The American political scene has been in primary mode since early March, but, once again, 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.

Trump’s revenge tour sputters out in Georgia

Of all the states former President Donald Trump lost in the 2020 presidential election none seem to bother him more than Georgia, a one-time Republican stronghold whose 16 electoral votes were narrowly won by Joe Biden. He did everything in his power to force Governor Brian Kemp, a fellow Republican, to not certify the election, and even went as far as calling Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to urge him to “find 11,780 votes“ that would put him over the edge in the Peach State. Neither acquiesced, so Trump swore revenge, endorsing primary challengers against not only Kemp and Raffensperger, but also against Attorney General Chris Carr, who resigned from the Republican Attorneys General Association after the group made robocalls encouraging supporters to gather in Washington on January 6th, 2021. While early polling indicated that Kemp and Raffesperger could at least be dragged into one-on-one runoffs against their challengers, the incumbents began to separate themselves from the pack as election day neared. Still, the Trump endorsed insurgents held firm. “We may not win on Tuesday,” Perdue said last week, “but I guaran-damn-tee you we are not down 30 points.” 

Well, he wasn’t wrong about that. Although some votes are still being counted, Kemp currently leads Purdue by just under 52% of the vote, winning an outright majority in each of Georgia’s 159 counties. Despite facing only one opponent, Carr won almost the exact same percentage of the vote against attorney John Gordon while Raffnesperger, who many observers thought would be dragged into a runoff against Representative Jody Hice, has also won with around 52% of the vote overall. 

So how did a trio of candidates endorsed by a former president with an 86% approval rating among Republicans running on a conspiracy that 72% of them say they believe in lose so badly? From a campaign perspective, they were simply outclassed. Although Perdue’s campaign generated early enthusiasm, Kemp did everything in his power to curry favor with the former senator’s past supporters and isolate his campaign from Republican strategists and fundraisers, preventing it from gaining any real momentum. Combine that with Perdue’s reluctance to contribute any of his own exorbitant wealth to his campaign’s coffers and some lazy campaigning from Hice and Gordon, and there just wasn’t enough energy or resources on the side of the insurgents to make this a real race. It also helps that, according to some estimates, as many as 40,000 Democratic voters may have crossed the aisle to vote against the Trump endorsees, rewarding Kemp, Raffesnperger, and Carr for faithfully executing the duties of their office even in the face of immense pressure from their own party. And, as we’ve written before, while a Trump endorsement can boost the right candidate to victory, it isn’t a magic spell that can turn a half-interested dilettante into a serious contender.

But the most likely explanation is that even voters who erroneously believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump have simply moved on and weren’t interested in nominating candidates stuck in the past. Although Kemp certified Georgia’s 2020 election results against Trump’s wishes, he’s hardly a moderate Never Trumper– in fact, he’s governed as a staunch conservative and signed legislation limiting absentee voting in direct response to Biden’s 2020 victory. Perdue ran a single-issue campaign, but Kemp has been delivering for Republicans for almost four years now, and, despite Trump’s objections, they have no reason to believe that he’ll stop doing so anytime soon.

The Freedom Caucus falls flat

It may have slinked out of the spotlight once Trump became the face of the populist right in America, but the Freedom Caucus, the Tea Party-inspired group of congressional Republicans that all but ended John Boehner’s career, is still around and jockeying for influence within the party. While the caucus itself doesn’t make endorsements, Chairman Scott Perry and high-profile members like Ohio Representative Jim Jordan and Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie gave a few nods to Republican candidates they think align with their vision. But whatever edge an unofficial Freedom Caucus endorsement may have given a candidate in the past seems to have blunted. In the primary for the special election to replace late Minnesota Representative Jim Hagedorn, state Representative Jeremy Munson, who was endorsed not only by the Freedom Caucus trio but other right wing Republican figures like Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, fell to Brad Finstad, a former Trump Administration official endorsed by the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership. In Alabama’s Republican Senate primary, Freedom Caucus member Mo Brooks, who was unendorsed by Trump for going “woke” and abandoning his fervent support of the “Stop the Steal” movement, may have made the June runoff, but he’ll have his hands full trying to defeat former Richard Shelby staffer Katie Britt, who was endorsed by establishment Republican Senators like West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and took over 44% of ballots cast in the first round.

But hey, at least Brooks made the runoff. In Georgia’s 10th Congressional District state Representative Timothy Barr boasted the endorsement of seven Freedom Caucus members, including district incumbent Jody Hice, and was shut out of the second round by trucking executive Mike Collins and former Democratic state Representative Vernon Jones, Trump’s choice for the seat. In theory, the Freedom Caucus should benefit from Trump becoming the center of Republicans politics – after all, nearly every member supports him, and they share many of the same policy priorities. But a few more primary losses and what were once the edgy, uncompromising Jacobins of the Republican Party could all of a sudden appear dated and redundant, a relic of Obama-era conservatism usurped by Trump and his allies.

Embattled incumbents hold serve in Texas…

Last week, I wrote about incumbents on either side of the aisle who lost their renomination fights amidst scandal and internal ideological struggles. But in this week’s Texas runoffs, the incumbents came back with a vengeance. The most resounding victory came from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, author of the lawsuit that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election (and, as a result, a recipient of Donald Trump’s endorsement), and the subject of securities fraud charges, federal lawsuits, ethics complaints, and misconduct allegations from his own state’s bar, who went head to head against Land Commissioner George P. Bush, son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and grandson and nephew of the 41st and 43rd presidents of the United States, respectively. Despite coming from Texas royalty, George P. became the first Bush to lose a statewide election in Texas since George H.W. Bush was bested by Ronald Reagan in the state’s 1980 presidential primary. Like Joseph Kennedy III in 2020, George P. made the fatal mistake of assuming his last name would help him skip a few rungs on the political ladder and aid him in unseating a statewide incumbent. Instead, it prematurely kneecapped his ambitions and threatened to end one of America’s most prominent political dynasties. The lesson here is to be patient, run for an open seat, and avoid selling out your family in the form of a beer koozie.

Way down the Republican ballot, Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian, who oversaw one of the biggest failures in the history of the American power grid and was accused of approving a waste dump permit in exchange for campaign donations held on against challenger Sarah Stogner, an energy attorney who turned heads when she released an ad that featured her straddling an oil pump nearly nude. An obscure agency that regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, the Railroad Commission race nonetheless became another forum for the culture war, with Christian hammering Stogner over tweets supportive of abortion and teaching children about the realities of slavery. Stogner plans on running against Christian’s colleague Christi Craddick during the next Railroad Commission election in 2024.

Not to be outdone, the Democrats had a nasty primary of their own in Texas’s 28th Congressional District, where Congressman Henry Cuellar seems likely to hold on against progressive Jessica Cisneros by a margin of fewer than 200 votes. Cisneros, who attracted the support of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, “Squad” members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, and progressive organizations like the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats, failed in her first bid to unseat Cuellar in 2020, but an FBI raid of his home and campaign office and his status as the only remaining anti-abortion Democrat in the House made him a tantalizing target for the left. But Democratic House leadership stood by Cuellar and the result was another narrow nomination for a man who won his 2004 primary by a measly 58 votes. 

Ever since the 2016 presidential election, progressives have insisted that, had Bernie Sanders been the Democratic nominee, the party would have been able to hold onto the rural and working-class voters who rejected Hillary Clinton in favor of Donald Trump. The Texas 28th primary is probably the closest that moderates will ever get to truly disproving that claim: Cisneros won big in the parts of the district in and around liberal San Antonio, but she was walloped in socially conservative border counties like Webb, Zapata, and Starr, whose big margins for Cuellar allowed the eight-term incumbent to edge her out. Although Cuellar may be a better fit for the district than Cisneros, he’s still got a hard fight ahead of him in November. The 28th District, and the Rio Grande Valley as a whole, swung towards Trump in 2020, making this seat a prime pickoff opportunity for Republicans. If Cuellar does lose, I’m sure establishment and progressive Democrats will have very calm and measured discussions about what the result would or would not have been had Cisneros been the nominee instead.

…But progressive Democrats pick off another urban district…

The night wasn’t a total bust for progressives, however. In Texas’ 38th Congressional District, which covers most of the city of Dallas, state Representative Jasmine Crockett soundly defeated former congressional staffer Jane Hope Hamilton for the right to replace outgoing incumbent Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson. Crockett may not be quite as left-leaning as Cisneros, but she garnered endorsements from Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Sanders spin-off organization Our Revolution, and the Working Families Party, all of which shore up her progressive credentials. Crockett’s win comes just days after Summer Lee, who was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, was officially declared the winner against moderate Steve Irwin in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, which covers Pittsburgh. Lee and Crockett’s victories indicate that, no matter their struggles in rural areas, progressive Democrats can still find success against establishment backed candidates in urban districts. That probably explains why seemingly every progressive in the state of New York, from Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, to former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, to Westchester-based Congressman Mondaire Jones, is trying to secure the nomination in the Empire State’s newly drawn 10th District.

…And another Blue Dog bites the dust

 Last week, I (somewhat prematurely) wrote about the defeat of Congressman Kurt Schrader, a member of the moderate Blue Dog Caucus, at the hands of Jamie McLeod-Skinner, a union backed challenger. Well, the Blue Dogs lost another member this week when Georgia Congresswoman Carolyn Bourdeaux fell to fellow incumbent Lucy McBath in the state’s redrawn 7th District. Bourdeaux is hardly a Cuellar style-conservative Democrat, but she was one of the “Unbreakable Nine,” a group of moderate House Democrats who insisted that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill be decoupled from Biden’s Build Back Better social spending and climate action package, all but dooming the latter’s chance of ever being passed. Facing a bluer constituency in 2022, Bourdeaux was defeated handily by McBath, who has voted with Biden’s position 100% of the time. The Blue Dogs are taking it from all fronts – in the primaries, they’re being challenged by either progressives or mainstream liberals who perform better among the Democratic base, and in the general election, they have to try and keep their jobs representing purple districts that have likely soured on Biden’s performance as president. Where there are suburban Democrats, there will be Blue Dogs, but 2022 could see a large percentage of the coalition wiped out, either by their own party or by their Republican opponents. 

Other notes:

  • Trump may have failed to oust the statewide Georgia incumbents, but he had better luck in a handful of open seats. In addition to Vernon Jones advancing to the runoff in Georgia’s 10th District, Jake Evans, the son of Trump’s former Ambassador to Luxembourg, advanced to a runoff against 2020 Congressional candidate Rich McCormick. He has a lot of ground to make up, though, as he finished over 20 points behind McCormick in the first round of voting. Herschel Walker, the former Heisman Trophy winner and Trump’s choice for Georgia’s Senate seat, handily won the Republican primary. Walker’s led Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in most of the recent polls that have been conducted on the race but if his incoherent comments on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas are any indication of his campaign style, Trump may have handed Georgia Democrats another electoral gift.
  • Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, another Republican incumbent with a complicated relationship with Trump, easily defeated her primary challenger, former Trump Ambassador to Slovenia Lynda Blanchard by over 30 points. Trump did not make an endorsement in this race.
  • The one former Trump official who did have a good night was former Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who easily secured the Republican nomination for Governor of Arkansas and should have little trouble winning the general election.
  • The Georgia gubernatorial election will be a rematch between Brian Kemp and former state Representative Stacey Abrams, who lost by less than two points in 2018. Abrams has become something of a celebrity among Democrats, founding the voting rights group Fair Fight and receiving credit for helping flip Georgia blue in 2020. She’s also nakedly ambitious, having lobbied publicly to be chosen as Joe Biden’s running mate and starring as the President of United Earth on an episode of Star Trek: Discovery. A win in November would put her on the shortlist of potential Biden successors and, given the slim margin of her 2018 loss, is a real possibility. But if she loses, she’ll have to make some difficult decisions about what her next move will be.