Plus Trump's Kiss Of Death Shows Up In Utah, South Carolina & Colorado
Yesterday, New York Democratic primary voters, given a choice between a great candidate and a shit candidate in Westchester, between a good candidate and a shit candidate in Syracuse and between a decent candidate and a shit candidate in Suffolk County, picked shit all three times. The NY-16 race, pitting GOP billionaires using AIPAC as a front, was the most expensive congressional primary in history. Close to $20 million in crypto-criminal cash, pro-genocide money and just plain anti-progressive money went into smearing Jamaal Bowman. Bowman won by a massive 84% landslide in the Bronx part of the district, but that wasn’t enough to overcome the tidal wave on sewer money that swamped his campaign in Westchester, where that county’s Executive, George Latimer, won and will be headed to Congress, just another Republican-lite corporate Democrat to make the congressional party even less palatable to progressives.
NY-22 is the state’s most swingy district (PVI is D+1, partisan lean is D+2), although Democrats foolishly keep ceding it to the GOP by nominating Republican-lite candidates. The incumbent is a MAGA Republican, Brandon Williams who should be very vulnerable but… yesterday the Dems picked one of teh worst members of the state legislature, conservative shit-head John Mannion over an ever so slightly progressive-leaning alternative, Sarah Klee Hood in a low turnout yawn of a primary, Klee being absolutely swamped in the bluest parts of the district, a testament to a tepid and confused campaign strategy by someone afraid to embrace her own progressive positions. Syracuse deserves a real advocate… and maybe one day Democrats will get it together. That hasn’t happened in recent decades. Biden will win this district in November and their representative in Congress will be a conservative.
But probably the worst choice among New York primary voters was for pretend Democrat John Avlon out in Suffolk County, where he won the nomination against a normal Democrat. The right-wing Avlon buried centrist physics professor Nancy Goroff 19,026 (70.3%) to 8,053 (29.7%). The entire rotting New York political establishment endorsed Avlon. I asked one of his endorsers why he had endorsed a Republican who had been Giuliani’s long-time speech-writer. He said he didn’t know Avlon beyond the fact that he was a CNN contributor, was unaware on his Giuliani connection but felt Goroff was too physically unattractive to win against Nick LaLota, who no one would ever describe as “handsome.” LaLota, is almost certain to beat Avlon, who will be unable to motivate progressive voters in November. (PVI is R+3, partisan lean is R+5)
As for the NY-10 race, there was, unfortunately, never really a chance at dislodging Dan Goldman after a hapless and confused Mondaire Jones handed him the super-progressive district in 2022 by cock-blocking Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou. Primary School’s Nick Tagliaferro summed up the current state of affairs perfectly: “Rep. Dan Goldman has no business representing one of the most progressive districts in America, but he’s going to get a second term anyway. The New York left’s failure to field a serious challenge here is almost as embarrassing as the New York left’s failure to figure out what the hell they’re going to do about Eric Adams next year. Goldman is a centrist who used his fortune as an heir to Levi’s Jeans to purchase this district in 2022, and his membership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus serves as a reminder that the CPC’s membership standards are meaningless. Local organizer Evan Hutchison is staking his low-budget campaign on a Gaza ceasefire, and climate activist Bruno Grandsard is an earnest policy wonk who seems to just bristle at the way Goldman got his seat in Congress; they’ll serve as outlets for protest votes.”
In the low turnout contest, Goldman beat Hutchison 22,708 (66.1%) to 8,073 (23.5%) with Grandsard trailing badly with 3,599 910.5%). It's worth noting that Goldman is an AIPAC whore-- already over $200,000 in his first term, in gratitude for his disgusting pro-genocide position-- possibly making him vulnerable to a good challenge in 2026.
The state legislative races people were watching were for :
AD-18 (Hempstead) where the slightly more progressive former New York Jets player, Noah Burroughs, seems to have beaten the slightly less progressive Lisa Ortiz 52-48%
AD-37 (Long Island City, Sunnyside, Ridgewood, Maspeth) where moderate incumbent Juan Ardila got caught up in a career-ending sex scandal and was destined for a third place finish behind progressive DSA candidate Claire Valdez and another moderate, Johanna Carmona. Valdez won… overwhelmingly, beating the 2 moderates with 59% of the vote.
AD-40 (Flushing) one of Queens’ most conservative areas saw a bid to replace Ron Kim with a right-wing Democrat swimming in suspicious cash, Yi Andy Chen. Kim was lucky than another right-wing Chinese candidate, Dao Yin jumped into the race as well. Kim won handily with 54% of the vote, better than anyone had predicted.
AD-41 (Flatlands, Midwood, Sheepshead Bay, where I grew up) saw very right-wing Kalman Yeger, already backed by the GOP and the Conservative Party also won the Democratic nomination last night with 71%. This used to be one of the bluest districts in New York; now it’s one of the reddest.
AD-56 (Bed-Stuy)- Shitty Brooklyn establishment incumbent, Stefani Zinerman, with lots of AIPAC-type help, beat back a progressive challenge by Eon Tyrell Huntley 53-47%.
AD-92 (Greenburgh and Mount Pleasant), where centrist ex-Assemblyman Thomas Abinanti tried for a comeback against progressive freshman MaryJane Shimsky. She beat him 60-40.
AD-103 (Kingston), where Sarahana Shrestha successfully defended her seat against big-spending conservaDem Gabi Madden, who she clocked 66% to 34%.
AD-109 (Albany), where the 6-person race wound up with the most progressive candidate, Gabriella Romero winning with 30%of the vote, the closest runner-up being one of the establishment candidates, Ginnie Farrell with 21%.
Albany County had a big race for D.A. where progressive Lee Kindlon ousted arch conservative incumbent David Soares, basically another Republican pretending to be a Democrat in a blue constituency. Soares, a vile and personally corrupt opponent of criminal justice reform, lost with 45% to Kindlon’s 55%.
As for the last night, the only other thing I want to mention is the way Trump’s kiss of death has been rearing its head again in GOP primaries. His endorsements work sometimes… but not all the time and sure didn’t do anything to save far right not Trent Staggs from a huge defeat by mainstream conservative John Curtis in the race to replace Mitt Romney. Curtis, in fact, is very much like Romney politically and beat the Trump-backed MAGAt in every county in the state but rural Washington County in the southwest corner. Staggs was backed by the whole fetid Mar-a-Lago swamp: Kari Lake, Rick Grenell, Kash Patel, Vivek Ramaswamy, Matt Gaetz, Tommy Tuberville, Charlie Kirk… all the hangers on. In the 4-person race, with 80% of the votes counted this is how it looked this morning:
Also in Utah, mainstream conservative Governor Spencer Cox beat back MAGA crazy Phil Lyman 56.7% to 43. And the mainstream conservative running for Attorney General, Derek Brown, also beat back his MAGA challenger. The MAGA candidate for 2nd congressional district, Colby Jenkins, lost to mainstream conservative incumbent Celeste Maloy (who Trump backed), 51.8% to 48.2%.
Trump lost out in other races where he backed candidates as well. One of his crackpot spiritual advisers, severely mentally deranged homophobic psychopath Mark Burns, was in a runoff against a vanilla establishment candidate for an open South Carolina House seat and the MAGA loon and compulsive liar Trump was backing lost to Sheri Biggs, 28,130 (51.0%) to 27,043 (49.0%).
In Colorado, Trump backed state party chair, Dave Williams, another Republican obsessed with penises , making his campaign all about “God Hates Pride, ” gays as “godless groomers” and “creeps.” It was also noted that the was stealing state party fund. Yesterday he lost to a more traditional conservative, Jeff Crank, in the far right 5th district (Colorado Springs). It was a blowout and a major rejection of Trump in extreme right El Paso county— 65.4% to 34.6%.