Why must this happen?
The House Democratic campaign arm on Monday inflamed ongoing tensions over the influence of party leadership by taking sides in several competitive primaries for battleground House seats.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee waded in by announcing its latest round of “Red to Blue” candidates, a designation that is tantamount to an endorsement.
[…]
“Somehow, Washington DC still hasn’t realized that in Maine we make our own decisions about who represents us,” said Jordan Wood, whose primary opponent, state Sen. Joe Baldacci, won the DCCC’s backing for an open seat in Maine’s 2nd District. Wood added that the primary will be decided by Maine residents and not a “broken and corrupt political establishment.”
[…]
In California’s 22nd Congressional District, where Republican Rep. David Valadao is seeking reelection, the DCCC backed moderate state Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains over Randy Villegas, a political newcomer. Villegas has raised more money than Bains and earned endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other high-profile progressives.
The DCCC’s decision to get involved in California’s 22nd District proved especially controversial Monday. Villegas has emerged as a favorite of national progressive groups, and one of them, the Working Families Party, said in a statement that Democratic leaders had “hit the panic button” by signaling support for Bains.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s political arm has also endorsed Villegas. The head of the caucus’ political arm, Rep. Linda Sánchez of California, said in a statement that Latino candidates are “not a small factor” in the fight for the House majority and pledged to support Villegas and Carol Obando-Derstine in Pennsylvania’s 7th District — another candidate the DCCC snubbed Monday for Bob Brooks — “every step of the way through their primaries.”
Just stay the fuck out of contested primaries. What’s so god damned hard about that? In the same vein, Schumer running to endorse Platner was unnecessary, too. Some BlueSkyers who were super-upset about Platner’s tat and his reddit posts were pissed at Schumer about that. Shutting the fuck up was an option, but one that fuckup numero uno in the Maine Senate campaign (Schumer) couldn’t quite accomplish.
The DCCC red-to-blue races are all tight. Getting primary money and votes — without outside interference — is a pretty good test for any candidate who’s trying to flip the district. I’m generally a big believer in early money is best, and if the DCCC wants to name a red-to-blue candidate in an basically uncontested primary — such as one where their endorsed candidate has raised good money and another candidate has declared but essentially done nothing — fine. But some of their red-to-blue races are real primary contests. And, frankly, the DCCC stepping in might hurt their chosen few more than it helps, given the anti-establishment feelings of the Democratic base.
Anyway, moving on to a race that’s already happened, Scott sent in an interesting deep dive into Analilia Mejia’s win in NJ-11, which is the district that Mikie Sherrill vacated when she won the New Jersey governor’s race. If you’ve forgotten this race, the primary featured the dumbshits at AIPAC thinking that her main primary opponent, former Rep Tom Malinowski, was the presumptive winner, so they spent big bucks trying to dirty him up because he wasn’t all-in on aid for Israel. Mejia had accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, so the AIPAC ads had the opposite effect as what was intended: they showed the primary electorate that Malinowski might consider sending some money to Israel, so they voted for Mejia instead.
Mejia ended up doing better in NJ-11 than Kamala Harris or Mikie Sherrill did in 2024. The Cook PVI of the district is D+5, but Mejia won by 21 points (Harris did by 8, Sherrill by 15). I’m not going to read a hell of a lot into that number because the special election electorate is different from the off-year electorate, which is different from the presidential year electorate. That said, D+5 trending more blue is not a district that I’m going to lose sleep about — in this political environment, it’s a safe seat for at least a couple of cycles.
Based on a county-by-county analysis of results, the author of the piece on Mejia argues that, by not moving to the center, she actually picked up more votes than Sherrill or Harris:
Of course, Mejia’s progressivism doesn’t come without its trade-offs. Compared to Kamala Harris, she lost ground with high-income and Jewish neighborhoods. This isn’t surprising given Mejia’s message resonates more with common Americans, and her opponent relentlessly fear-mongered that she posed a “threat to Jewish safety.” (lol) Still, Analilia Mejia won the majority of Jewish voters in NJ-11, once again disproving the anti-semitic political truism that all Jewish Americans are some sort of hive-mind dedicated to a foreign state.
To be fair, Mejia’s loss of high-income voters shows there’s a grain of truth in the centrist argument. Going too far left does cost the Democrats some votes. Richer New Jerseyans turned away from Analilia Mejia’s economic populism and went for the Republican. But the fact remains that Mejia’s platform of Medicare For All, strong unions, and accusing Israel of genocide brought far more voters into the Democratic tent than it pushed out. As a result, the unapologetic progressive outperformed centrists Kamala Harris and Mikie Sherrill by impressive margins. The lesson is clear: if Democrats want to prioritize winning high-income communities, they should run candidates like Kamala Harris. But if they want to maximize the amount of votes they receive, they should run candidates like Analilia Mejia
Look, I don’t think we have to go out of our way to insult well-off voters in nice suburbs, but it’s clear that re-jiggering our campaigns to cater to what we think they want probably won’t work, and it certainly didn’t in NJ-11. I believe the undying desire of the consultants at the DCCC to get approval from the folks they believe are their peers — high-achieving upper-middle-class white folks — is what leads them to endorse primary candidates who are, unbelievably, raising less money than their opponents. Their actions are, as the title song suggests, unnecessary drama:
