Category Archives: Primary Elections

The End of Primary Season

The U.S. is different from most other democracies in how we run elections.  One major difference is that, in most other countries, the local party committees (with some suggestions from the national party) pick the candidates.  In the U.S. that only happens (and in only in some states) when there is a special election.  Instead, the rule in most states is that candidates for the general election are chosen by partisan primaries.

And because there is no federal law governing the timing of primaries, it is up to the states to decide when they want to hold their primaries.  But, because federal law does set the date of the general election for presidential electors, U.S. Senators, and U.S. Representatives (the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November) and also requires that absentee ballots e mad available by early October to military voters, the latest that a state can hold their primary (and canvass the ballots at the state level) while still having time to print general election ballots is around mid-September.  So, particularly, in a presidential election year, primary season runs from February through September.

We are down now to the last four states to hold primaries.  (Louisiana, technically, does not have a primary.  Instead, they use a semi-nonpartisan general election on which all candidates from all parties appear on the general election ballot with a runoff several weeks later if nobody gets a majority.) Continue Reading...

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August 13 Primaries — Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin

As we are nearing the mid-way point of the summer primaries, there are four states with primaries during this upcoming week — Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin.  However, compared to some previous weeks, this week should be relatively low on drama.

Connecticut is one of those states that uses party conventions as a screening tool for the primary.   There are two ways to get on the primary ballot — getting enough votes at the party convention or getting enough signatures on a petition.  There are only two primaries on the ballot (at least above the state legislative level), both on the Republican side — one for U.S. Senate and one for the Fourth District.  However, neither of the Republican candidates for Senate are funded at anywhere near the level that would make them a viable general election candidate.  While the two candidates in the Fourth have some money, the Fourth District is solidly Democratic.  In other words, neither or these primaries will make much difference in November.

Minnesota has some primaries that might be significant. Continue Reading...

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Primary Elections — Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Washington, Hawaii

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. Continue Reading...

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Arizona and Tennessee Primaries

After several weeks with no voting (other than a special election in New Jersey and some elections overseas), the primary season starts back up again on Tuesday with the Arizona primary followed by Tennessee on Thursday.

In Arizona, the key race is the Republican Primary featuring 100% insane Kari Lake against 90% insane Mark Lamb.  Despite the fact that Kari Lake has more that won out her welcome with swing voters, the Republican “establishment” seems to have unified behind her.  It’s been some time since there have been polls released in the race.  The last polls had Ms. Lake just short of 50% with a third candidate also on the race.  There were still enough undecideds that Sheriff Lamb could eek out the win, but most likely Ms. Lake will be the nominee.  And that is good news for the Democrats as Ms. Lake will spend half her time whining about how the 2022 governor’s race was “stolen” and how McCain Republicans are RINOs who need to get out of the party.  Those two tendencies will hurt both her and Donald Trump (who has the same tendencies except for substituting 2020 for 2022).

Moving to the Congressional elections, the First District (the northeastern suburbs of Phoenix is a swing district.  The incumbent Republican has token opposition, but the Democratic primary has six candidates, five of whom have raised over $1 million for the primary.  Not surprisingly, the latest polling shows nobody over 20% with one-third of the voters still undecided.  Basically, anybody could win the primary. Continue Reading...

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June Primaries — Colorado, New York, and Utah (and South Carolina runoffs)

The last ten days of June are going to be busy — 20+ Supreme Court opinions, maybe the first (and only) presidential debate of the cycle, and the last of the “Spring” primaries.  The last Tuesday in June features three states (along with the runoffs in South Carolina).

In South Carolina, the only congressional race to make it to the runoff was in the third district.  This was expected given the number of candidates running.  In the first round, Mark Burns finished 4 percent ahead of Sheri Biggs.  As he only had 33% of the vote, in theory, that meant a very competitive runoff would follow.  But Donald Trump has put his thumb on the scale behind Mark Burns, a wannabe theocrat.  In similar situations, in other states, the second place candidate has opted to stand down.  Apparently, Ms. Biggs is not conceding, but her chances do not look good.

In Colorado, the big news is the open primaries in all three Republican-held seat, especially the game of muscial chairs in the third and fourth districts.  The current representative in the third is Lauren Boebert.  Representative Boebert managed to tick off enough of her neighbors with her personal misconduct (google Beetlejuice and Boebert) and her utter lack of seriousness in Congress.  So she was looking at a competitive primary and a serious general election challenger.  Fortunately for her, she also annoyed ultra-conservative Representative Ken Buck enough that he could not take wasting another day in Congress with folks like Boebert throwing away the Republican majority.    So he decided that he was not only not going to seek another term, but that he was also going to resign.  Now for state and local politicians from the Fourth District, this decision was the opening that they had been waiting for.  They had built up their reputations in their own part of the Fourth District and were ready to try to step up a level.  But for Representative Boebert, it was a lifeline.  You don’t need to reside in the district that you represent; so she decided that she was going to switch districts.  As a result, there are open primaries in  both the third and fourth district rather than just the fourth district.  There is also the nasty need to hold a special election in the fourth.  Representative Boebert could not run in the special election because that would require giving up her current seat.  But the special election is on the same day as the primary.  If one of her opponents had gotten picked by the party to run in the special election, that might give them an edge in the primary.  Representative Boebert managed to convince the Colorado Republicans to go with somebody who was not seeking the full term as the candidate in the special election. Continue Reading...

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Late Spring Primaries — June 11 and June 18.

Yesterday marked the last presidential primary contests (in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands).  While some states have a unified primary (presidential and state/congressional), others do not.  while a significant number of the spring state/congressional primaries are part of a unified primary, there are some states that have a separate spring state/congressional primary.  Ten states are having state or congressional primaries over the next three weeks.  After June 25, there will be a month-break with the rest of the primaries taking place in August and September.    Additionally, there will be a special election in Ohio.  A big theme of these primaries will be what happens to some Republican agents of chaos.

Starting with the elections on June 11, first up is Maine.  Both congressional districts are currently held by Democrats.  In both districts, there is a Republican primary.  The first district leans Democratic and the second district leans Republican.   Thus, it is not a surprise that there is a little more money in the Republican primary in the second district.  Both of the Republican candidates in the second district are state representatives.

Unlike Maine, things are a little more chaotic in Nevada.  The Republicans have ten candidates running for U.S. Senate for the right to challenge Jacky Rosen.  The top two fundraiser on the Republican side are Sam Brown (the preferred candidate of the national party) and Jeff Gunter who has gotten significant support from the Freedom Caucus.  Depending on which poll you trust, either Sam Brown has a comfortable lead or it is a dead heat.  At the house level, all three of the Democratic seats are lean Democratic seats, and you have multiple candidates running for the Republican nomination in all three (three in the fourth district, six in the first district, and seven in the third district). Continue Reading...

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2024 Primaries — Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, and Oregon (and California Special Election)

This week several states have primaries, but it is unlikely that many of them will be significant.  In addition, we have the runoff in California for Kevin McCarthy’s old seat.

Starting with the special election in California.  Under the top two system in California, the Republicans got both slots in the runoff.  So when the results are finally certified in June, the Republicans will go back up to 218 seats.  The only issue is which Republican gets the slot — McCarthy’s handpicked successor (Vince Fong) or County Sheriff Michael Boudreaux.  This is likely to be a low turnout election which means that anything could happen.  The same two candidates have made the general election in November which will have much higher turnout, but the winner on Tuesday will have a major advantage for the November election.

Georgia had to redraw districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act, but Republicans in the legislature solved that issue by simply redrawing the map so that the Democratic district was majority-minority and making the Republican district whiter (with the numbers flipped).  Thus, the end result in Georgia is likely to be the same.  For the most part, incumbents are likely to prevail, but some incumbents ended up with significantly altered districts.  Additionally, the Third District is an open seat.  Starting with the Third District, this rural district in western Georgia will almost certainly go Republican in November.  There are five candidates running.  The most likely outcome on Tuesday will be a runoff.  The top three candidates in fundraising are Mike Crane, Michael Dugan, and Brian Jack, and it is likely that two of the three will make the runoff.  The other race of interest is the Sixth District.  This race is the one most likely impacted by the redrawing of the lines.  Representative Lucy McBath currently represents the Seventh District.  That district was chopped up to avoid the Democrats gaining a seat in redistricting, and Representative McBath is now running in the Sixth District.  As best as I can tell, there is no overlap between the new Sixth and the old Seventh.  While Representative McBath will be favored in this race, there is a chance of an upset.  Unfortunately, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene did not draw any primary opponents and thus is likely to be back for another term. Continue Reading...

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2024 Primaries — Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia

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). Continue Reading...

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Primary Elections — Week of March 18

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. Continue Reading...

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Super Tuesday Week

Tuesday is Super Tuesday — the first Tuesday of the primary cycle in which any state can hold a primary contest.  As most states use state-run primaries, there will be a large number of states on Tuesday.

But, before Super Tuesday, several states that are using party-run contests will be holding Republican contests as the “window” for the Republicans opened yesterday.  (The “window” for Democrats opens on Tuesday.)  As discussed last week, one of the contests today is the second half of the Republican’s Michigan two-step with the Republican state convention which will be allocating the “district” level delegates.  In addition to Michigan, today will see events in Missouri and Idaho.

The Missouri Republican rules are somewhat ambiguous.  It looks like they are doing a traditional caucus with a 15% threshold and an unspecified winner-take-all kicker at local option.  But rather than allocating delegates based on today’s vote (which is what the national rules appear to require), they are merely binding the delegates chosen today to vote the same preference at the district conventions (which should effectively have the same result).  Missouri is using a caucus because our current Secretary of State repeatedly lied and claimed that the state-run primary was nonbinding (when the rules of both party made the primary binding) and a repeal of the primary was slipped into an omnibus election bill which passed despite the unanimous opposition of Democratic legislature).  The Democrats will be holding a party-run primary in three weeks with a mail-in option. Continue Reading...

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