More Primaries Coming

Last primary of the cycle pits progressive Angel Taveras against Gina Raimondo from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party in Rhode Island-- September 9

Tuesday will see primaries in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina and Virginia but only two states have races that pit progressives against conservatives, Virginia and South Carolina. (In Maine, the primary to replace Mike Michaud has two flawed candidates-- New Dem Emily Cain and anti-Choicer Troy Jackson-- each of whom is better than a Republican but neither worth getting too excited over.) And the two races where there are good candidates, for Lindsey Graham's Senate seat and for the northeast Virginia House seat Jim Moran is giving up, are not looking great. As predicted, in bright blue VA-08, progressives have failed to unite behind the obvious candidate, Patrick Hope, and, in fact have attacked him bitterly and stupidly, which will allow horrible conservative multimillionaire, Don Beyer, a corporate shill, to claim a seat that could support a Democrat from the Elizabeth Warren wing. Instead VA-08 voters are likely to wind up with garbage from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

It would take a lot of vision for South Carolina Democrats to embrace Jay Stamper, also from the Elizabeth Warren wing. They don't have that vision and are likely to wind up with an anti-Choice/pro-NRA ConservaDem, Brad Hutto. With BRAVO tv star and ex-state Treasurer Tom Ravenel likely to run as an Independent-- he has until next month to declare-- he could be in position to pull enough votes from Lindsey Graham to throw the seat to a Democrat.

Last week's primaries ended much better. Progressive state Senator, Ted Lieu, the man who was first to ban Republican gay-to-straight "reparative therapy" in California and to block the state from cooperating with NSA unconstitutional bulk collection of private communication between Americans citizens, beat out two very well-financed conservative Establishment shills-- Wendy Greuel and Matt Miller-- for the Democratic nomination for the CA-33 seat Henry Waxman is giving up. Victories by either Greuel or Miller would have been nothing short of catastrophic for the progressive movement, statewide and nationally. Although Greuel was seen as a frontrunner--with the vehemently anti-progressive EMILY's List and the transactional Clinton machine behind her-- her viciously negative attack on other candidates backfired and just turned off voters, especially women and especially her own.

And Lieu wasn't the only great news last week. Two other Blue America challengers won tough races. Although pundits were predicting that Bonnie Watson Coleman would come up short in her race to succeed Rush Holt in NJ-12, she ran away with the race, beating her closest rival, centrist Linda Greenstein 43-28%. In Iowa, former state House Speaker Pat Murphy didn't just win his 5-person contest, he won with enough votes to avoid a costly and unpredictable nominating convention. Like Lieu, Murphy and Coleman will now face Republicans in November, although all three are favored to win-- and become new members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The other race we were watching closely last Tuesday was the CA-17 challenge from the right by corporate whore Ro Khanna, a desperate hack financed by wealthy Republicans seeking to remove progressive icon Mike Honda. Although they will face each other again in November Honda trounced Khanna 48.6 to 27.1%.

We also had two losses Tuesday, both in California, Lee Rogers and Eloise Reyes. Poor Democratic turnout and a ballot that excluded Rogers from the same page as the other congressional candidates, lost him the CA-25 nomination. In CA-31, Steve Israel's fat thumb on the scale-- plus a 6-figure Republican I.E. from the Credit Union PAC on behalf of New Dem Pete Aguilar-- edged Eloise out of the race. You win some, you lose some. Let's make sure our House challengers who are already guaranteed places in November-- Paul Clements (MI), Ted Lieu (CA), Mike Obermueller (MN), Pat Murphy (IA), Gloria Bromell Tinubu (SC), Michael Wager (OH), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ) and Kelly Westlund (WI)-- have the resources they need to compete against their Republican opponents. And that's something you can do here at the Blue America ActBlue page. Still coming up:

• June 24- Maryland- Heather Mizeur for governor
• June 24- Oklahoma- Tom Guild for Congress
• August 5- Michigan- Paul Clements for Congress
• August 5- Washington- Jason Ritchie for Congress
• August 9- Hawaii- Brian Schatz for Senate, Stanley Chang for Congress
• August 12- Wisconsin- Rob Zerban and Kelly Westlund for Congress
• August 26- Florida- Alan Grayson for Congress
• August 26- Arizona- Ruben Gallego for Congress
• September 9- Rhode Island- Angel Taveras for governor