The American political scene has been in primary mode since early March, but this past Tuesday saw major primary fights in both parties play out in five states. While it’s a folly to try and apply results in a bunch of unrelated races to form a larger political narrative, here are a few trends you should take notice of from the results because of what they might portend not only for the upcoming midterm elections, but also for American politics years down the line.

A rough night for establishment Democrats

When a democratic socialist bartender named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez upset House Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley in the 2018 Democratic primary for for New York’s 14th district, it opened up a new front in the battle between progressives and moderates for control of America’s oldest party and, along with Ayanna Pressley’s defeat of incumbent Massachusetts Congressman Mike Capuano, it would go on to inspire a series of other insurgent campaigns in safe Democratic districts in both 2020 and 2022. Tuesday’s primaries opened up another theater in this internecine struggle and the moderates came out of the gates hot, notching two big wins in North Carolina districts whose races were defined by hot button issues that have split the progressive and establishment wings of the party in the past. In the state’s 1st district, state Senator Valerie Foushee, who drew the ire of her primary opponents when she accepted money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, prevailed over Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, a former Bernie Sanders campaign operative and outspoken supporter of Palestine, while in the 4th district, state Senator Don Davis defeated his former colleague Erica Smith despite casting a series of controversial votes in support of limiting abortion rights. 

Progressives would break through in other high profile races, however. In Oregon’s 5th congressional district progressive attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner toppled incumbent Representative Kurt Schrader, who became notorious within his own party for scuttling legislation intended to lower prescription drug costs. And while a winner has yet to be declared, the Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed state Senator Summer Lee is currently leading attorney Steve Irwin, another AIPAC endorsee, in Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district.

Of course, the biggest progressive win of the night also came in Pennsylvania. Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, the only elected official in Pennsylvania to endorse Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, trounced Congressman Conor Lamb, taking 59% of the vote thus far and winning each of the state’s 67 counties. Fetterman’s victory isn’t exactly a shock – he was leading in most polls – but Lamb, a clean cut Marine veteran who had success running in a purple district, seemed tailor-made to win a swing state like Pennsylvania, and garnered the endorsement of nearly every Democratic state lawmaker, a slew of unions, and a number of liberal nonprofits. But he ran a poor campaign, abandoning his stalwart defense of Medicare and Social Security in favor of attacks on Fetterman’s electability. In stark contrast, Fetterman garnered few major endorsements but deftly ran to the middle on energy, immigration, and healthcareOnce a Medicare for All supporter, Fetterman now says he’ll support any and all policies that expand healthcare coverage, including an expansion of Obamacare. while sticking to his progressive guns when it came to marijuana legalization, the PRO Act (a bill that would make it easier for workers to form unions), and abortion access. 

During the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, the issue of “electability” was at the forefront of many voters’ minds, but Fetterman’s victory over Lamb suggests that this may no longer be the case. One candidate spent months insisting that only he could defeat an eventual Republican opponent, while the other focused on crafting a substantive platform that balanced his state’s specific needs (like many Pennsylvanians, Fetterman supports fracking) with populist economics and a progressive social agenda. Sure, the novelty of seeing a 6’ 9”, 300-plus-pound man who greeted the president in gym shorts run for office has something to do with his primary success, but the size of Fetterman’s victory suggests that this otherwise idiosyncratic candidate will have a serious shot at Pennsylvania’s Senate seat, especially as his eventual opponents remain locked in a nailbiter of a race.

Beware the late polling surge

In the days before Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary, Republicans and Democrats alike began to panic when polls showed Kathy Barnette, a National Guard veteran with a history of homophobic and Islamophobic statements who was present at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, neck and neck with former George W. Bush administration official David McCormick and talk show host Mehmet Oz for the Grand Old Party’s nomination. Republicans began to fear that the nomination of a far right candidate would all but hand the state’s Senate seat over to the Democrats, so much so that even Newsmax, which has pushed conspiracy theories similar to the ones promoted by Barnette, began to cover her adversarially. Much of that ado turned out to be for nothing, however – despite predictions that Barnette would pull off the upset, she stalled out with just under 25% of the vote, leaving McCormick and Oz to fight it out in what could be a long, drawn out vote counting process. Democrats are no doubt chuckling about Republicans’ sudden enthusiasm for counting every mail in vote.

Barnette’s late surge and her subsequent status as a trendy pick to win the primary is reminiscent of the Republican Ohio Republican Senate primary that took place earlier this month. Despite spending most of the race trailing Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance and former state Attorney General Josh Mandel, state Senator Matt Dolan made a late, dramatic climb in the polls about a week before votes were cast, leading some to believe he would eventually score a come from behind victory. Despite leading the vote count early, Dolan would fall all the way to third place behind Mandel and eventual winner Vance, settling for roughly the same percentage of the vote as Barnette. Barnette and Dolan lost for two different reason – the former was too far right for even Newsmax host Greg Kelly, while the latter was too critical of former President Donald Trump — but the lesson for election observers is the same: be wary of late polling bumps for candidates who have been stuck in third place for most of the campaign. Because chances are, they’ll still end up finishing in third place.

The Trump bump is real…

The most coveted endorsement for Republican hopefuls across the country is that of former President Donald Trump, who’s spent his first year and a half out of the White House acting like an old fashioned political power broker. While the bulk of Trump’s endorsements have come in primaries that were all but decided before election day, his blessing does seem to have had an effect in more crowded and competitive fields. Earlier this month, the aforementioned J.D. Vance made the most of a late Trump endorsement and boosted himself over two candidates who had previously been leading the race, while West Virginia Representative Alex Mooney won out in a nasty, redistricting-induced primary fight over his House colleague David McKinley.

This past week, Trump’s influence was most heavily felt in North Carolina, where his endorsement helped Representative Ted Budd seal the Republican Senate nomination against former governor Pat McCrory and aided former college football quarterback Bo Hines in his bid to replace Budd as the representative from the state’s 13th district. And while we still don’t know the final result in Pennsylvania, an Oz victory would only further cement the perception that a Trump endorsement is all an aspiring Republican lawmaker needs to clinch a nomination.

…But it isn’t a silver bullet…

Or maybe that’s not the case at all. Trump saw his first major primary defeat last week, when agribusiness executive Charles Herbster, who has been accused of sexual assault by multiple women, lost out on Nebraska’s Republican gubernatorial nomination to veterinarian and Nebraska Football Hall of Famer Jim Pillen. Trump incurred two more notable losses this week when Idaho Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachen failed to depose incumbent Governor Brad Little in their primary, while controversial North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn lost his renomination bid to state Senator Chuck Edwards. According to CNN, Trump was so frustrated by these losses (and Oz’s inability to decisively separate himself from McCormick) that he may hold off on making endorsements in upcoming competitive primaries.

Given Trump’s narrow 2016 victory in the face of scandals that would have sunk nearly any other candidate, it’s natural to wonder whether we’ve entered an era of post-electability in which voters are willing to ignore the unsavory actions and statements of a candidate who they otherwise agree with ideologically. But even Trump’s GOP has its limits, and it’s hard to survive, say, picking a very public fight with your boss or being caught in a fantastical lie while having lewd images and video of you strewn across the internet and come out unscathed in the end. Six years ago, Trump may have redefined what a political aspirant is able to get away with, but every once and a while, the fundamentals of electoral politics hold up.

…Which doesn’t matter, because this is Trump’s party anyway

Remember when there seemed to be a clear distinction between “establishment Republicans” and “Trump Republicans?” If the candidates running in this week’s Republican primaries are any indication, those lines have been completely blurred, if not outright erased altogether. While Kathy Barnette was pegged as far right from the get go, David McCormick has fully pivoted from neoconservative free trader who was once quoted as saying “When China succeeds, America succeeds,” into being an America First China hawk, while Mehmet Oz has flip-flopped on everything from abortion rights, the Affordable Care Act, and Anthony Fauci. In Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race, the Republicans nominated state Senator Doug Mastriano, a January 6th participant who has promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and vowed to appoint a secretary of state who will “reset” the state’s voter rolls. 

It’s one thing when Republicans win states like Delaware or Oregon, where Democrats have a near stranglehold on statewide offices, nominate fringe figures like Lauren Witzke and Jo Rae Perkins who have no chance of winning. But even in a key swing state like Pennsylvania, those fringe figures aren’t fringe anymore – they represent a significant wing of the Republican Party, one that has the potential to endure even after Trump retires from public life. It doesn’t help that, in some cases, these candidates are boosted by Democrats, who want to face what they assume will be the weaker general election candidate. Both parties are playing with fire in the interest of getting what they want – let’s hope they don’t end up burning the whole house down in the process.