Although several closely watched races in Tuesday’s primaries are still too close, the preliminary results have likely rocked Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., after several moderate candidates backed by the Democratic establishment appear to have stayed shorts against progressive candidates who hit the top. his weight in the empire state.
South South Carolina saw a rare Republican primary defeat for a candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump. The Trump-backed candidate to replace the vacant seat in Congress by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows lost to a 24-year-old newcomer who uses a wheelchair.
Here is a summary of what we can report as of Wednesday afternoon:
The Kentucky high-profile Senate primaries between Amy McGrath and Charles Booker are still too close to call. With an estimated 10% of the votes counted, McGrath leads Charles Booker by a margin of 44 to 39.6%, according to NBC News. A final count is not expected until next week. (The New York Times estimate of the proportion of counted votes is much higher, an indication that no one really knows how many mail ballots are still pending.)
Booker, a popular progressive state millennial senator from Louisville’s poorest ZIP code, had enjoyed a belated raise against McGrath, the well-funded former fighter pilot and moderate politician who was chosen by Schumer to take on the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November.
An unrest would create one of the most compelling national narratives before Election Day: a black progressive running on a Bernie Sanders-style platform in a red state whose profile rose in the wave of the social justice movement that swept the country in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
The protest movement, which caught fire in Louisville after the recent death by police shooting of former EMT Breonna Taylor in her apartment, breathed new life into Booker Black Lives Matter’s “From Hood to Scream” message. was to unite the Kentuckians who fought in the cities. and rural pockets alike behind progressive ideals.
Booker, some local analysts argued, also appeared to be the best-prepared candidate to benefit from allegations of voter repression, which appear to have been overestimated. The Kentucky secretary of state estimated on Tuesday that 1.1 million residents would vote in the state primaries, beating the previous record of 922,456 in 2008 (although it turned out at roughly the same rate).
There was a moment of drama at the Louisville Expo Center, where the 6 p.m. cut left many voters waiting in the parking lot, prompting some to shake the glass doors out of the arena. The group was allowed in after a judge ruled that anyone on the pavement at 6 pm was “online” and could vote.
In North Carolina, 24-year-old Madison Cawthorn, who was partially paralyzed in an accident from the waist down, was upset in the primary by the seat Meadows left when he resigned after being named head of the Trump White House. of the staff. Cawthorn hit Lynette Bennett, who had amassed a number of major endorsements, including Trump, Meadows, and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Although Cawthorn paid tribute to the president in his victory speech: “I don’t think it was a referendum on the influence the president has … There will be no greater advocate for the president than me.” Bennett’s defeat is one more. in a series of setbacks for Trump, who recently took a beating in polls against alleged rival Joe Biden amid a national surge in coronavirus cases, widespread public outrage over his response to protests against police brutality and its disastrous demonstration in Tulsa last Saturday with thousands of empty seats.
New York held a series of major races, especially Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s first primary as a starter, in which she easily shrugged off a field of applicants led by Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a former CNBC host and former republican.
Caruso-Cabrera had called Ocasio-Cortez “a polarizing and divisive force” in a virtual debate earlier this month, but the ardent first-year representative united voters in her district, demonstrating that her unrest in 2018 was not a chance.
In fact, progressives across the state seemed eager to demonstrate that the party’s shake to the left in the 2018 midterm elections was no accident.
In New York’s diverse 16th arrondissement, which envelops the North Bronx working class with Westchester County dormitory communities, black progressive Jamaal Bowman, a high school teacher, entered on Wednesday with a double-digit lead. about current representative Eliot Engel. , Chairman of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Bowman enjoyed the backing of Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, and Senator Elizabeth Warren. Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, along with Schumer and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi led the wing of the establishment that voiced behind Engel. Although no major news outlet has called the race, Engel is clearly in danger of losing.
The dual retirements of two longtime Democrats crowded the primary waters in the South Bronx and in the northern New York suburbs of Westchester and Rockland counties, and each race drew more than half a dozen applicants.
In the South Bronx, one of the country’s most Latino districts, Ritchie Torres, 32, a progressive who is openly gay, maintains a comfortable lead on the field, which includes right-wing Pentecostal preacher Rubén Díaz Sr.., a former state senator who is openly anti-gay and was seen as the favorite.
Suburban precincts in Westchester and Rockland, the district where Hillary Clinton lives, as it happened, raised up another progressive, Mondaire Jones, a former Obama Justice Department employee who gained the endorsement of Sanders and Warren, who preempted a group of contenders. which includes favorite Evelyn Farkas and a pharmaceutical heir. A number of election experts have declared Jones the winner, though major news organizations have not. If Jones and Torres were elected, they would be the first two openly gay black members of Congress.
New York’s 12th district, which includes the East Side of Manhattan and sectors of Brooklyn and Queens, and has the highest per capita income of any district in the nation, could see the biggest surprise. Progressive Suraj Patel follows Carolyn Maloney, holder of 14 terms, by less than 600 votes at the end of the automatic vote count. That race is still very close to the final and it could take days or weeks to decide, but Maloney’s seat was considered safe and a loss would be a big bucket of cold water for Schumer and the Democratic power structure.
New York also held a special election in the heavily Republican 27th district, which covers the western reaches of the state between Buffalo and Rochester, and was for Trump by about 25 points in 2016.
Voters decided who would temporarily fill the position vacated by Republican Rep. Chris Collins after he stepped down amid an insider scandal. As expected, Republican Chris Jacobs easily defeated progressive Democrat Nate McMurray. The two will meet again in the fall for a full period.
