Tag Archives: Primaries

2022 Primary Season Part 2

By tmess2 | Published July 17, 2022

Tuesday marks the unofficial start of the second part of primary season.  Problems caused by redistricting have altered the normal calendar. with many states going out of their usual order.  Normally, there is a good break between the Spring primaries (typically ending by mid-June) and the Summer primaries (typically starting in early August).

Maryland which starts off the Summer primaries this week is a good example of that.  It was supposed to be at the tail end of the Spring primaries.  Instead, it got moved back three weeks.  It and the postponed state runoffs in North Carolina the following week are serving as a bridge between what is typically a five to six week break between the two halves.

The regularly scheduled primaries start the following week with Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington on Tuesday (August 2) and Tennessee on Thursday (August 4).  Arizona, Michigan, and Missouri all have races on their ballots which are best described as total chaos on the Republican side.  Michigan may be in the worst shape as several of their strongest candidates for Governor failed to make the ballot leaving a real clown car of a race.  The results from these three states will help frame the big question on the Republican side for this fall — how off the rails full on Trumpist will the Republican candidates be this fall.  The Democrats in same of these early states have our typical establishment vs. the Squad vs. Bernie Sanders vs. working class populism battles.  That struggle will also help define what the issues will be in the fall. Continue Reading...

Posted in Elections | Also tagged , , Comments Off on 2022 Primary Season Part 2

Primary Season — Late Spring

By tmess2 | Published April 29, 2018

Because each state gets to set its own primary date, primary season is a gradual thing.  Putting aside a handful of exceptions (and run-offs), most primaries fall into two clusters.  The first cluster occurs in May and June (starting on May 8 and ending on June 26).  The second cluster occurs in August and September (starting on August 2 and ending on September 13).  During both clusters, most primaries occur on Tuesday, and there is at least one state on each Tuesday (other than May 29).

On May 8, there are primaries in Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia.  Key primaries are the Republican Senate primary in Indiana and West Virginia.  Both are states won by Trump in which Democratic Senators are running for re-election.  In Indiana, you have three candidates running for the Republican nomination.  It’s not clear that it really matters who wins or that there is much difference between the candidates.  West Virginia is a different matter.  The Republicans are scared to death that Don Blankenship could get the nomination.  Blankenship is the former CEO of one of the state’s larger coal miner and did time in prison related to miners who died due to unsafe mining practices.  The national GOP has (through super-pacs) been running adds against Blankenship.  In Ohio, the key races are for Governor with both parties having primaries in the race to replace term-limited John Kasich and Ohio’s 12th District in which there is both a regular primary and a special election primary (most of the candidates are the same in both, so both parties should have the same winner for both primaries, but there is always the chance in a close race that there could be a split result).

On May 15, there are primaries in Idaho, Nebraska, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.  The big story is likely to be the new congressional districts in Pennsylvania.   Amazingly, there are no incumbent against incumbent primaries although there could be an incumbent against incumbent general election.  Given the newness of the lines, it will be interesting to see how the local interests will influence the candidates chosen. Continue Reading...

Posted in Democrats, Elections, GOP, House of Representatives, Senate | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment