Meanwhile, in House primaries across the country, Republicans largely opted to keep their incumbents, fending off challenges from candidates who tried to align more closely with former President Donald Trump.
The largest state to vote on Tuesday was California. But final results in many close races won’t be known for days or weeks, because mail-in ballots (the way most votes are cast in the state) postmarked by Election Day will be counted whenever they arrive. before the end of the week, and voters whose ballots encounter signature matching problems have time to “cure” those problems.
Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, New Jersey and South Dakota also held primaries on Tuesday.
Here are six takeaways from the day’s races:
The loss of Boudin, a mark against the progressive tax movement
The removal of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin may not have broad national implications (local issues and voter sentiments differ from city to city), but the loss is a clear mark against the movement. progressive group of prosecutors that Boudin’s victory in 2019 helped propel.
And it could serve as a warning to national Democrats that how voters in liberal strongholds feel about their cities, especially the rise in homelessness, is much more instructive about how they will vote than rates and data. real crime.
Boudin’s victory three years ago, over concerns about police misconduct, criminal justice reform and mass incarceration, marked a high point for the movement to elect more progressive prosecutors to top jobs. But his tenure was defined by the coronavirus pandemic and an overwhelming sense among San Franciscans that crime, especially property crime, was not a district attorney’s priority and was out of control.
Voters on Tuesday delivered a snap judgment on Boudin, signaling that his looser approach to certain types of crime is unacceptable.
Still, the loss is far from the end for liberal cities that elect progressive prosecutors. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner won re-election and Alvin Bragg, a former New York state and federal prosecutor, became Manhattan District Attorney in 2021, both victories for the progressive prosecutors movement.
Republican incumbents mostly survive challenges from the right
House Republicans who had faced primaries from the right, largely from challengers who argued the incumbents were not sufficiently supportive of Trump, either won or were positioned to survive Tuesday’s contests.
South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson fended off a challenge from state Rep. Taffy Howard, who criticized his vote to certify the 2020 election and accepted Trump’s lies about voter fraud.
New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, a moderate Republican who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, held off a group of challengers that included conservative radio host Mike Crispi, who was backed by Trump allies including Roger Stone and Rudy Giuliani.
In California’s open primary, in which the top two finishers regardless of party advance to the November general election, Representatives David Valadao and Young Kim, two Republicans who have won tough races, were in a position to advance after challenges. of Trump loyalists. , although there are still more votes to count.
One race to watch is a House primary in Montana. Ryan Zinke, a former congressman who resigned from a scandal-plagued term as Trump’s interior secretary and faced questions about his residency, narrowly edged out former state Sen. Al Olszewski as ballots were counted Wednesday morning.
A Mississippi Republican faces a revolt within the party
Rep. Steven Palazzo fell short of the majority he needed to avoid a primary runoff for his Mississippi Gulf Coast seat.
It’s still unclear who Palazzo will face on June 28, with Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell narrowly beating Hancock County businessman Clay Wagner for second place as of early Wednesday, but if Tuesday’s vote was a referendum on the incumbent, Palazzo could be serious. danger.
His main vulnerability came from a damaging ethics report that found he likely misused congressional and campaign funds, sent staff on personal errands, and tried to use his office to help his brother re-enlist in The marine.
Then there was his decision to sign a lawsuit against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the goal of ending proxy voting in Congress. The problem: Palazzo subsequently put the practice to good use, prompting accusations of hypocrisy from his rivals.
The cover came late in the campaign, when he asked to leave a candidate forum, citing “meetings that discussed national security,” an excuse badly undermined by his online posting of photos of a meal with his son at a local restaurant during the event.
Los Angeles mayoral race moves to second round
The race to be the next mayor of Los Angeles won’t be decided until November, and neither businessman Rick Caruso nor Rep. Karen Bass managed to win more than 50% of the vote on Tuesday night.
Caruso and Bass built on the need to address homelessness and crime, but approached the problems with markedly different solutions and styles, distinctions that will likely define their campaigns through November.
Caruso, a real estate developer who has worked for years to amass private power in Los Angeles, argued that the city was in a “state of emergency,” citing “rampant homelessness” and “people living in fear for their safety.” Caruso promised to increase the size of the Los Angeles Police Department, opposing the effort to “defund the police.”
Bass, a longtime congressman and former member of the California State Assembly, ran more as a progressive, highlighting her ties to the city and her years of service representing it.
But Caruso’s strong performance on Tuesday will be a warning to more traditional Democrats running on the basis of their record, especially if most of that time was spent in Congress, a body that is currently little appreciated by both Democrats and Republicans. alike.
The Democratic establishment rules New Jersey. Again.
It was a lousy night for progressive fringes in the Democratic primary in New Jersey, where the party’s heavyweights, and the machinery that ensures their influence, claimed a series of resounding victories.
In the 10th Congressional District, Rep. Donald Payne Jr. easily defeated left-handed challenger Imani Oakley, former legislative director of Working Families of New Jersey. Oakley had raised money at a better rate than expected, but Payne benefited from reinforcements from established allies, backing Oakley never received from progressives.
Payne’s low profile on Capitol Hill, occupying a seat that replaced his late father a decade ago, could have made the North Jersey district attractive to progressive groups had he shown signs of weakness on Tuesday. But his outright renaming could also serve to avoid another better-organized challenge in two years.
It was an equally bleak story for progressives in the nearby 8th congressional district, where Robert Menendez Jr., the son of New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, crushed his rivals David Ocampo Grajales and Ane Roseborough-Eberhard.
Menendez Jr., who never held office, is on track to replace retired Rep. Albio Sires, who, along with a litany of local power brokers, backed the younger Menendez from the start, effectively eliminating any chance of a competitive career.
A rising star fades in Iowa
In 2018, Abby Finkenauer rode the national blue wave to become a member of Congress and a rising star in the Iowa Democratic Party.
Four years and two losses later, Finkenauer has all but faded.
The former congresswoman lost to Mike Franken in the Senate Democratic primary Tuesday, setting up a showdown between the retired Navy admiral and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the longtime lawmaker running for his eighth term. But the story of the Democratic primary is how a candidate seen as a safe bet for the nomination blew her chance.
Democrats have long been skeptical that, should Grassley run, Finkenauer or any Democrat in Iowa could oust him. But when he announced it last year, Finkenauer was seen as the obvious favorite: a former member of Congress with close ties to President Joe Biden who won a Republican-leaning district in 2018 but lost a close race two years later.
Then came campaign mishaps, most notably when Finkenauer’s campaign cut the number of signatures needed to get on the primary ballot too low, opening the door for a challenge to his appearance. The Democrat only qualified after the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in April that she could appear, reversing a lower court ruling.
The loss of Finkenauer is another example of how quickly someone on the rise in a game can go down.
Reference-www.cnn.com