Election

Amid a Senate primary season that's seen wins by a number of inexperienced candidates with serious question marks, the attitude of the Republican consultant class in Washington has been straight out of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: DON'T PANIC! Yes, the argument goes, these candidates are not ideal; yes, it's going to take some effort to hold the seats of key retiring Republicans with so many new faces; and yes, the gubernatorial candidates in some key contests aren't doing the GOP any favors. But overall the attitude remained positive, at least through the first six months of the year. Now, all of that has changed.

Someone once asked Johnny Depp about the secret of good acting, and he replied: “I pretty much try and stay in a constant state of confusion just because of the expression it leaves on my face.” Okay, maybe Depp’s not someone to hold up as a sage on the human condition. But I think we can at least agree that he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to projecting the sort of halfway engaging befuddlement that earned him a reported $90 million as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. I mention all this only in so far as it applies to seventy-one-year-old Patty Murray, Democrat from Washington state. Murray won her primary election on Tuesday ahead of what could be a sixth consecutive term in the US Senate.

With last night's primary elections, the story of the Republicans' risky approach to the 2024 election is clear: GOP voters want a party that is populist, but they are at odds over what kind of populist that needs to be. The media's framing of the 2024 narrative has been clear from the outset, and as per usual it's the framing preferred by the Democratic Party. The entire lens of definition is Donald Trump. His endorsements supposedly reign supreme over a beholden GOP electorate, and this is leading them to nominate extreme, flawed, "election-denying" candidates who put their chances of taking the Senate and key battleground governorships at risk, even in what more honest pundits allow will be a wave year for Republicans in the House.

The eagerly anticipated midterm elections, now in a countdown, will no doubt reveal vast electoral dismay and division. Inflation, recession, crime, and border invasions are half of it. The Democratic-inspired War on Normal is the other. However impressive GOP victories might be, the fifty-year-old progressive hegemon will endure. Identity hustles, handouts, lawlessness, and cultural rot won’t disappear after the midterms. Disparate impact, non-binary fantasies, and Supreme Court oppositionists in primal breakdowns will persist. Beyond November, cunning propagandists with opportunities at thought control unprecedented in human history will seek to discredit their adversaries. Militants will intimidate authorities. The commercial republic and its assets are the prize.

You know the old expression “too clever by half?” It’s not a compliment. And though I am loathe to describe Democratic strategists as “clever,” I grudgingly acknowledge that they exhibit a certain low cunning that, on occasion, can be effective. We saw it on full display early on in the 2016 presidential election campaign when clever Dems were falling all over themselves to support the ridiculous candidate Donald Trump. He could never win, of course, but the ploy was good for a laugh and would hurt whatever serious candidates were running against Hillary. To almost everyone’s surprise, things didn’t work out quite as expected that time. But old habits are hard to break.

Cockburn loves campaign gossip, and the latest gossipy article from the Daily Beast does little to inspire confidence in Ohio GOP Senate hopeful J.D. Vance. Last week, Vance made a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Israel, which is pretty far from his home state in the Midwest. And apparently the fact that he wasn't campaigning in the Buckeye State has ticked off more than a few Ohioans. This isn’t the first of Vance’s abandonment issues. He’s been missing from Ohio speaking events and conferences, and even ghosted some of his donors according to the Beast’s source in the GOP. This comes a few days after the Beast posted about Vance’s finance issues, stating plainly in the very first line that “The J.D. Vance Campaign is broke.

Maryland state delegate Dan Cox, who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump, handily won the state's Republican gubernatorial primary on Tuesday. Cox's opponent was Kelly Shulz, the former Maryland commerce secretary who had the backing of her old boss, Governor Larry Hogan. Cox's victory confirms that despite Hogan's overall popularity — he has one of the highest gubernatorial approval ratings in the country — Republicans are no longer impressed by him. In fact, Hogan now polls better among Democrats than members of his own party. Why? Because for conservatives in Maryland, Hogan's two terms as governor were largely a betrayal.

Some people stand in the darkness, afraid to step into the light. Some people need to help somebody, when the edge of surrender’s in sight. Pam Anderson is firmly in the latter category, after her win in the Republican primary for Colorado secretary of state on Tuesday night. Anderson handily defeated Mesa County treasurer Tina Peters, who ran on a platform of election denialism, by fifteen points.

They say you never forget your first. Your first Republican, that is. For Elon Musk, that is Mayra Flores, the Trump-endorsed candidate who flipped the Congressional seat in Texas’ 34th District from blue to red with a vote from the world's richest man (as well as from thousands of other Texans). Cockburn discovered the news while perusing Twitter this morning (at 3:28 a.m.) to see how the political discourse was doing (not well, as expected). His mood, however, lightened when he stumbled upon this  tweet from Elon Musk: I voted for Mayra Flores – first time I ever voted Republican. Massive red wave in 2022. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2022 Musk has been increasingly on Cockburn’s radar, especially since he vowed to make Twitter "fun.

The Alaska Republican Party no longer wants Lisa Murkowski. That's just fine by her. In a traditional one-person-one-vote system, Murkowski would be sweating bullets right about now. The Alaskan Republican Party has censured her and endorsed Kelly Tshibaka, the former commissioner of the state's Department of Administration. President Trump has also thrown his weight behind Tshibaka. Murkowski has repeatedly voted against the Republican Party and Alaskan interests on key issues. In any other situation, she would be losing her seat — and for good reason. Fortunately for Murkowski, this year will be the test of Alaska’s ranked-choice voting (RCV) system. The ballot measure, which passed narrowly in 2020, established a nonpartisan top-four primary and RCV for the general election.

The children, Cockburn has always believed, are the future. That’s why he was so enthused to head down to Mission Navy Yard on Thursday night to prop up the bar at a happy hour fundraiser for Matthew Foldi, who is running for the House in Maryland’s 6th district. Casting an eye around the infamous watering hole, Cockburn concluded that he might be the only attendee over thirty. Hill staffers, GOP strategists and right-of-center reporters milled around the venue, sipping on High Noon and stingy pours of draft lager. Foldi is a unique proposition of a candidate.

California’s ballots went out early this month, and the drawn-out mail-in primary election ends on June 7. Turnout looks to be low, as there are no competitive statewide races, and November elections are a lock for the Democratic incumbents. Governor Gavin Newsom has one eye on the camera and the other on the White House. Senator Alex Padilla — appointed last year by Newsom to fill Kamala Harris’s seat — is a reliable placeman for the ruling Democratic junta. The contest that politicos will be watching is an up-or-down recall vote for San Francisco’s district attorney Chesa Boudin. It would be a major upset if he kept his job. He might be deposed in a landslide, as was San Francisco’s zany school board, or lose more narrowly.

President Trump won’t be eating peaches any time soon, but he’ll always have Georgia on his mind. For one of the first times this primary season, the former commander-in-chief has been handed what looks like a resounding rebuke in Georgia. Governor Brian Kemp and secretary of state Brad Raffensperger bested their primary challengers, securing the Republican nomination handily. These men dared to stand athwart Trump’s alternate history about the 2020 election and were subjected to an endless barrage of attacks for not sacrificing their integrity. Ultimately, in their bout with the Goliath of the GOP, they emerged triumphant.

Were the recent primaries in Pennsylvania and Oregon vindicating victories for radical progressives — or merely the ominous first ripples of an incoming November red wave? Like almost everything nowadays, it depends on who you ask. Unlike the Republican race between Dave McCormick and Dr. Oz, the Democratic Senate primary was not a nail-biter: Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman handily beat Representative Conor Lamb. Fetterman, who billed himself as a “Democrat with a backbone,” endorsed Bernie Sanders for president in 2016. His stances on certain issues, including his defense of fracking, do not check off all of the perfect progressive boxes.

Still on the fence about who to vote for in the Republican primary race for Pennsylvania’s US Senate seat, I watched the Newsmax “debate” earlier this month. I was naively hoping to determine which of the five candidates most aligned with my values. Instead what I learned was that they all hate each other. The debate (again, I use that word loosely) was hosted by Grove City College, a small, Christian liberal arts school in western Pennsylvania that does not accept federal funding (there are a handful of such holdouts across the country). College president Paul McNulty offered an optimistic opening message, expressing hope that the event would be an opportunity for the “thoughtful exchange of ideas.” Ha!

Tina Kotek could be well on her way to being the thirty-ninth governor of Oregon. The Democrat, who previously served as speaker of the state’s House of Representatives, won her party’s primary this Tuesday. And with a Democratic supermajority in the legislature and a governor’s mansion that hasn’t housed a Republican since 1979, that’s likely a one-way ticket to victory in November. Kotek is, in many ways, a creature of the state Democratic establishment. Yet in Oregon — and in blue states like it — “establishment Democrat” means something very different than it once did.

The big news stories this morning are not just about the results of yesterday’s primary elections, but about how big of an impact Donald Trump’s endorsements did or did not have. Politico, CNN, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Hill, and others have all sounded off on this subject — proving that Trump is, indeed, still quite influential. To center-left publications, at least. Until very recently, Trump had an impressive 55-0 endorsement winning streak. He finally struck out with Charles Herbster, who was running for governor of Nebraska amid several sexual misconduct allegations. Last night’s results, however, have called into question Trump’s “status as GOP kingmaker” (as Newsweek phrased it). As the Hill reports, “Tuesday was a mixed night at best for Trump.