A little political good news

FOR DECADES, Sen. Joe Manchin has presided over West Virginia’s Democratic Party, crowning candidates and throwing cushy appointments to allies while the state’s jobs, wages, and environment have gradually been ground to dust. But earlier this month, a grassroots slate of over 50 Democrats took control of the West Virginia Democratic Party after winning a majority of seats on the executive committee and ousting party leadership, thus ending Manchin’s de facto control of the state party apparatus.

Now, after a six-year organizing push, every old guard party apparatchik — save for the treasurer — is out of office, replaced with activists from across the Democratic spectrum set on revitalizing the state and forcing renewed support from the national party.

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After Manchin and the Democratic National Committee used the bylaws governing unelected superdelegates to throw West Virginia’s 2016 presidential primary for Hillary Clinton — despite the fact that Sen. Bernie Sanders won every county in the state — activists used the DNC’s own rules to unseat the base of one of its most powerful members.

  The Intercept

Let us hope that other states will follow.

The recent upset offers hope that by populating the lower offices with Democrats who are committed to serving the public instead of favor-trading for personal gain, Manchin will no longer be the party’s only candidate who can run statewide and win.

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They sowed the seeds of power by demanding that the party make good on its rules governing gender and racial equity in its staffing as well as those governing free, fair, and timely leadership elections.

Republicans now hold the governor’s office, supermajorities in both houses of the West Virginia Legislature, and every statewide office save for Manchin’s. That’s thanks largely to the inaction of a state party that until recently was composed entirely of Manchin loyalists.

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The new slate of West Virginia Democrats is made up of a broad coalition of activists — including moderates — seeking to disrupt Manchin’s power. Unlike the Democratic Party upset in Nevada, which saw the Democratic Socialists of America overthrow a calcified political machine with a vast progressive ground game, West Virginia’s insurgents pulled it off by outmaneuvering a decaying party leadership grown accustomed to uncontested elections — using the DNC’s own bylaws.

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“We won every officer seat we ran for,” said Shane Assadzandi, one of the organizers behind the new slate. “And after years of having to fight our own party to get a seat at the table, I look forward to fighting Republicans at the ballot box instead of useless Democrats at committee meetings.”

Kudos.

DURING THE UPCOMING midterm elections, the new slate will focus on winning down-ballot races for offices like city council, county commission, state delegate, and eventually state Senate. Without a roster of candidates building trust, legitimacy, and fundraising networks at the local level, statewide offices remain out of reach.

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With the prospect of flipping West Virginia blue long off, the tactic of using DNC bylaws against old guard regimes may still prove replicable in other states like Massachusetts that are struggling under the weight of ineffective party leadership.

Maybe there's some hope for the Democratic party after all.  But they'll need lots of money and to expect the national Democratic party to muster its forces to squash this movement.

Best of luck to them.

Let yourself be encouraged where you can

Early primaries could give you hope.

State Sen. Doug Mastriano appears to have blown up GOP plans in Pennsylvania.

A far-right election denier and a leading force in the effort to overturn the 2020 election results, Mastriano is viewed by many Republican operatives as a liability in a critical swing state, likely headed for a thrashing in the suburbs in November. Some state Republicans are considering publicly supporting the Democratic nominee, Josh Shapiro, while the Republican Governors Association may not even put money into the race.

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Everything about Pennsylvania’s swing state electorate suggests Mastriano is a dead man walking.

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The most surprising thing about Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s demise on Tuesday was not that he lost, but that he admitted it.

  Politico

Trump is reportedly telling his preferred candidate, Mehmet Oz, to just claim victory. Which is what Trump did in 2020.

In North Carolina, Trump’s support pulled Bo Hines, a 26-year-old who came out of nowhere, to a House primary victory. The endorsement was a show of Trump’s force, but some Republicans view Hines as a vulnerable general election candidate, and the endorsement infuriated some local Republicans who have toiled in the party vineyards for years.

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But that isn’t as important for Trump, politically, as burnishing his win-loss record and nurturing adherents to his own cause. Ultimately, the outcome in November doesn’t matter.

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In Idaho, where Trump’s endorsed candidate in the gubernatorial race, Janice McGeachin, lost badly on Tuesday, Trump’s needless intervention did nothing other than fuel an intraparty civil war. Same story in Georgia, which holds its primary next week.

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For Trump, the win-loss record in the primaries has become something close to an obsession. But it is designed to be a game that Trump cannot lose. As one Trump adviser said, even a primary loss is not a “loss-loss.” That’s because he’ll get another crack at it in November. He can always endorse a nominee then.

  Politico

He's been bragging about his win record in Ohio where all of his endorsed candidates won. But that was Ohio. And for most of those 22 races, he endorsed whoever was running ahead in polls or had no challengers just before the voting started. Obviously, so he could brag about his endorsement record.

[T]he Trump-backed effort to unseat incumbent Gov. Brad Little was a fairly good test of Trump-ism, its flop a demonstration of Trump’s limits. Trump’s vehicle in Idaho, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, was far from a perfect candidate. But she had some credibility by virtue of her office. And she knew how to make a splash, using her power to issue executive orders, including banning mask mandates, when Little traveled out of state.

It wasn’t enough. In a state where Trump beat Biden by 30 percentage points and carried all but three counties in 2020, Little was crushing McGeachin when the race was called.

And it’s just a warmup. Next week, in a much higher-profile contest in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp is widely expected to finish first in the primary, ahead of Trump-backed Sen. David Perdue.

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Trump’s endorsement is still the most coveted currency in Republican primary politics. His preferred candidate in an open gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, Mastriano, won. But sitting governors have brands of their own and a familiarity with voters that may matter more than outside intervention — even from the former president. In a party dominated by Trump, it’s an office even Trump is having difficulty figuring out how to crack.

It could be that Trump endorsements for congressional seats works because people aren't as familiar with congressional aspirants as they are with their governors.

As for the Democrats, progressives raked in the wins in recent primaries.

John Fetterman was expected to win the Democratic Senate primary in Pennsylvania for so long that it could be easy to overlook how big a win it was for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

And the evening got better after that.

In Oregon, first-time candidate Carrick Flynn, who had the support of the leadership-aligned House Majority PAC, conceded to Andrea Salinas, a progressive state lawmaker endorsed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in the open 6th Congressional District. In the state’s 5th District, moderate incumbent Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) was trailing progressive Jamie McLeod-Skinner by a wide margin with 46 percent of the expected vote in.

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In North Carolina, two progressives, Nida Allam and Erica Smith, went down in open seat House primaries. But even with those losses — and even if the results in Oregon and Pennsylvania turn — it will go down as a good night for the left.

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Next week comes another big test for the left — and one where internal polling suggests progressives are in a strong position. That’s in Texas, where supporters of Jessica Cisneros are rallying around the revelation of a Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, in an effort to unseat Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), an anti-abortion Democrat.

This kind of thing makes you wonder about Democratic leaders and pundits claiming that progressives are bringing down the party, and that's why Joe Biden is losing support. I keep wondering if they haven't got it backwards: maybe Democrats are souring on Joe because he's not progressive enough.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Some Tuesday primary good news

Progressives are riding high after Tuesday’s primary elections in New York and Kentucky have some of the left’s rising stars in position to potentially pull off upsets against candidates backed by Washington Democrats.

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[P]rogressive Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.) has House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) on the ropes after building up a 25-point lead among those who voted in-person.

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That race cut sharply along progressive-establishment lines, with Engel having the support of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Bowman is backed by Ocasio-Cortez and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

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Elsewhere, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) overwhelmingly won her reelection bid against a high-profile challenge from news anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, who had millions of dollars and top New York business leaders behind her.

Other progressive House candidates in New York — Mondaire Jones, Ritchie Torres and Dana Balter — have built up double-digit leads in their House primary races.

And insurgent Democrat Suraj Patel (N.Y.) is running even with House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), underscoring the volatile landscape incumbents and Washington-backed candidates are facing at the moment.

Insurgent?

In the night’s other marquee race, progressive challenger Charles Booker trails Democrat Amy McGrath by 9 points in the Kentucky Democratic Senate primary. The state’s two most populous counties will not report results until June 30.

  The Hill

A non-progressive, white, ex-Marine fighter pilot, Democrat might have a better chance beating Mitch McConnell in November, so I don't feel bad about that one. Unless black voters decide to stay at home.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.