Jun.19

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

A Bad Night for Good?

Bob Dylan is on tour right now. He was on tour last year, and the year before that. In fact, he has been on tour since 1988. And while most musicians, even if they are perpetually on the road, divide their tours into distinct segments with distinct identities and distinct names, Dylan does not. Thus, he has been on what he calls The Never Ending Tour for the last 36 years.

Why do we bring this up? Because it's the only tour we can think of that rivals the Donald Trump Revenge Tour for longevity. The Trump tour has also been going on forever, and will likewise continue until the headliner expires. That said, while the Dylan tour is in Georgia right now, yesterday's Trump tour stop was in Virginia. Specifically, VA-05, where the former president was desperately trying to knock off Rep. Bob Good (R-VA). Good may be a loony right-winger as chair of the Freedom Caucus, but he also had the temerity to endorse Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in this year's presidential race. And so, in Trump's eyes, he must be punished. Undoubtedly, for many readers, it's not too easy to decide whom to root for in this little skirmish.

So, what happened? The answer is... nobody knows yet, for sure. With about 98% of the vote in, the challenger, state Del. John McGuire (R), has 31,411 votes (50.3%) while Good has 31,084 votes (49.7%). Based on those figures, there are about 1,300 votes outstanding, and Good would need to take about 60% of them. It's a tall order, but it's doable, and the scuttlebutt from people who know Virginia politics is that the remaining uncounted votes, which are primarily absentee ballots, are likely to favor Good. The lead changed hands multiple times last night, and it could again. And of course, there's always the possibility of a recount.

Even if the Representative gets knocked off, his performance last night certainly speaks to the power of incumbency. It may also speak to the limits of Trump's power, and of revenge politics in general. Not only did the former president work to defeat Good, but so too did former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R), who (accurately) blames Good for helping to end his speakership. McGuire thus had some very heavy hitters on his side, not to mention nearly $10 million in ad spending, which is a fortune for a House race (Good had about $5 million in spending). McGuire has already claimed victory, but he's the only one who thinks the race is over. None of the major media outlets, including the Associated Press, has made a call as yet.

Incidentally, it might be instructive to compare Good's past primary performances with last night's performance, so as to get a crude sense of how much Trump/McCarthy/a bunch of money moved the needle. However, that is not possible, because prior to this year, the Virginia GOP made nominations via convention rather than primary. So, Good has no primary track record that might be used for comparison purposes.

Of course, that was not the only race on tap last night, what with voters in three states casting ballots. Here are the other results of interest:

• U.S. Senate, Virginia: The only U.S. Senate contest yesterday was the Republican primary in Virginia (Sen. Tim Kaine, D-VA, was unchallenged in his bid for reelection). In that GOP primary, Hung Cao dispatched all comers, taking 61.7% of the vote despite a 5-person field. Cao is a former Navy special operations officer who retired with the rank of captain. He's also pretty hard-right in his rhetoric, and is making his second attempt at public office, having lost badly to Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) in VA-10 in 2022. Virginia Republicans are saying that if the state ends up in play, and Donald Trump has coattails, Cao might just win this thing.
  
  For our part, we are extremely skeptical. First, Cao is not a great fit, and has a history of putting his foot in his mouth. Second, it is really hard to knock off incumbent senators (90%+ reelection rate). Third, Kaine is very popular in Virginia, having won statewide four times previously, and figures to run ahead of the presidential ticket. For what it is worth, there's been one poll of the Kaine-Cao matchup, done a couple of months ago by the Republican-leaning firm Fabrizio Ward. They had Kaine up 12 points, 48% to 36%.
  
  
• GA-02: There were three "competitive" House seats on the various ballots yesterday, and this one, in a district with a PVI of D+3, is one of them. However, we put "competitive" in quotes because the incumbent Democrat here, Rep. Sanford Bishop Jr., has won sixteen times. Plus, the fellow that the Republicans nominated yesterday (in what was actually a runoff election) is Arthur Wayne Johnson, who was a mid-level appointee in the Donald Trump administration. He's probably a bit too old to be starting a House career, at 72 years of age (73 by the time he'd take his seat). And he's definitely a bit too white for a district that's 49% Black.
  
  In short, Johnson isn't going to win, swing district or no. That means the more interesting thing here is the person Johnson beat in the runoff, Chuck Hand. Hand is a political newbie, and his primary claim to fame in Republican circles is that he's among the people arrested and convicted for partaking in the events of 1/6. Several challengers with that particular "credential" have run this cycle, and they've all been trounced, even when not facing an incumbent. The Hill, to our surprise, interprets that as a sign that some Republicans have moved past 1/6 and think it's no big deal. To us, the fact that these 1/6 candidates struggle to get to 30%, even in a Republican primary with no incumbent on the ballot, suggests that even most Republican voters remain unhappy about what happened on that day.
  
  
• OK-04: Oklahoma has no swing districts. It has no districts that are within a country mile of being swing districts. The state's most competitive district is OK-05, which is R+12. So, the R+19 OK-04 is not on this list because it's in play in November. No, it's here because the incumbent, Rep. Tom Cole (R), faced a challenger from the right in his quest for an 11th term. That challenger, Paul Bondar, not only had the backing of a lot of the more whackadoodle Republicans, but he was also able to self-fund his campaign to the tune of $5 million. Do you know how far that kind of money goes in a state like Oklahoma?
  
  When the votes were counted... Cole demolished Bondar, 64.6% to 25.8%. So much for the efficacy of well-heeled challenges from the right. If it didn't work in Oklahoma, of all places, then it's a low-percentage play everywhere.
  
  
• VA-02: This is the second competitive House district that was up yesterday, at R+2. Rep. Jen Kiggans (R) was unchallenged, and yesterday she found out that her general election opponent will be Missy Smasal (D), who took 70% of the primary vote. Smasal is a Navy veteran, an entrepreneur, the current director of a non-profit, and a political newbie (though she HAS served in appointed positions). Smasal is going to make abortion access the key issue of the campaign, which is no surprise, because Kiggans is on record in favor of Dobbs and a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks. This race is one of the 20 that the DCCC is focusing on, so it figures to be a barnburner.
  
  
• VA-05: This is, as we note above, Bob Good's district. At R+7, it's on the fringes of being in play. And if some bitterness lingers among supporters of whichever Republican candidate loses, well, you never know what might happen. So, just in case, we'll tell you the Democrat in the race will be Gloria Witt, who easily won her primary. She's new to politics, and her platform is, in this order: uphold democracy, strengthen families, rethink education, spur smart economic growth and address gun violence. Presumably that's a better fit for a fairly red district than the abortion-centered campaign that Missy Smasal is going to run in VA-02.
  
  
• VA-07: This is the third of the competitive House districts that was up last night. It's D+1, and it's an open seat, because Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) is retiring in order to mount a bid for governor of Virginia. So, members of both political parties were keeping a close eye on this one.
  
  The Republican nominee will be Derrick Anderson, who took 45.8% of the vote as compared to 36.9% for his nearest competitor, Cameron Hamilton. Anderson is a former Green Beret and was a low-level appointee in the Trump administration. His website is badly programmed and does not have an issues page, so we have very little idea what he stands for. However, he does have the endorsements of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and a bunch of Freedom Caucusers, so he must be pretty far-right. Good luck to Anderson in his efforts to try to keep hiding that, as he tries to win in a purple district.
  
  The Democratic nominee is also a military veteran, and is something of a blast from the past. It is Lt. Col. Eugene Vindman, U.S. Army (ret.), who crushed all challengers, winning just shy of 50% of the vote in a 7-way race. Does his name ring a bell? If not, well, he and his twin brother Alexander, also a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, were the star witnesses in Donald Trump's first impeachment trial. Vindman's raised a lot of money, as a result, and presumably will continue to do so. On the other hand, he's not all that dialed in to Virginia politics, leading to some griping about his being a carpetbagger. Also, he was photographed holding a Confederate flag earlier this year, which became a mini-scandal. Vindman apologized, but some damage was done. This race is going to be interesting... and probably very dirty.
  
  
• VA-10: This one is also on the fringes of being competitive, at D+6. It's being vacated by Jennifer Wexton due to her progressive supranuclear palsy diagnosis. Because it's an open, pretty blue seat in a high-income/high-education part of the state (basically, the D.C. suburbs), a dozen Democrats came out of the woodwork to run in the primary. The winner was state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam (D), who had the backing of Wexton, and got 30.4% of the vote. He's a moderate, a member of a minority group, and is charismatic, so he'll be a tough act to beat.
  
  The Republican in the race will be Mike Clancy, a lawyer and entrepreneur with no political experience whose website makes a big deal out of the fact that he is a regular contributor to Newsmax. First of all, getting airtime on a dinky, third-tier cable network is no great feat. Get back to us when you're a regular on Animal Planet or the Game Show Network; at least those are second-tier networks. Second, "far-right nutter" is not a very good fit for a pretty blue district. Subramanyam is going to win this one in a walk.

When we started writing this, we thought it would be pretty short. Not so much, it would seem. Next week, it is Colorado, New York, South Carolina and Utah. (Z)