Wins Pile Up for the New York Left - defeats of incumbents, wins in open seats, and incumbents holding on to their seats.
UPDATED: DECISION 2020: Absentee Ballots Yield Tide of Fresh-Faced Progressives – Streetsblog New York City
The Surge: Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are in trouble.
In MI-13 back in 2018, RT beat Brenda Jones by 1% with four additional candidates. Now all four have lined up behind BJ, meaning that RT won't be helped by vote splitting.
As for the nonmath: Jones has been critical of Tlaib’s flamboyant and outspoken style. “There are things that I might feel, but I just don’t say in public and an example is ‘impeach the M-F’ on the very first day,” Jones told the Associated Press. “Not to say you’re going to always agree, but you have to be able to work with those people because you never know who you’re going to need in order to get things done that need to be done.”
But RT has raised some $2.9 M, about 20 times as much as BJ.
TX-21 is one of those gerrymandered Texas districts: a bit of Austin with some big area of surrounding countryside. But its polling is now neck-and-neck between D Wendy Davis and R Chip Roy, $4.5 M vs. $2.6 M.
NM-02 -- Xochitl Torres Small won in 2018 by 1.8%, and her old opponent, Yvette Herrell, is back. XTS has $4 M vs. YH's $379 K
MN-05 -- Ilhan Omar is being challenged by Antone Melton-Meaux, a first-time candidate.
Despite being a political novice, Melton-Meaux raised an absurd $3.2 million in the second quarter of this year to Omar’s $471,000, with much of it coming from large donors: About $3 million of that $3.2 million came from donations of $200 or more. Omar, who represents a sizable Jewish community in her district, has been the face of multiple national controversies for her perceived use of coded anti-Semitic language. And as we’re writing this, there’s a new round of controversy brewing about the language with which Omar’s mailers criticize Melton-Meaux’s donors, while Melton-Meaux’s campaign has released an FAQ saying that the money he’s received from the Jewish community would not influence his decisions. Basically, it’s not great.
KS-02 -- the R's got it by 1% in 2018, and they seemed likely to hold onto it.
And then last week, the incumbent, freshman Rep. Steve Watkins, goes and gets himself charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor related to listing a UPS box as his home address on a voter registration form. It’s not great to be charged with offenses your own party treats as the worst of all crimes. But true character shines in how one owns up to mistakes. And once he was caught, well, Watkins did the right thing: He passed off all blame to his staff. His primary against 32-year-old Kansas State Treasurer Jake LaTurner is on Aug. 4. Democrats, presumably, would prefer to run against the guy who recently has been charged with three felonies.
TX-23 -- "An expensive Cruz-Trump proxy war, and for what?" Then a lot of drama llama. "Anyway, the winner will face the Democrat’s 2018 candidate, Gina Ortiz Jones, who’s the favorite to flip this highly flippable district now that Hurd is out of the picture."
MA-01 -- "One last opportunity for progressives to take out a chairman." Rep. Richard Neal, head of the Ways and Means Committee, acceptor of big money and slow-walker of investigations of Pres. Trump. "Neal has been highlighting how much he’s used his perch to deliver for his district, though, with ads that demonstrate how he was able to save the local country club." Yes, he brings home the bacon, er, pork.
There are some other big-name Democrats who may yet be primaried, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz FL-23 and William Lacy Clay MO-01.
ever heard of this guy you genius you, Don Chipp ? You second question doesn't deserve a reply!