candidates.  Two weeks ago, there was the regular primary for the seat.  Given how long it takes California to process its ballot, the race for second place is still too close to call.  Given that most of the votes remaining appear to be from the county in which the current third-placed candidate finished ahead of the second-placed candidate, the primary may actually be recount close.  Right now, the “second” Republican is still in second place.  That should discourage Republicans from unifying behind the current leading candidate in the special election (as supporters of the Republican currently in second have hopes that their candidate will make the general election and do not want to make the leading candidate the incumber candidate).  As the leading candidate did not get a majority in the primary, there is a good chance that there will be a runoff in this race.  If the leading candidate (Kevin McCarthy’s handpicked candidate, Vince Fong) can get the majority, the Republicans get this seat back.  If not, it remains vacant until after the runoff in two months (probably keeping the seat vacant through June).  Needless to say, the Republicans in Washington are praying for an outright winner on Tuesday.

The next state on the list is Ohio.  In recent years, ticket splitting has declined, and it has become harder for a Congressional candidate to win a state/district that voted for the presidential candidate of the other party.  Currently, there are only senators (three Democrats and two Republicans) representing states won in 2020 by the other party.  The three Democrats are up for election this year.  Joe Manchin of West Virginia has decided that, despite his personal popularity in his state, the presidential margin is just too much to overcome.  That leaves Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio to face their voters this year.  Given that Ohio has been getting redder in recent years, Republicans are hopeful that whomever they nominate might win the seat in November to give the Republicans a senate majority.  But with Republicans thinking that they can win, the primary attracted multiple candidates.  The race originally looked like a three-person race.  Objectively, if Republicans wanted somebody ready to be a senator, the obvious choice would be the current Secretary of State, Frank LaRose.  But serving in an executive position requires actually following the law.  And, while Secretary LaRose has definitely put his thumb on the scale as much as he can, those decisions disqualify him for “purists.”  Neither of the other two candidates would be a strong contender if the Republican primary was being held in the real world.  With Secretary LaRose struggling, the establishment has unified behind Matt Dolan.  What Mr. Dolan has going for him is that his family is wealthy, and he has been willing to spend enough of his own money to be competitive (both this cycle and two years ago when he put up a solid fight in the primary for the other seat).  The Trump candidate is Bernie Moreno.  As was the case back in 2022, for Democrats choosing to participate in the Republican primary, the question is whether to vote for the weaker candidate (Moreno) to increase the odds of winning in the general election or to vote for the sanest candidate (Dolan) just in case Brown loses in November.  The national party has run adds attacking Moreno as too extreme in the reverse psychology ploy to get Republicans to commit political suicide by nominating Moreno.

Ohio also has a double open primary (one for the regular term and a primary for the special election to fill the remainder of the term) in the Sixth District.  This seat was held by Bill Johnson before he decided that there were less headaches in being a university president (which says something about the current Congress).    The other primary of interest is in the Ninth District.  This district was drawn to lean Republican, and Republicans would like to take it from long-time Democratic incumbent Marcia Kaptur.   But the local Trumpist have pushed forward J.R. Majewski who, for multiple reasons, has zero appeal to swing voters.  After losing in 2022, he has been switching back and forth between “in” and “out” this race several times.  He is officially on the ballot but has suspended his campaign.  It will be interesting to see whether he still wins the primary.

In Illinois, it is all about the House of Representatives.  In the Seventh District, some activists think that the incumbent, Representative Danny Davis, is not progressive enough.  In terms of fundraising, the top opponent is Chicago Treasurer, Melissa Conyears-Ervin.  On the other hand, the person who almost upset Representative Davis in 2022, Kina Collins, is running again.  Ms. Collins does not have that much money, but has a good grassroots network from 2022.

At this point, we are at the start of what is going to be a long cycle with many tough races in November.  Given the narrow margins in both the House and the Senate, either party could emerge from November with majorities in both houses.  Who makes it to November could determine which party gets those majorities (and what happens in 2025).