Another week, another set of primaries. While the national media is focused on who will be the next Vice-President of the United States, the results of these elections will determine what seats might be competitive in November, and, in some cases, the winner is all but certain to be holding office in January. On Tuesday, there will be primaries in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington. On Saturday, there will be primaries in Hawaii.
In Kansas, Republican engaged in extreme gerrymandering. The Republicans’ problem in drawing lines is that half of the state’s population is in a handful of counties in Eastern Kansas covering the western suburbs of Kansas City, the state capitol in Topeka, and the University of Kansas in Lawrence. While not deep blue, this area is definitely bluer than the rest of the state. Under the pre-2020 lines, the Second District was a lean Republican district and the Third District was a swing district with a slight edge for the Democrats. To try to “fix” this, the Republicans in Kansas drew some weird lines to make the First District (western Kansas) and the Second District (Topeka and Lawrence) into a weird interlocking jigsaw puzzle which allowed moving some blue areas out of the Third District (K.C. suburbs) into the Second District while adding enough red areas into the Second District to make it redder. The impact was to make the Second District relatively safe while keeping the Third District competitive but slightly favorable to the Republicans.
During the past several cycles, the Second District has been something of a revolving door. The candidate elected in 2018 was scandal plagued and lost the primary in 2020. The candidate who won in 2020 got tired of the shenanigans in Washington after a mere four years and opted against seeking a third term. As a result, there are five candidates seeking the Republican nomination, three of whom are roughly equal in fundraising. The two leading candidates appear to be Jeff Kahrs who serves on the staff of the current representative and appears to have the endorsement of what passes for the Republican establishment in Kansas and former state Attorney General and failed gubernatorial candidate Derek Schmidt who has the support of the Trump wing of the Kansas party.
The Third District is currently held by Democrat Sharice Davids. While there is a Republican Primary, it does not appear to be competitive with Republicans uniting behind Dr. Presath Reddy who from the ads seems to be a full Trumper. While a moderate Republican might have a shot at the district, a far right Republican is at a big disadvantage in November.
As a swing state, Michigan has multiple primaries of interest. The big race is obviously the open U.S. Senate seat. On the Democratic side, Representative Ellen Slotkin is the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination. While the Republicans had several viable candidates, the otherwise dysfunctional Michigan Republican party seems to be unifying behind long-retired Representative Mike Rogers. His main opponent conceded once Trump endorsed Rogers leaving former Representative Justin Amash as the main challenger.
The Third District in Michigan (Grand Rapids and part of southwestern Michigan) is a swing district currently held by Democrat Hillary Scholten. The Republicans have two candidates who have previously failed in their effort to win other offices who have raises significant money for the primary. The establishment candidate appears to be Michael Markey who failed to qualify for the Republican primary for governor in 2022 due to fraudulent petitions.
Amazingly, with Representative Slotkin stepping up to run for Senate, there is not a contested primary in either party for the open seat in the Seventh District.
In the Eighth District (Northeastern Michigan), Democrat incumbent Dan Kildee is retiring after six terms. As a result, both parties have multiple candidates seeking their nominations. On the Democratic side, you have three candidates, all of whom have raised some money and have some significant endorsements. Kristen Rivet, a state senator from the district, seems to be in the lead according to the polling that has been released, but there are enough undecided voters that one of the other two could win the nomination. While there are other people running on the Republican side, the Republicans seem to be consolidating behind Paul Junge, a former Trump Administration official who lost in both 2020 and 2022 and is too conservative for this swing seat.
The Tenth District (just northeast of Detroit) is a swing district currently held by Republican John James who barely won in 2022. The candidate who barely lost in 2022, Carl Malinga is hoping for a rematch but there are two other well-funded challengers for the Democratic nomination. There hasn’t been any recent polling. In the previous polling, Mr. Malinga was in the lead but most voters were undecided.
Moving to Missouri, the best way to describe the primaries is chaos. Governor Mike Parsons is term limited out. And the chain reaction caused by that open seat has led to two other statewide primaries. The other two statewide offices (Treasurer and Attorney General) are technically not open, but they are filled by appointees as a result of vacancies created by the 2022 elections for other offices. Both appointees are also facing primary challenges.
Starting with the U.S. Senate, Josh Hawley has spent the past six years competing with Ted Cruz for the title of most obnoxious Senator (with Rick Scott running in third). Whether his behavior in D.C. is enough to harm him with a red state electorate is unclear but several candidates are trying for the Democratic nomination. Lucas Kunce ran in the Democratic primary in 2022. While he did not win, he built up a lot of good will with activists in rural Missouri. He, by far, has raised the most money, and the last poll gave him a substantial lead. However, as with other polls for primary elections, there are a large number of undecided voters.
Moving to Governor, there are three major candidates on the Republican side — and Donald Trump was unable to pick between them so he endorsed alll of them which has led to multiple ads claiming to be “the” candidate endorsed by Trump. The most “moderate” (but only in the sense of being less bat shit crazy) is the current Lieutenant Governor, Mike Kehoe. His main establishment opponent is Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft — son of former U.S. Attorney General — John Ashcroft. Jay Ashcroft’s two main accomplishments as Secretary of State were getting the presidential primary cancelled based on the fraudulent representation that it was not binding and abusing his office by writing false and misleading ballot summaries on petitions seeking to enshrine reproductive freedom in the Missouri Constitution. Lastly there is state Freedom Caucus member, Senator Bill Eigel. Most polls show Eigel in third place but are split on who is in first, and all show enough undecided voters to swing the election. For the past month, all of the candidates have been running fictional ads misrepresenting their own record and the record so the other two candidates. If Missouri were closer, Democrats would probably like Bill Eigel to get the nomination. But it’s not clear that Eigel could be beat in the general (although that would be the best chance for the Democrats). On the Democrat side, you have the current minority leader in the Missouri House — Crystal Quade — running against local businessman Mike Hamra. Representative Quade has the institutional support of most of the party leadership, but the most recent polls show a close race.
While there is a contested primary for both parties for Lieutenant Governor, the Lieutenant Governor has relatively few powers so I am going move on to Secretary of State. For the most part, elections in the state are run by local election authorities. While the Secretary of State has the ability to enact regulations that could make things difficult to run elections, it is the influence with the legislative process and the ability to change election laws that is the bigger concern. Additionally, Missouri allows citizens to propose ballot issues, but the petitions are processed through the Secretary of State’s office. Ultimately, when the Secretary of State violates the rules, the courts will step in and fix things, but there is a firm deadline for submitting signatures on petitions, and a hyper-partisan Secretary of State who is willing to break the law can make it harder for groups that he opposes to get their issues on the ballot. There are eight Republican candidates in the primary and most of them are election deniers who believe that elections are rife with fraud. For folks who want competency, the best candidate is probably Greene County County Clerk (the election authority in that lean Republican county) Shane Schoeller. The other candidates are two members of the Freedom Caucus, the disgraced Speaker of the House, and the State Senator who tried to stack the deck on new initiatives by putting forth a constitutional amendment that would put in place new rules that would allow a minority to block such proposals.
The state Attorney General race features a Republican primary. The two candidates are the current appointee and an attorney who represented Trump. Among the highlights of the incumbents two years in office are the loss at the Supreme Court on administration contacts with social media companies, and his current frivolous attempt to file a case in the Supreme Court to block the sentencing of Donald Trump in New York. Needless to say, there are no good choices here.
Moving to Congress, there are two big races. In the First District, the incumbent, Cori Bush is associated with the Squad. But as we have seen in other races, the Squad’s position on Palestine is out of touch with the majority of the Democratic Party. She is being challenged by a more moderate progressive, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell. This race seems to be a close two-ray race, but there are other candidates in the race. And the loss of votes to these other candidates might be what makes the difference in the race. This seat is solidly Democratic, and the primary winner should win the general electoin.
The other key primary is for an open Republican seat in the Third District. The two main candidates are two former state Senators — one from the Freedom Caucus side of the party (Bob Onder) and the other from the establishment side (Kurt Schaeffer). Mr. Schaeffer’s claim to fame is that he was supposed to be the Republican candidate for attorney general in 2016. But he got beat by Josh Hawley in the primary, and we all know the disasters that flowed from that upset. This district is solidly Republican, and the winner of the primary should win the general.
The primaries in Washington are different. Washington uses a “top two” system. As a result, it is possible to have two candidates from same party (or a candidate from a minor party) advance to the general election leaving the other major party out of the general election.
The Senate race does not look particularly competitive. Senator Maria Cantwell is likely to advance to the general. None of the other candidates are well-funded although Republican Raul Garcia does have the support of the Republican establishment and is likely to survive.
The race for governor is an open seat. There are nine Democrats, seven Republicans, and multiple third party candidates on the ballot. It looks like the leading Democrat is Attorney General Bob Ferguson and the leading Republican is former Congressman Dave Reichert, but there are enough undecided voters that Representative Reichert is not guaranteed to make the general election as there is a second Democrat and a second Republican with some support.
The most interesting of the Congressional races is in the Fourth District. The incumbent Republican representative, Dan Newhouse, is one of the few Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump. In 2022, the felon-in-chief tried and failed to defeat Newhouse. He is trying again, this time backing a different candidate (who got 12% in 2022). The issue in this race is whether the Democrats can unify behind a single candidate who would thereby finish in the top two. If the Democrats can get one candidate over 25%, you would then have a potential contest for the second slot between Representative Newhouse and the Trump candidate. While the district is a Republican district, I am not sure if the Trump candidate could win the general against a Democrat. If Representative Newhouse makes the general, he will be reelected.
The Fifth District is a little closer between the two parties and is an open seat. There are five Democrats and six Republicans running in the primary. There is no polling of this race, and both parties have three candidates with sufficient funding to run a serious campaign. It looks like Republican Michael Baumgartner is the leading candidate, but endorsements and fundraising does not always translate into votes. If either party can have two strong finishers while the other party’s vote is splintered, they might be able to get both general election slots.
There is another open seat in the Sixth District, but this seat leans Democratic. There are two Democrats and two Republicans in this race. As such, it is likely that we will end with one Democrat and one Republican in the general. Both Democrats have significant support (both endorsements and fundraising) making it unclear which one will advance. The Republicans are underfunded, but there are enough Republican votes in this district that, unless both parties split evenly down the middle, it will be hard for the Democrats to take both general election slots.
It does not look like there will be any competitive primaries in Hawaii other than the Republican Senate primary. None of the Republican Senate candidates look like a viable general election candidate.
Needless to say, there is a lot at issue on Tuesday. And since Washington uses mail-in ballots, it can sometimes take several days to determine the winners in a close race. But, particularly in Michigan and Washington, the results will determine what seats might be in play in November. In Missouri and Kansas, the main contests are in one-side seats with the winners on Tuesday likely to win in November.
