What Happened At The Polls Yesterday?

There seems like a great deal of joy out there online because of Andrew Gillum's come-from-behind win for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Florida. Andrew's an old friend who I've know for a couple of decades. I'm thrilled he won and Blue America was an early endorser. We were overjoyed that he beat two conservative Democrats, Gwen Ghaham and Philip Levine, sweeping all of the big cities: Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Tallahassee and West Palm. The tough part comes next, when he goes up against Trump's nominee, far right extremist Ron DeSantis (who defeated the mainstream conservative Adam Putnam 56.5% to 36.6%).

Downside 1- 1,610,016 Republicans voted and just 1,495,194 Democrats did. We're going to have to do better in November, Please consider contributing to Andrew's campaign here. Remember when Trump was screaming about Sessions going after "the other side" last week? Take my word for it, the DOJ will soon be coming out with charges against Andrew. After all, Trump is the most repulsively racist "president" since Andrew Jackson. Just watch.

Downside 2- In all the congressional races, the most consiervative Democrat beat the more progressive one, most tragically in FL-09, where a wretched New Dem, Darren Soto, was helped by a gang of Republican billionaires-- who spent a million dollars in a concentrated smear campaign-- to defeat Alan Grayson. Other races were rotgut candidates from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party outspent progressives and beat them were in FL-07, where Blue Dog Stephanie Murphy beat Chardo Richardson; FL-15, where progressive Andrew Learned was beaten by worthless conservative Kristen Carlson; FL-16 where David Shapiro beat Jan Schneider; FL-18 where Pam Keither was beaten by Lauren Baer; FL-26, where Debbie Mucarsel-Powell beat Demetries Grimes; and FL-27 where the 5-person race leaves Democrats with Donna Shalala instead of eight of the 2 progressives, David Richardson or Matt Haggman.

In Oklahoma, the only race we were watching was the primary runoff in the 5th congressional district (OK City) between pointless conservative Kendra Horn and Berniecrat Tom Guild. The establishment got what it wanted and in November we'll watch Horn go do in flames to an even more conservative Republican, Steve Russell. A little good news in Oklahoma: Last night, The Republic reported that six more incumbent Republican state House members lost their seats. All six voted against a tax hike used to fund a teacher pay raise. "Of the 19 House Republicans who voted against the tax hike, eight have now been defeated. Seven others decided not to run. Only four have advanced to the general election."

Arizona was something like Florida inasmuch as the progressive gubernatorial candidate, David Garcia, won the Democratic nomination to go up against Republican incumbent Doug Ducey.

In the Arizona Democratic primary for Senate there were no surprises, Blue Dog Kyrsten Sinema, the worst Democrat in the House-- not second worst or third worst, the worst-- won the nomination against Deedra Abboud, who spent $66,920 to Sinema's $10,299,504. Sinema, who was handpicked for Arizona by Chuck Schumer and Wall Street, took 81% of the vote. No one expected a different outcome. The less sure vote was on the GOP side, where mainstream conservative Martha McSally was way ahead of the 2 neo-fascist candidates this morning-- only 60% of the precincts had been counted as of this writing. McSally was over 52% with Trumpist Kelli Ward at 28% and Trumpist Joe Arpaio at 19%. McConnell was able to keep Trump from mouthing off about the race.

The only contested House seat was down in Tucson (AZ-02, McSally's now open seat), where the conservative establishment candidate, Ann Kirkpatrick, beat progressive Matt Heinz, again-- like with Grayson-- the race being swung by hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy Republican donors who wanted a fake Democrat, not a progressive. You didn't hear a peep out of the DCCC about all this Republican sewer money flooding into the districts because it was going to the same corrupt, right-of-center candidates Ben Ray Lujan and the DCCC backed. This idea of wealthy Republicans picking candidates in Democratic primaries is going to come back and bite Democrats in the ass in a very bog way-- and it should.