Elections Last Night... Some Excitement In South Carolina

Trumpanzee, of course, had to make the primaries all about himself by tweeting an endorsement against South Carolina's Congressman Mark Sanford, whose voting record is pretty pro-Trump (73.1%) in a district where Trump only won with 53.5%-- has called Trump out now and then. Maybe Trump got an idea to attack him yesterday after his meeting with Kim Jong-un, who once killed a general for not applauding him with enough vigor. In any case, everyone in the state knows Sanford because he used to be governor and it is extraordinarily rare for a president to attack an incumbent of his own party. Once the glow of being fucked by Kim Jong-Un wore off, Trump took down the tweet-- this tweet:

Do you watch Southern Charm on TV? SC-01-- most of the state's coast, from Hilton Head through Beaufort and the white parts of Charleston and north beyond McClellanville-- are not really that Trumpish of a district. But Trumpish enough. Largely due to being heavily gerrymandered to put as many African-Americans as possible into Jim Clyburn's 6th CD, the PVI is a prohibitive R+10. The Trump candidate, Katie Arrington, beat Sanford in a 3 person race, the third being Dimitri Cherny, a Berniecrat who switched parties in March. He has a Bernie tattoo on his forearm and has run for Congress twice before (as a Democrat). In November the Democrat running against Arrington will be Joe Cunningham who beat Toby Smith yesterday 60.1% to 39.9%.

• Katie Arrington- 32,499 (50.5%)
• Mark Sanford- 29,969 (46.6%)
• Dimitry Cherny- 1,899 (3.0%)

Meawhile, parenthetically, Senator Bob Corker, got up on the Senate floor yesterday to rip his cowardly Republican colleagues, hours before Sanford lost. Now they'll be even more cowardly... and more likely to serve as his handmaidens and enablers.

In Virginia the only worthwhile congressional race that was worth watching was in the 10th district which includes DC's well-heeled western suburbs, including most of McLean, all of Leesbug, Winchester, Chantilly and Dulles Airport and skirts both the Maryland and West Virginia borders. Incumbent Republican Barbara Comstock is a long-time extremist who has been trying to behave like a mainstream conservative. The DCCC was favoring conservaDem Jennifer Wexton in the 6-person race. The Democratic establishment never learns and they managed to get their worthless and meaningless status quo careerist candidate nominated

• Jennifer Wexton- 22,530 (41.8%)
• Alison Friedman- 12,362 (22.9%)
• Lindsey Stover- 8,660 (16.1%)
• Dan Helmer- 6,738 (12.5%)
• Paul Pelletier- 2,023 (3.8%)
• Julia Biggins- 1,530 (2.8%)

And the KKK guy, Corey Stewart, won the U.S. Senate nomination to run against Tim Kaine. The Republican establishment was sad last night-- and they still are this morning. They don't want their party to be publicly associated with racists and neo-Nazis. Stewart won with 44.8% against Nick Freitas (43.1%) and E.W. Jackson-- maybe even a crazier loon than Stewart-- (12.1%)

Because of the introduction of tiered voting, we won't have the final numbers from Maine until the end of week or possibly next week. But with just over 60% of the votes counted, the progressive candidate in Maine's 2nd congressional district, Jared Golden, was way out front with 50.5% against 2 other candidates, Lucas St. Clair (40.2%) and Craig Olson (9.3%).

With all the hubbub about the primaries today, we don't want to lose track of an extremely important special election that took place in northeastern Wisconsin yesterday, State Senate seat 1-- which includes all of Door and Kewaunee counties and parts of Brown, Manitowoc, Calumet and Outagamie counties.

The former incumbent, state Senator Frank Lasse (R) retired in December to take a position in Scott Walker's administration since his district was so red that Walker seemed sure there was no chance it could possibly flip from red to blue. The Senate seat had gone to Trump by a whopping 18 points in 2016 and in 2014 Walker had won it by 24 points. Oops! Last time Walker made that kind of a calculation, it was for a deep red Senate seat in western Wisconsin, and the special election was won by Democrat Patty Schachtner. Walker, dismayed, called that result a "wake-up call" that should warn Republicans they could be in trouble this fall. He then promptly called off all special elections. He was challenged in the courts and thrashed by the judges, ergo: last night.

Last night, Democrat Caleb Frostman, the former head of the Door County Economic Development Corp, beat state Rep. André Jacque 14,606 (51.4%) to 13,800 (48.6%). The most progressive member of the state Senate, Chris Larson, who worked hard to help Frostman win, was over the moon last night. "This is the third and strongest indication in a few short months that a blue wave is crashing across Wisconsin," he told me. "Wisconsinites are on to the Republican con and nothing is going to keep them from the polls. Underwater, we’ve seen the largest cuts to education, an unbridled attack on the working class, our environment put in danger, and a degradation of our culture of open, transparent government. We are ready to move forward with strong, progressive candidates like Caleb Frostman. Caleb has a background in economic development and knows that helping businesses doesn’t  have to come at the expense of students or access to healthcare. I am proud to pass him the baton of the youngest Democrat in our senate caucus and look forward to working with him to ensure we have even more people fighting for the working class after this fall's elections."

This seat will be up for reelection in November. The Republican control Wisconsin's state Senate is just 17-15 so very winnable by the Democrats in this political environment. Randy Bryce, not a public official but a candidate in the southern Wisconsin, also worked hard to help pull Frostman over the finish line. He implored his own supporters to contribute to Frostman's campaign. To some extent Frostman's victory showed the power Bryce has for other Democrats all around the state and all over the country. He's what Democratic solidarity is all about. Last night Bryce told me that "Wisconsin continues to show what a wave is-- working families coming together, no matter what the Beltway or the pundits say, to stick it to those trying to rip apart our futures. Tonight, Caleb Frostman showed that we aren’t splintering, rather he showed we’re growing. Scott Walker, Donald Trump, Brian Steil, you’re not going to fool working people again. Folks are catching on and are ready to make sure you feel it this November."