Congressional Primaries Will Be Fought Right Through September-- Here Are The Important Ones

Of course, everyone was excited to see Bernie win a clear victory in Oregon Tuesday. He beat Hillary 320,746 (56.0%) to 251,739 (44.0%). The Berniecrat running in the 5th district, Dave McTeague, however didn't fare all that well in his race against the odious chief Blue Dog Kurt Schrader. Schrader outspent McTeague $442,433 to $30,629 and Schrader beat him 62,046 (72.9%) to 23,107 (27.1%). Bernie won all 7 of the counties in the fifth congressional district. His coattails didn't do much for McTeague in any of them. Pretty dismal and there's no other way to interpret it than that Bernie supporters didn't pay enough attention to vote down-ballot for the candidate running on his platform. This is bad.

In Kentucky, where Hillary narrowly edged Bernie 212,549 (46.8%) to 210,626 (46.3%). the Berniecrat, Sellus Wilder, running for U.S. Senate against an establishment guy, Jim Gray, for the Senate nomination was slaughtered 240,620 (58.7%) to 52,728 (12.9%). Bernie supporters didn't bother to pay a lot of attention.

It's more important than ever to remember that there are still plenty of congressional primaries coming up-- some on the same day as presidential races, but most NOT on the same days. Whether Bernie or Hillary wins the Democratic nomination-- and regardless of who sits in the White House starting in 2017, the need for a more progressive House is essential if the Democrats are going to reclaim their party for the interests of working families. Readers-- like Mary Carson-- keep asking me to emphasize that there are still primary fights to win for the progressive candidates we're fighting for, bothHillary-backers and Bernie-backers.

Next week, for example, there's a runoff between a progressive, Sonny Palacios, and a Trump-like self-funding conservaDem in TX-15. These are the congressional candidates we're still trying to help along with the dates of their races. First and foremost is Grayson's Senate race in Florida, where he's up against the entire corrupt Democratic establishment and their silly puppet candidate, Patrick Murphy. That's not until-- wait for it-- AUGUST 30! That's over 3 months away. You can contribute to Grayson's campaign here.

Let's go through the primaries in the House races that are coming up. June is going to be very big in shaping the Democratic field. June 7 has extremely important primaries in California, Iowa and New Jersey pitting progressives from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party against conservatives and corruptionists from the Republican/establishment wing.

CALIFORNIA

• Mike Honda (CA-17)
• Wendy Reed (CA-23)
• Bill Ostrander (CA-24)
• Lou Vince (CA-25)
• Nanette Barragán (CA-44)
• Bao Nguyen (CA-46)

IOWA

• Pat Murphy (IA-01)
• Tom Fiegen (Senate)

NEW JERSEY

• Alex Law (NJ-01)
• Jim Keady (NJ-03)
• Peter Jacob (NJ-07)
• Eloy Delgado (NJ-08)

The following week, June 14 has a big race in Nevada (NV-04), where there are two excellent progressives, Ruben Kihuen and Lucy Flores running against a wealthy establishment hack, Susie Lee. We endorsed Ruben and Lucy. And that's the only Nevada race Blue America has endorsed in but Berniecrat Jesse Sbaih is a good choice in NV-03 and Berniecrat Chip Evans is a good choice in NV-02. If the Trump Effect is in play as much as many analysts think it will be, Nevada could see three red seats turn blue, making the state's House delegation solidly blue.

Two weeks later, June 28, is the date of New York's and Oklahoma's congressional primaries, four of which in New York and one of which in Oklahoma have outstanding progressives endorsed by Blue America:

• Jonathan Clarke (NY-03)
• Jerry Nadler (NY-10)
• Zephyr Teachout (NY-19)
• Eric Kingson (NY-24)
• Tom Guild (OK-05)

There's nothing in July and primary season ramps up again in August with an insurgent campaign by Berniecrat state Senator Maria Chapelle-Nadal against corrupt incumbent Lacy Clay in Missouri (MO-01) on August 2 and the Washington state primaries on the same day, which has 2 races Blue America is involved with: Pramila Jayapal's (WA-07) and Angela Marx's (WA-03). And at the end of the month we get Florida and Arizona:

• Alan Grayson (Senate)
• Bob Poe (FL-10)
• Tim Canova (FL-23)
• Annette Taddeo (FL-26)
• Adam Sackrin (FL-27)
• Raúl Grijalva (AZ-03)

And that still isn't the end of primary season! The first presidential primary is in New Hampshire and that state also has the last congressional primary, September 13. In NH-01 Carol Shea Porter is the candidate Blue America has endorsed. You can find her on the thermometer on the left and the Berniecrats on the thermometer on the right: