The only thing noteworthy about the presidential primaries is that the Republican vote against Trump was much stronger than anyone anticipated. While around 1 in 10 Democratic primary voters cast their ballots for protest candidates, 1 in 5 Republicans voted for Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis, candidates who are out of the race and just not-Trump. Trump’s share by state:
Arizona- 77.9% (nearly 120,000 anti-Trump voters)
Florida [closed primary/no independents]- 81.2% (nearly 200,000 anti-Trump voters)
Ohio- 79.2% (nearly 200,000 anti-Trump voters)
Illinois- 80.7% (nearly 100,000 anti-Trump voters)
Kansas- 75.5% (nearly 20,000 anti-Trump voters)
Exit polls— for whatever they’re worth— showed that 9% of Republicans would probably vote for Biden and another 7% of GOP primary voters wouldn’t vote at all in November.
The rest of what I found interesting last night was down-ballot on Ohio and Illinois. Let’s start with Ohio, where the big news is that both Sherrod Brown (and the Dems) and Trump got the candidate they wanted. While Trump campaign vigorously for him, the Democratic Party (Senate Majority PAC—> Majority Forward—> Duty & Country PAC) spent at least $4 million on ads promoting fatally-flawed MAGA candidate Bernie Moreno. Polls have consistently shown him the weakest general election candidate against Brown. Although he didn’t get anywhere near the 889,000 votes Trump got (just 553,000), he won with 50.5% in a 3-way race and win in every single county. Ohio MAGA got the message and largely ignored Moreno’s late-breaking gay sex scandal.
There were two significant House primaries. One was to replace retired Bill Johnson in the eastern Ohio Appalachian district (OH-06) and one was to pick an opponent for Marcy Kaptur in the northwest part of the state (OH-09). The 6th had a mainstream conservative (state Sen. Michael Rulli), a self-financing MAGA nut (state Rep. Reggie Stoltzfus) and a random chiropractor who said he was upset about the train derailment in East Palestine (Rick Tsai). Rulli was endorsed by the House Main Street Caucus, an anti-Freedom Caucus group. He won with 49.6% to Stoltzfus’ 40.7%. Winning big in Mahoning and Columbiana counties put him over the top, while Stoltzfus generally racked up narrow wins in the more rural and backward parts of the district plus his own Stark County.
In the 9th district, the Republicans’ were desperate to get MAGA crackpot/loser RJ Majewski to drop out. Trump promised him a job if he did and he bowed out a few weeks ago. At that point everyone endorsed former state Rep Craig Riedel… until Matt Gaetz, Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon exposed him as a Trump-hater— at which point everyone (led by Max Miller and Elise Stefanik) ran for the exits and then endorsed state Rep Derrick Merrin— and that includes Señor T. Riedel spent $125,000 of his own— and raised the most of any of the 4 Republicans left in the race after Majewski departed— but Merrin beat him decisively— 52.5% to 34.4%.
I’d like to also add that although it was no surprise, Jerrad Christian is now the official Democratic Party candidate taking on Republican waste-of-a-seat Troy Balderson. Please help him celebrate with a contribution, keeping in mind that grassroots effort like Christian’s is built on small contributions, so even $10 or $20 is what will help him compete effectively with the billionaire-funded MAGA messaging machine. And by the way, even if you think Christian's race is too steep, remember, the moribund Ohio Democratic Party will in no way campaign in counties like Muskingum, Knox, Guernsey, Perry, etc... And remember, a vote for Sherrod Brown in Muskingum is worth exactly the same as a vote for Brown in Cleveland, Cincinnati or Columbus.
Regarding the state legislature, there was just one race I was watching— for a state Senate seat in the Dayton area. I was eager to see Tony Hall’s anti-Choice daughter, Jyl, lose; she did, coming in third of 3 candidates with just 22.9%.
Illinois was a lot busier for me, at least in terms of progressives running for office. On the congressional side, progressive challengers Mahnoor Ahmad lost her race against Sean Casten with 14%, Kina Collins lost to Danny Davis with 18% (the filthy pro-genocide lobbyists, AIPAC, pouring half a million dollars into the race against Collins) and Qasim Rashid lost to Bill Foster with 23%. AIPAC, Jr (DMFI) spent $40,000 in the 11th district bolstering the pro-genocide Foster. The only other congressional races I was watching was crackpot Fox News-Democrat Raymond Lopez’s vanity campaign against Chuy Garcia, whe took 31% of the vote, and the GOP insurgency against conservative Mike Bost by Matt Gaetz-backed MAGAt Darren Bailey. Trump killed Bailey’s chances by endorsing Bost, who won 51.4% to 48.6%. Basically, Bost won the St Louis suburbs and the whole western side of the district and Bailey won the eastern end of the district. Bost spent $2.2 million to Bailey’s $400,000, about a quarter of which was self-funded.
And that takes us to the state legislature, or at least to the handful of seats that were actually contested. There was just one state Senate seat we were watching. In the Logan Square North Side area, appointed non-progressive incumbent Natalie Toro, was defeated by progressive challenger Graciela Guzmán, who had been endorsed by Bernie. Self-funder crypto-nut Dave Nyack failed to make any impact. The Senate Dems flooded the district with a couple of million dollars to keep Guzmán, who raised just $658,000, from winning. They lost; she beat Toro 50-30, a stunning outcome.
There was a lot more going on in the state House. In the Humbolt Park/Ukrainian Village (4th district), self funding conservative Kirk Ortiz challenged progressive Lilian Jiménez. She kicked his ass, 82-18%, just the way it should be. The 5th district, which include the Loop, has an appointed incumbent Kimberly (“Neely”) du Buclet and she was challenged by xenophobic lunatic and Fox News Democrat Andre Smith. She beat him 75-25%. Similarly in the 6th district (more Loop, South Side), Sonya Harper fended off police-backed conservative toady Joseph Williams 72-28%. HD-21 (Berwyn, Cicero, Bridgeview) has a great incumbent, Berniecrat Abdelnasser Rashid, who helped smash the corrupt Madigan machine. He was challenged by Chicago Tribune-backed cop Vidal Vasquez. Rashid clobbered him 67% to 33%. The progressive incumbent in South Lawndale/Brighton Park area (HD-23) is Edgar Gonzalez and he beat back a challenge by a right-wing Democratic college student, Joseph Mercado, 79-21%. Maybe the most important of these Chicago House races was in Chinatown/Pilsen (HD-24) where progressive incumbent Theresa Mah crush right-wing fake Democrat Lai Ching Ng, 76% to 24%. Ng ran on a Republican privatization platform and didn’t deserve to win nearly a quarter of the vote.
There was bad news in the southwest suburbs of Oak Lawn and Palos Hills, where wealthy right-wing, anti-Choice nut Rick Ryan, a pretend-Democrat, beat progressive Sonia Khalil, 57-43%.
The race for Cook County State’s Attorney is still to close to call with around 85% of the vote counted. Conservative Eileen Burke is leading the somewhat more progressive Clayton Harris.
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