Yesterday's Primary Results Are Still Coming In, But It Was A Mixed Bag For Progressives

Endorsements By The 2 Disliked Party Leaders-- Trump & Biden-- Are Not Keys To Victories

The polls in North Carolina and Kentucky always close early and often bring bad news to start the night of election watching. Last night was like the Super Tuesday of 2022 primaries and it got off to a depressing start. Was the only thing worth celebrating to be the loss of Madison Cawthorn, something I have very mixed feelings about? Trump's candidate, fascist Ted Budd won-- and won very big... 58.6% against former governor and hard core conservative Pat McCrory with just 24.6%. There was no doubt that on the Democratic side, Schumer's Kyrsten Sinema of 2022-- Cheri Beasley-- would be the nominee. She won with 81.1%. I can't imagine that she has any chance of beating Budd, and if she did, she would be one helluva terrible senator. On the bright side, lots of Democratic consultants are going to get very rich off her doomed and pointless campaign.

Much more important-- and depressing-- were the devastating losses in NC-01 and NC-04, where AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel sewer money-- much of it Republican-- flooded into the districts at the last moment to defeat stalwart progressives Erica Smith-- where anti-Choice reactionary Don Davis (to the right of Manchin) won with 63.2% and a more conventional establishment Dem, Valerie Foushee, beat Nida Allam, 46% to 37%.

AIPAC deployed $2,438,047 against Erica and $2,128,194 against Nida and Mark Mellman's Democratic Majority for Israel threw in another $466,706 against Erica and $290,131 against Nida. Crypto-wealth played in the NC-04 race as well, with Bankman-Fried's Protect Our Future PAC spending $1,040,133 against Nida.

Then came the results from Kentucky, where the movement progressive-- and favorite-- to replace John Yarmuth, Attica Scott was beaten by Morgan McGarvey, whois progressivish. Both the Protect of Future PAC ($971,552) and Mellman's Democratic Majority for Israel ($52,141) jumped in to help defeat Scott, who wound up with just 37% to McGarvey's 63% of the vote. She would have been a spectacular leader. But I think he'll be pretty good.

Southwest of Louisville is the prohibitively red second district. But a strong progressive, Hank Lindeman decided to challenge entrenched Trumpist Brett Guthrie and, in the process, try to revitalize the rural Democrats in his state. Last night he won his primary handily-- 58% to 42% for Bill Compton. If you're in a contributing mood today, that Blue America thermometer on the left is for progressives running in districts that Trump won in 2020. You'll find Linderman there, as well as Chris Deluzio, who also won his race yesterday.

Next up was Pennsylvania. John Fetterman, an independent-minded off duck with a districtly progressive lean, beat conservative establishment Dem Conor Lamb better than 2 to 1-- 59.0% to 26.5%. Meanwhile, the Republicans don't have a winner yet and they probably won't until recounts and hand counts and lots of screeching about stolen elections. This morning Mehmet Oz was leading Dave McCormick by around 2 thousand votes out of 1.3 million cast. The race was a huge self-funder and outside money clusterfuck. McCormick self-funded $11,000,000 and Oz self-funded $12,055,916. In terms of independent expenditures, over $18 million came in against Oz, $4 million against McCormick and $2 million against Kathy Barnette. Another million was spent supporting Oz, $4.3 million supporting McCormick and $2.3 million bolstering Barnette.

Alexandra Hunt, the Blue America-endorsed long shot candidate against corrupt establishment shill Dwight Evans, ran a great pr campaign, raised $623,957 to Evans' $787,201 but failed to gain much traction and lost badly-- 76.3% to 19.5%.

Far to the west, Blue America was invested in two much more competitive races. The district Conor Lamb gave up in the suburbs west of Pittsburgh (PA-17) went strongly for Chris Deluzio, who beat Sean Meloy 63.2% to 36.8%, winning strongly in both Allegheny and Beaver counties. The district is still a swing district but was redrawn from an R+1 to a D+2, so Deluzio has a legitimate shot to become a congressman. He raised about half a million dollars and will now face self-funded Jeremy Shaffer, who put $507,858 of his own into his race.

The biggest race for movement progressives in the state was the Pittsburgh contest pitting state rep Summer Lee against the AIPAC establishment guy, Steve Irwin. This is still extremely close but Summer is ahead with 93% of teh vote counted. She beat him in Pittsburgh itself but he did well in Westmoreland County. As we publish the count looks like this:

• Summer Lee- 46,589 (41.7%)

• Steve Irwin- 46,143 (41.3%)

• Jerry Dickinson (also a progressive)- 12,154 (10.9%)

• Jeff Woodard- 5,318 (4.8%)

• William Parker- 1,625 (1.5%)

Irwin raised $1,222,763 to Lee's $707,082 but the disparity was much bigger when it came to outside spending. AIPAC attacked Summer with $2,685,614 and Mellman put in another $406,340. Summer had some help from Justice Dems ($943,130), the Congressional Progressive Caucus ($196,295) and the Working Families Party ($451,187). Of that $2,025,297 went directly into smearing Summer.

On the other side of the country all the action for progressives was in Oregon-- and it was a mixed bag. The most important race looks like a win-- expelling the Biden-Pelosi backed Blue Dog Kurt Schrader in the newly drawn 5th district. Progressive challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner raised $691,074 to Schrader's $2,258,882, but Schrader's allies spent hugely against McLeod-Skinner. Two Blue Dog PACs, Center Forward and the deceptively named Mainstream Democrats, put in, respectively, $1,035,000 and $785,001 and the New Dems PAC added in another $50,000. Working Families Party spent $331,192 helping Jamie and smaller IEs were put together by Blue America and Indivisible.

This morning, only 53% of the vote was counted but Jamie is solidly ahead-- 24,836 (61.3%) to 15,664 (38.7%), largely because of her huge win in Deschutes County. We may not have a final tally here for another day or so because Clackamas ballots had an error and need to be hand-counted. Jamie is also way ahead in Multnomah County, more than balancing Schrader's lead in Linn County.

The news was very bad in OR-04, where an establishment careerist, a worthless centrist, Val Hoyle, ran away with the race (65.3%), beating Doyle Canning and another progressive Sami Al-AbdRabbuh, handily. Hoyle is so worthless that she could now lose the blue seat Republican self-funder Alek Skarlatos. She has nothing to offer anyone and in a red wave cycle like this, her brand of nothingness will play very badly. She spent $499,312 to Canning's $201,915. Crypto sewer money ($541,891 from Web3Forward) bolstered her campaign.

OR-06, the new district, was a shit-show because of crypto-billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. He tried buying the seat for a random guy named Carrick Flynn and got Pelosi's PAC to put nearly a million dollars into the race for no apparent reason other than because Bankman-Fried has the clout to make Pelosi do whatever he tells her to. He spent something like $15 million on Flynn. That's a lot of money for a weak second place finish to state legislator Andrea Salinas, a standard identy-politics liberal. This morning, 72% of the vote is counted but Salinas is far enough ahead in all 5 counties to be assured the win.

We may have to update some of these results later today but let me end this morning with Trump's embarrassing loss in Idaho. The fascist Lt Governor, Janice McGeachin, challenged the hard core conservative governor, Brad Little, and Trump backed the fascist, having told cronies that he didn't like Brad Little's name! Little's win was small. He beat McGeachin, an outspoken supporter of domestic terrorism, 145,483 (53.3%) to 86,015 (31.5%). McGeachin, of course, won in the 4 fascist counties in the panhandle, an area that sees itself as an Aryan Republic. They are the only counties she won.

• Kootenai- 55% McGeachin (47% fully vaccinated)-- 70.2% Trump

• Bonner- 49% McGeachin (44% fully vaccinated)-- 67.2% Trump

• Boundary- 55% McGeachin (36% fully vaccinated)-- 78.1% Trump

• Benewah- 55% McGeachin (53% fully vaccinated)-- 77.9% Trump