One of the features/bugs of American politics is that states get to pick the dates of their primary elections. While there are reasons to want an early presidential primary, there are reasons wo want a later date for the primaries for other offices. As a result, in the early part of the presidential primary process, you have a mix of states which have a unified (president and other races) primary and states which are having a separate presidential primary. But those states which wait until May or June for their presidential primary are more likely to have a unified primary.
This week, we have unified primaries in three states. (There are also runoffs in North Carolina, but most of the significant races will not have a runoff.) As listed in the title, the three states with unified primaries this week are Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia.
Starting with Maryland, the national Republican leadership has struggled for several cycles in their efforts to get their preferred candidates to run. However, in Maryland, they succeeded. Larry Hogan, the former governor who was term limited in 2022, opted to run for the Senate. As of May, Hogan’s personal popularity is making him a strong contender to take this Senate seat. Part of the fall campaign message from the Democrats in Maryland will be that a vote for Hogan is a vote to let Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, and Mike Lee run the Senate. Because the incumbent Democrat, Ben Cardin, is not running for reelection, the Democrats have a competitive primary. The two major candidates are Angela Alsobrooks who is the County Executive from Prince George County (the D.C. suburbs) and Congressman David Trone. Ms. Alsobrooks is the more progressive of the two candidates. The issue for Democratic voters is do they vote for the candidate who will excite the base but who might have trouble winning swing voters (Alsobrooks) or the candidate who is more likely to compete for swing voters but will have trouble exciting the base (Trone).
The decision of Trone to run for the Senate also opens up his seat. His seat (Sixth) is a swing seat that leans Democratic. There are two other open seats in which incumbent Democrats opted against seeking another term. These two seats (Second and Third) are a little bit safer. All three seats have a lot of candidates who have filed so there is a good chance that it may only take 30-40% to win the primaries for these seats.
While Nebraska will have two Senate elections this year (the regular one and a special election to fill the remainder of the term of former Senator Ben Sasse, the Democrats are only contesting the special election. But Democrats chances of winning a statewide race in Nebraska are not good. Both Republican Senators have primary opposition but should advance to the general election. The real race of interest is the Second Congressional District (the Omaha area). This district is a pure toss-up. Unlike in past cycles, the Democrats have avoided a primary. Incumbent Republican Don Bacon does have primary opposition, but his opponent is not well-funded. However, given Representative Bacon’s reputation of being relatively moderate (in terms of today’s Republican Party), an upset is not impossible (although unlikely).
Barring Senator Joe Manchin deciding at the last second to pursue an independent candidacy, it is extremely likely that the Republicans will pick up the Senate seat in West Virginia. This is another seat where the national Republicans got their preferred candidate (Governor Jim Justice) to file. However, the more extreme wing of the Republican Party also got their preferred candidate (Representative Alex Mooney) to file. The expectation is that Governor Justice will win, but that is not a sure thing.
With Governor Justice term-limited and running for Senate, you have a multi-candidate primary on the Republican side for Governor. The race is a who’s who of West Virginia Republican politics with several state-wide officials in the race along with the children of a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Representative. With Representative Mooney running for the Senate, there is also a multi-candidate primary on the Republican side for his seat.
The ugly reality of West Virginia is that the Republican primaries on Tuesday will effectively be the election. Doing the right thing for the environment has cost us votes in West Virginia given the coal industries role in the West Virginia economy. Eventually, with a strong economic policy, we might be able to get younger voters after the West Virginia economy diversifies, but, today, it is unrealistic to expect West Virginia voters to get how a post-coal West Virginia could be an economic success story.
In short, on the Democratic side, the story is Maryland. On the Republican side, the story is West Virginia. Barring a major upset, neither side is paying much attention to the primaries in Nebraska.
