About Last Night: Florida, New York, and Oklahoma Primary Results
Election Day: Vote Here, Vote Aqui
Photo by Lorie Shaull from Washington, United States via Wikimedia Commons
It was a night of mostly expected primary results with big names in Florida and a rare House Committee Chair head-to-head in New York.
Taken together, the results were a welcome sign for Democratic leaders seeking to rally the party base behind its incumbents and find ways to motivate voters to cast ballots against Republicans, who have long felt well-positioned to make big gains in November. Tuesday’s voting came on the heels of Democrats enacting sweeping legislation to fight global warming and bring down the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, among other things, boosting their hopes of averting a red wave in the fall.
In Florida, Rep. Charlie Crist, who was endorsed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, prevailed over a more liberal female candidate in the Democratic primary for governor. In New York, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who won a last-minute endorsement from Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, beat out an experienced woman and a younger candidate of color. And Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee easily triumphed over an insurgent liberal challenger.
“Tonight, mainstream won,” Maloney said in his victory speech. “Common sense won. Democrats want candidates who get results and bring home the win.”
Democratic party leaders were also encouraged by the special election in New York’s 19th Congressional District, where Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, the Democratic candidate, made abortion rights the cornerstone of his winning campaign against Republican Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro.
“We got in this race because the foundations of our democracy were and remain under direct threat,” Ryan told supporters in Kingston, shortly before midnight. “When the Supreme Court ripped away reproductive rights, access to abortion rights, we said: This is not what America stands for.”
Tuesday’s voting in Florida, New York and Oklahoma marked the conclusion of some of the year’s final major contests before both parties fully begin the sprint to the Nov. 8 election. That pivot is already underway, with Democrats seeking to tap into anger over the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as a means of overcoming voter dissatisfaction with Biden and his party’s leadership in Washington.
Florida headlined the events, with Charlie Crist winning the nomination over Nikki Fried to go on and face Governor Ron DeSanits. Crist is now positioned in the state he once governed to lose statewide elections as a Republican, Independent, and now will lose another as a Democrat.
A stunning political achievement. Proud moment for him and his family.
Meanwhile, Rep. Val Demings will take on Marco Rubio (R-FL) for US Senate in what is going to be a loud, expensive race. MAGA favorite and state Rep. Anthony Sabatini lost his bid for congress in a sign that all is not lost in the Sunshine State, and on the Democratic side 25-year-old progressive activist Maxwell Frost won his primary in a bid to become the youngest and first Gen Z member of congress.
In NYC, Rep. Jerry Nadler handily won his race in a redrawn district that had him facing off again colleague Rep. Carolyn Maloney in a rare instance of two powerful committee chairs of the same party up against each other.
Oklahoma had two runoff elections: Rep. Markwayne Mullin finished off his march to the GOP nomination to replace retiring Senator Jim Inhofe with a win, and former state Senator Josh Brecheen won the primary to replace Mullin’s vacated house seat in a safe red district.
The highlight of the night for Democrats was that the party one a special election and flipped New York’s 19th district on abortion rights. They also did well-above average in the NY-23 special election. NY-22 looks like a potential candidate to turn blue in November.
Other than that, the NY attempt at redistricting was a massive self-own. Part of this comes from the act that a lot of New York Democrats come from different non-profits that compete for resources and do not know how to unite behind a single candidate. Nadler is a better keep than Maloney. A lot of progressives seem displeased that Daniel Goldman beat Mondaire Jones in a crowded primary for the NY-10. Daniel Goldman seems to be getting the “moderate” label because he is a straight, Jewish, dude.Report
I’m generally a fan of Vox but this bit of writing rubbed me the wrong way: “In the most hotly contested open seat, New York’s 10th Congressional District, Daniel Goldman, the main congressional attorney in the first impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump (and heir to the Levi Strauss fortune) spent Tuesday night on the verge of beating out a field of more progressive candidates with a little over a quarter of the total vote. That field included a sitting progressive, Rep. Mondaire Jones, who entered the race after his old seat was eliminated and he was forced to choose between running in the new seat that overlapped with his old district or finding another race.
The race became a bit of a microcosm for tensions running through the modern Democratic Party, with conflict along race, class, and ideological lines. A safe Democratic seat, the 10th District encompasses Lower Manhattan and Chinatown, as well as parts of progressive Brooklyn, making it one of the most diverse districts in the state. With Asian American, Latina, and Black candidates all vying for the most progressive mantle, Goldman, who is Jewish, was thrust into the more moderate lane. Goldman’s personal wealth was also a sticking point in the race, as he was able to loan his campaign $1 million — leading to criticism from progressives. With Goldman’s win, this Democratic free-for-all will result in more representation for the city’s Jewish community, but the loss of a prominent Black, gay incumbent: Jones.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/8/24/23319493/winners-losers-new-york-florida-primaries
As far as I can tell, Goldman is a go along and get along Democrat who will always vote for and with the party. He won’t try and throw a spanner in things like Gottheimer or Sinema. Yet, there is some real “Jews don’t count” energy here.Report
Besides a lot of people thinking that Jews are basically white at this point, they also seem to think that Black, Hispanic, and Asian voters are more liberal than they actually are. From what I can tell the preferred hierarchy of minority populations in terms of ethnicity is Black, Native American/Hispanic, Asian, Jewish, and then white among the Intersectional set.Report
While I suppose I can understand why Jewish people would say “we’re not white” and I suppose I can understand why some white folks might agree with them, I don’t know why the expectation would be that Black, Native American/Hispanic, and Asian folks would agree on this point.
“It’s different than Italians and Irish people!”, you can yell. “We aren’t Protestants!”Report
They seem to like invoking our past to get us to help their causes. At the same time, the activist set wants to say that we are too white, affluent, and privileged to count as the wretched of the earth club. This seems to be wanting to have their cake and it eat to with Jews.Report
Are affluence and privilege measurable?
If they are (even if it’s just a qualitative thing rather than a quantitative thing), then is it worth running the measurements?
Because if it ends up being yet another “$250,000 a year isn’t that much money” argument, I don’t think it’ll end up in the place where you want it to go. Especially not if you’re arguing against $53,500/year types.Report
We’re white only when that’s a bad thing.Report
You’d think that you’d be able to get Black, Native American/Hispanic, and Asian folks on board with that instead of seeing you as just another variant of “White Ethnic, but one with privilege this time”.Report
Honestly, I think that this has something to do with it too:
(I’m kinda surprised by South Carolina and really surprised by Arizona.)Report
Having Jews as the second largest religious group in any state requires a lot of fine splitting of Christianity while not splitting Judaism at all.Report
See also: Buddhism, Hinduism.
Islam is apparently 73% Sunni, 16% Shia, and 11% “other” (which includes the Nation of Islam).
So I don’t know what happens when we start pulling at that particular thread.Report