The Mother of All Primaries
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Welcome back to Beyond the Polls. This week, I'll talk with Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin about the congressional primaries to watch in April and May. Plus, I'll dive into a wicked attack ad in Arizona 8's GOP primary. Let's dive in.

Well, even casual followers of politics know what's going on with respect to abortion. The reason why is because it's national news every time something happens. The Dobbs decision in 2022 that overturned 50 years or nearly 50 years precedent in Roe v. Wade.

is the political gift that keeps on giving in the sense that it's a live issue that people keep talking about. One party wants to do it, while the other is trying to figure out how to do it. And therein lies the rub. This week, we've seen two separate stories that talk about how abortion is going to play in the Republican primary, plus we have a statement from Donald Trump. And they all point towards the same thing. Story one.

The Florida Supreme Court upheld Florida's six-week ban on abortion, which is to say that after six weeks of pregnancy, which is roughly when a fetal heartbeat can begin to be detected, that abortion will no longer be legal in the Sunshine State. This was a victory for the pro-life side. At the same time, they permitted abortion rights advocates

who have filed an initiative to basically overturn that provision and create an abortion rights section of the state constitution. They allowed that initiative to go forward. So Florida voters are going to decide, do they want to have a right to an abortion through fetal viability, which is between the 21st and the 24th week of pregnancy, enshrined in the Florida constitution.

That's topic one. Topic two, Arizona. The Arizona Supreme Court yesterday in a 42 decision ruled that a 1864 law back when Arizona was a territory that established that abortion was illegal except in cases to save the right of the mother.

is valid. It had been the law in Arizona even after statehood, but Roe versus Wade had suspended its applicability because obviously if there's a federal constitutional right to an abortion, a state law to the contrary cannot be enforced. Supremacy clause, constitution, your basic 1787 constitution that established the national government. Well, of course, when Roe's gone, the question is, does it come back? And the 4-2 decision said, yes, it does.

Arizona abortion rights advocates had already been preparing for their own initiative, which would establish a constitutional right to an abortion through fetal viability, and they're raring to go to overturn this decision. Item three, Donald Trump issued his long-awaited stance on abortion and stated that he believes it's a state matter. He does not want a federal ban on abortion, and he thinks that the states ought to decide.

He says that he's for exceptions, for rape and incest. He is for IVF treatment. And he does not provide a statement as of yet as to what he thinks states ought to do with respect to any particular time limit on when abortion should or should not be legal. Sum all this up and Democrats are salivating. Democrats are salivating at the chance to hang pro-life views around the neck of Republican politicians. They see Trump as

As somebody who still boasts about appointing the justices that overturned Roe versus Wade, and they're trying to hang a strong, extreme pro-life position around his neck, even if he no longer actively supports it, as somebody who enabled that.

But you can see where the tea leaves are going by the way that Republican candidates in Arizona who are going to be running in competitive races reacted to the decision. Carrie Lake, the person who lost the 2022 governor's race narrowly and is running for the Senate, two years ago had said that the law was a great law. Now she says that the state legislature should repeal it and replace it with another law that establishes

A right to an abortion up to some unspecified period. Congressman Juan Siscomani, who narrowly won his swing district in an unexpectedly close race last time, is a little clearer. He says that he would set it at the limited 15 weeks, which is not coincidentally roughly where national polls say the 50-50 mark comes in.

which is to say that anything less than 15 weeks nationally is opposed by a majority. 15 weeks is around where the country is split, depending on the poll. It's roughly within the margin of error. 50% support, 50% oppose 15-week ban. And large majorities oppose all

allowing abortion to be legal the closer you get to fetal viability. So at the 20 or 24 week mark, even if Roe technically allowed that to be legal, it was something that even today, large majorities of voters say they do not want. So the question is, how should Republicans respond? And as importantly, how should pro-lifers respond?

The thing that the pro-life community needs to understand is that the center of American public opinion today is not pro-life. The center of American public opinion is what I call weekly pro-choice. And I say weekly because traditionally it has not motivated pro-life.

voter behavior. People who care on the extremes, people who really believe abortion ought to be banned as close to conception as possible, or people who largely do not believe in limits on abortion,

have always been active in putting abortion up on the list of issues they consider when they're casting their ballots. But the majority of people have not been. And the majority in the center is the people who believe that abortion ought to be legal somewhere within the first trimester, maybe up to 15 weeks, but definitely in the first 12 weeks. And they've tended not to vote in partisan races on that basis.

About a third of the Republican voter base, not the activists, but the Republican voter base in the general election falls into this category. That's why every initiative or referendum that has been on the ballot in a state since the Dobbs decision came down has resulted in a loss for the pro-life side. Virtually unanimous support from people who are normally Democratic Party voters and about a quarter to a third of the Republican Party voters cross over.

So what this means is that on the one hand, when you see Carrie Lake and Juan Siskimani and Donald Trump running away from the pro-life movement's position, they're following their voters. They're not following anything else. And so that means that if the pro-life side wants to start getting back in the game, frankly, what they need to do is show wavering politicians that they can win.

And win doesn't mean a national ban on abortion at the six-week period. Win may not even mean in most states having a six-week ban on abortion because that shows to be unpopular in most states. In fact, the Senate candidate in Wisconsin, Eric Hovda, who is going to likely be the challenger to Tammy Baldwin in the Republican Party's effort to retake that Senate seat,

Said that he supports abortion through the 24th week in other words there's no distance between him and the abortion rights advocates who are putting

these initiatives on the ballot. In order to overcome this flight from pro-lifeness, the pro-life side needs to show conservatives that it's safe to go back in the water. And what that means, they need to be able to show where a stance is that's politically defensible in places that aren't safe Republican districts. And that means concentrating on winning the mind of the weak pro-choice voter.

The person who's probably going to vote Republican but would prefer not to have a pro-life state law but doesn't like having abortion illegal the closer you get to fetal viability. Again, that person who would say 15 weeks is okay with me, 20 weeks is not. It ought to be a laser-focused effort on that. If you don't do that, then what's going to happen is the same thing that we've been seeing for the last 18 months is going to keep registering.

that that person is going to say, actually, I want to see Roe as understood as permitting abortions under most circumstances up until fee to viability. That's not what I would love. But when the alternative is something I can't stand, that's what I'm going to choose for. If you think Republicans are running away from the pro-life cause now, wait until you see a couple more defeats, especially in swing states like Arizona, which might be the swingiest state in the country, especially if you see...

A well-funded Republican challenger like Eric Hovda going down to defeat in part because of an abortion issue, especially if you see Florida, which had been a swing state, became a massively red state over the last few years, moved back into swing status over this race. Democrats want this to happen. Democrats and their allies are going to spend tens of millions of dollars to make this happen.

And all the hullabaloo about congressional control, for all of the focus that's going to be placed on the presidential race, this battle for the soul of America, this battle over the question of pro-life versus abortion rights, about the way we're going to treat this suddenly politically salient issue, might be the most important thing that is on the ballots of many states directly,

indirectly on the ballots almost everywhere. And that makes how both sides maneuver and both sides respond perhaps the most interesting political question of the cycle.

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Well, a lot of times when we're talking about congressional races, House races and Senate races, we're talking about the ones that matter for control, the D versus R matchups in either chamber. But as we're learning, particularly with the, let us say, dysfunction in the House Republican conference,

The one-party primaries that set up the bulk of the membership of each party's membership are as important and perhaps more important in some cases than control because they tell us the direction that the party's conference wants to go in. And here to talk about the primaries coming up in both the House and the Senate, the ones that are important for control, but particularly the ones that are important for makeup.

We have Jacob Rubashkin, who is deputy editor of Inside Elections, one of the premier election prognosticators in the country. Jacob, welcome. Thanks for having me. Well, thank you. Well, let's start with the big dogs. And by big dogs, in the case of West Virginia, I mean big dog. I mean, Jim Justice is a big guy. And he has a big dog, I believe.

This is the race to succeed Joe Manchin, and virtually every prognosticator, including your institution, says that this is going to be a safe pickup. The only question is, which Republican is going to sit in Joe Manchin's chamber? Who do you think is going to do it, and how do you see the race developing over the next five weeks? Clearly, Jim Justice, the incumbent governor of

is the favorite in this primary. I mean, this is a guy who is not just, you know, big in body, but big in spirit and personality. He is a fixture of the state. He is, at some points, has been the wealthiest man in West Virginia. The exact nature of his net worth, I think, is up for grabs. If you told me it was in the negatives, I'd believe you. If you told me it was a billion dollars, I'd also believe you. He's in those kinds of businesses.

But look, I think that Justice has to be considered the favorite here. Alex Mooney, the congressman from the northern half of the state, has not been able to put a dent in Justice's popularity. And more crucially, the outside support that I think Mooney was counting on from his allies at the Club for Growth has been

has not materialized in the way that he had hoped. The club talked a big game about beating Justice. They said that they had a $15 million fund set up

to go after Justice. And to the best of my knowledge, I don't believe that they have actually gotten anywhere close to that expenditure in this primary. They've been much more focused on the governor's race. So I think Justice is clearly the favorite here. Mooney just has not been able to get off the ground in a way that he would have liked.

Now, Mooney is someone who ran against incumbent Congressman David McKinney two years ago as a member versus member show-off as West Virginia lost a seat. He had Trump's endorsement as well as the club's and cleaned up, frankly. This time he doesn't have Trump's endorsement. Trump and the NRSC are behind Justice.

Do you think that's not just a came changer, but a backbreaker? Or is that something that if Mooney had the money or had the outside support, he could theoretically overcome? I think it's incredibly difficult to do it without Trump's endorsement. And when Justice secured that support, it...

perhaps was the beginning of the end for Alex Mooney. West Virginia is a very Trumpy state. The word of the former president there goes a long way, and it clearly made such a big difference in that member versus member primary with McKinley.

And I think for a while, Mooney basically, Mooney and his people understood that they weren't going to get the Trump endorsement, but they were holding out hope that Trump would stay out altogether, that he wouldn't endorse justice either. And that, of course, did not come to pass. Justice and Trump are buddies. Trump convinced justice to switch parties. He was elected as a Democrat back in 2016.

And Trump brought him over into the Republican fold. There's a deep relationship there. So, yeah, I think that it's difficult to see, even with the additional support from the Club for Growth, how Mooney was going to overcome the structural advantages Justice had as the incumbent governor and the support he was getting from Trump.

Well, let's move on from West Virginia to a neighboring state, albeit over a small part of their border, and that's Maryland. That Maryland has an open Senate seat as well, and this is one that could be a competitive race, and we'll get to that in a minute. But the primary is on the Democratic side between Representative David Trone and Prince George's County Executive Angela also Brooks. How do you see this one developing?

This has become one of the most fascinating primaries and potentially general elections of the cycle. You really have a study in contrasts between...

the the two candidates in this primary congressman david trone represents the western most district in maryland he is from montgomery county but he represents a lot of the more conservative areas of the state you mentioned you know sharing a border with west virginia there are parts of maryland that are to the west of parts of west virginia

which people sometimes forget. And he's an incredibly wealthy wine store owner. Total Wine and More is his family business. Angela also Brooks, the other candidate in the race, very different background, very different bio. The county executive of Prince George's County, which is a suburban D.C. county, a majority black county. And she has a long record in public service as a two term county executive. She was a

county prosecutor before that, and she has backing from most of the state's political establishment from the governor on down. But the thing that has dominated this race so far is Trone's money. And I was actually looking at this today for a story that I'm working on. I believe that when all is said and done, Trone will be the biggest self-funder of a primary campaign in

in American history when it comes to the United States Senate. President's a little bit of a different picture because nobody's ever going to beat Bloomberg.

But when it comes to the Senate, Trone is going to be the top spender in primary history. He's up over $30 million already with another five weeks to go. I mean, that number could get as high as $50 million, which is what he said he would spend. And that has bought him a pretty sizable lead.

He was leading probably by as much as 20 points earlier in the year. And I think that that has come down somewhat significantly now that also Brooks is up on TV and has kicked her campaign into a higher gear. But it's pretty clear Trone enters the stretch of this race in the driver's seat. And it's the burden is going to be on also Brooks to build up some momentum in the closing weeks of the race and catch up to him, which is absolutely playing from behind.

How much will race play into this, that Trone is wealthy and white, and also Brooks is a, I believe, former prosecutor who is black, and the state has a significant African-American population, and the Democratic primary, as a result, is going to be one of the larger African-American shares of the electorate.

Is this something that could provide also Brooks with an unexpected tailwind, so to speak, as the race comes to a conclusion? I wouldn't call it unexpected. I think that it has been part of the assumptions about this race for as long as it's been around. I mean, Maryland has a significant black population. Most of those voters are Democrats. The primary electorate will be...

you know as much as fifty percent black uh... you know probably something closer to forty five but uh... significant number uh... you know maryland has the highest black population any state uh... outside of the deep south uh...

And it has never elected a black senator, and that has been pretty integral to also Brooks's argument kind of explicitly. You know, her opening ad had basically displayed a long list of photos of Maryland senators who have been categorically white men and one white woman. And

uh then she shows up um and so i think it's been a pretty explicit uh aspect of the also brooks campaign that she is running in this kind of historical nature um and and yes i think it does provide a base of support if you look at past competitive democratic primaries uh you go back to 2006

When Ben Cardin and Kweisi Mfume faced off in the Democratic primary, Cardin only narrowly beat Mfume, who was not running a particularly well-run campaign, but still got about 40% of the vote. In 2016, Chris Van Hollen defeated Donna Edwards, who also had a bit of a rocky campaign. Edwards won about 39% of the vote. So clearly, there is a base of support for black candidates in Democratic primaries.

in Maryland. And Trone knows this as well, which is why if you look at his advertising, he has invested millions, if not tens of millions of dollars in ads, you know, trying to appeal to black voters. He has rolled out endorsements from any number of, you know, his colleagues in the House, you

you know, Hakeem Jeffries, Jonathan Jackson, Jesse Jackson's son, Jonathan Jackson, who's a congressman out in Illinois, cut an ad for David Trone that's airing in Maryland right now. And, you know, I think that Trone has clearly tried to, you know, chip into also Brooks's support among black voters. He's talked immensely about criminal justice reform, trying to position himself to the left of also Brooks on criminal justice issues, on addiction issues.

And so absolutely, race is a big factor in this primary, and Trone spent a lot of money to get away from the image that he arrived at the race with, which is he is a rich, old, white man. So we'll see if it's successful for him, but it's clearly been the strategy. Now, both of these races, the West Virginia race and the Maryland race, have other

Other minor candidates, and the only reason I mention that is because this is neither state requires a runoff. This is whoever gets the most votes wins. So it's possible that unlikely in West Virginia, it's possible if both candidates mix it up, maybe the winner gets 44, 45 percent in the primary.

It's absolutely possible. Again, you know, I think Ben Cardin got around 44 or 45 percent in that 2006 primary against Mfume because there were a number of minor party candidate or minor minor candidates on the Democratic primary ballot.

I think the I wouldn't count on that as a strategy, though. I think that's a risky that's a risky avenue to take if you're either Tron or also Brooks to be counting on some level of scattering from to other candidates on the ballot. I think you want to get as close to 50 as you can to feel comfortable.

Let's just jump very quickly into the general election, which is to say that when this seat opened up, it was considered to be a safe Democratic seat, when, of course, Maryland has not elected a Republican for decades. And then Larry Hogan, the former governor, Republican who won in an upset in 2014, won easily in 2018, jumped into the race. And the two public polls that have come out recently show him ahead of either Republican

Democratic candidate. Now, of course, we have to back that up with the statement that he has statewide name identification. They are still building it, and you have to factor that in. But can Larry Hogan, who remains very popular even among some Democrats and many independents, can he do this? Or is this another case of somebody who was popular enough to win governor, but when it gets to a federal race, partisanship kicks back in?

Can he win? Yes, absolutely. Will he win? No, I don't think so, because I think, like you said, the political reality will kick in and nobody will be caught asleep at the wheel. I think the Democrats have learned this lesson.

the hard way over the last decade as they have tried and tried again to bring former popular former governors back to run for Senate in red leaning states. The list is pretty seared into the minds of anyone who's worked at the DSCC over the last decade or so between Steve Bullock and Phil Bredesen and Ted Strickland. You know, the the number of governors who try and win federal races

and discover that voters think about them differently is quite high on the Republican side. Linda Lingle in 2012 in Hawaii. We were talking about Bill Weld back in the 90s in Massachusetts.

All those people found out very quickly that early polling leads and goodwill left over from gubernatorial terms does not translate into political success. But in all of those races, a lot of work had to be done in order to get the votes.

the other candidate across the finish line. I mean, Republicans spent tens of millions of dollars in Tennessee against Phil Bredesen. They spent tens of millions of dollars in Montana against Steve Bullock. Those were real races that attracted significant outside resources and national attention. And what Hogan means for Maryland is that Maryland is now one of those races.

He is a credible enough candidate, and he brings so much strength to the table that Democrats are forced to take him seriously, and they're going to be forced to spend money there. And that could be money that would have been more efficiently spent in Montana or Ohio or Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, any of the dozen other places Democrats are on defense as well.

Well, let's move over to the House. There's a lot of different primaries, but there are a few that we had talked about that we want to focus on. April 23rd, Pennsylvania goes to vote. How do you see the challenge to squad East Summerlee in the suburban and partly urban Pittsburgh district, Pennsylvania 12th?

I think Summer Lee is actually in pretty good position in her primary. She faces a former local politician in Bhavani Patel, who has attacked Summer Lee on her stances on Israel and some of her past comments about the Democratic Party and the distance that she's put between herself and Biden. But

A couple of things have happened that make me a little bit more bullish on Lee. The first is that she really has consolidated support from a lot of the Democratic stakeholders in the area. A lot of the institutions, labor unions, political groups like Planned Parenthood, the state party, things like that. I think she's done a really good job of making nice with those kinds of local power players.

The second thing is she has not attracted the same kind of outside negative spending as some other members of the squad currently, or as she did in 2022 when she was running in that open seat. That year we saw...

you know outside outside money come in millions and millions of dollars to support her opponent a guy named steve irwin in the democratic primary uh... and this year very little of that has materialized and and and unfortunately for bobby patel her opponent the only group has gotten involved in this race against summer lee is a group of that has only ever taken money from jeff yas who is

largest Republican donor in the state of Pennsylvania. And so here's Bhavani Patel trying to make this argument that she's the true Democrat in this race, that Summer Lee is not loyal enough to Biden, that Summer Lee wants to undo the Democratic Party, and yet here she is being backed by a super PAC

funded entirely by the biggest Republican donor in the state. And she has been taking incoming on that issue from all manner of parties. Summer Lee has been attacking her over at the Working Families Party, other outside groups. So I don't think that this primary is going to be all that competitive when all is said and done. And maybe you can have me on in a couple weeks and

I can eat my words, but I think that when it comes to the squad, the races against Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush are absolutely the ones to watch. The summer league contest does not seem to be a priority for anti-squad forces, as it were, over the next couple months.

Well, a couple of weeks later, we have Indiana. In Indiana, you almost had a case where will the last Republican incumbent please turn out the lights as four stepped down. And then one got back in, you know, Victoria Sparks said months ago. In fact, I believe early last year, she wasn't going to run again. A bunch of people jumped in the race and then right towards the end, she says, changed my mind.

But that hasn't meant that she's got it all to herself. Where do you see the challenge to Victoria Sparks and Indiana Five going? Yeah, this is a tricky one because Sparks is one of the more unpredictable members of the House of Representatives over the course of this election.

I mean, she started off this cycle by talking about running for Senate. And then she said she wasn't going to run for Senate. She was just going to run for house. And then she said, she's not going to run for reelection. Then she said, maybe I'll resign. And then she said, I'm not going to resign. And now she's a year later back in the race. Um, you know, I think it's shaping up to be a two way contest between her and state representative Chuck Goodrich, who is a, uh, construction company CEO who, uh,

got into the race after sports made her initial retirement announcement and has spent uh... quite a bit of money well over a million dollars that he self-funded on t_v_ ads that that made him the front runner to replace her when she jumped back in you know she did not immediately get back into the swing of campaigning and uh... goodrich kept on hitting her on on the airwaves and so i think this race is actually gotten pretty close uh...

But with sports going back up on TV over the last week or so, you know, I think I know her team is hopeful that they'll begin to create some distance again. But I think it's absolutely competitive at the moment. You know, she's at a bit of a financial disadvantage running against a wealthy opponent and having not campaigned for the last year.

I saw one of these ads that Goodrich is running, and Sparts is Ukrainian-born. Her family came to the country when she was a child, but she still has a distinctive accent. And, of course, as you might expect, she has been supportive of aid to Ukraine. And Goodrich is just slamming her on that, using the argument that she cares more about Ukraine's borders than America's.

Do you think, obviously, if an incumbent loses over this issue, this could have repercussions well beyond the particular member who comes from suburban Indianapolis. Do you see this being an effective ad, or is this him just trying to throw everything but the kitchen sink, or maybe the kitchen sink, too, in order to dent her positives?

My colleague, former colleague, Bridget Bowman over at NBC News had a great story about the role of Ukraine funding in Republican primaries this year and this race, obviously, front and center given Sparks'

upbringing. And she herself has kind of a complicated relationship with Ukraine. She has gotten into, is kind of feuding with President Zelensky and his people. But look, I think that the Ukraine issue has become another way for Republicans to kind of distinguish themselves as the true, true conservative versus just

the plain Jane conservative, as it were, that you've got two candidates who are pretty much the same on Trump and on kind of all the big issues. But on this particular question of Ukraine funding and support for Ukraine, it's a point of leverage for Goodrich to try and exercise. I think it's also interesting that

The Sparts ad against Goodrich is all about China and kind of Goodrich's business dealings with Chinese companies. And who would have thought, right, that this suburban district north of Indianapolis would be entirely fought on grounds of foreign policy in the Republican primary? But that does seem to be how things are shaking out.

Well, let's move to Maryland. That votes on May 14th. There's an interesting race going on for a Democratic open seat, the third. Tell us what's at stake and who the personalities are. This is an Annapolis-based district that is currently represented by Congressman John Sarbanes. He has been around for, oh gosh, about 18 years now, nine terms, I believe. He's the son of the longtime former Senator Paul Sarbanes.

He is leaving at the end of his term, and there is a very crowded Democratic primary to replace him. It is a solid Democratic district, and so the winner of the primary will be the next member of Congress. It's a district right on the Chesapeake Bay.

And the biggest name in the race was, uh, or still is Harry Dunn. Who's that former Capitol police officer who became a bit of a national figure after he testified in front of the January 6th committee, he tapped into a very large national donor base because of his celebrity and has raised a bazillion dollars. Uh,

That's an exact number, I think. We'll see when he releases his FEC reports, but he will have raised well over $3 million in the first quarter of the year, which is just an astounding number for any congressional candidate. A lot of Senate candidates don't raise that kind of money, let alone a first-time politician running in a safe seat.

So he was kind of the big player in that primary that also included four or five local elected officials, a labor lawyer named John Morse. The race got a real shakeup, though, a couple weeks ago, and I actually was the one who broke this news. But the APAC-affiliated super PAC called United Democracy Project, which has shown itself to be very interested in open democratic politics,

primaries over the last two cycles has waded into this race and they're running advertising in support of another candidate in the race, a state senator named Sarah Alfreth.

And the ads are just kind of standard positive advertising, reproductive rights, things like that. But they are spending a lot of money here all of a sudden. And their entrance here makes sense.

the picture more complicated because now pro-Elfrith money is the biggest spender in the race, not Harry Dunn's money. And I think this one is really going to turn into a dogfight

And unlike perhaps the Maryland Senate race, right, where I think those two candidates are going to capture the lion's share of the vote, there are real credible candidates on the ballot in addition to Dunn and Elfrid, current and former state legislators. I mentioned John Morse. He's got support from a bunch of labor unions. The winner of this primary could win with 25 percent of the vote in such a large field and be the next member of Congress.

And that raises the question of race again, that Harry Dunn is black, Sarah Elfeth is white. This is nowhere near as black as many other congressional districts, but it's still a significant black population in this seat. If you're talking about 20-25%, is this something that could be, again, something in Dunn's corner? Maybe, though I'm...

a little hesitant to ascribe that much power to race in this particular election just because obviously I think the district is fairly diverse and most notably Dunn is not from the district. I believe that he grew up in Prince George's County which is not part of this district and he doesn't have the kind of political ties

to the seat that I think might allow him to, to, uh, you know, run his race a little differently. I think it, that's a clear distinction between him and someone like Angela also Brooks, who's running statewide and has a long and deep relationship with, uh, the political community in Prince George's County and, and, um, and at the state level, uh,

You know, I'm not so sure that race will be as clear a dividing line in the third district primary as it might be in the Senate race.

Well, a week later, Georgia and Oregon vote and they have some primaries. The one we'd like to talk about is the one in Oregon 5, which is kind of like partially in the Portland suburbs, partially, I believe it goes out to Bend. Correct me if I'm wrong about that. Won by a Republican last year, even though I think it was a Biden plus 11 district because in part.

The Democratic nominee was a woman named Jamie McLeod Skinner, who defeated moderate one-time blue dog Kurt Schrader in the Democratic primary. McLeod Skinner is back again, but she's not alone in the primary, is she? That's exactly right. McLeod Skinner is back for round two.

against Lori Chavez-Dreamer, but first she has to get past Janelle Bynum, who is a state representative who has actually run and defeated Chavez-Dreamer in two different state legislative races prior to Chavez-Dreamer's election to Congress, which is something that she talks about a lot, that she has a track record of beating the incumbent.

This is a really interesting Democratic primary because it's one of the very few races in which the National Democratic Party has waded in to a competitive primary. Typically, the DCCC is loath to get involved in primaries. It always causes some sort of controversy. It can backfire on them, especially if the candidate they endorse loses and they've got to deal with someone else.

in the general election, but they have decided that it is worth the potential for backlash to get involved for Janelle Bynum. They are now running TV ads in support of her as of today. I believe they're spending coordinated dollars to help boost her candidacy. And the reason for that is that a twofold. I think McLeod Skinner has always had a reputation of being a little bit more progressive.

and that I you know came back to to haunt her in this 22 race that she lost very narrowly after defeating Kurt Schrader and in the primary running to his left but then perhaps more notably there was a story I in I wanna say the will am it weak perhaps a couple months ago that included some accusations of abuse from a former campaign staffer against mcleod skinner and I think that really spooked

lot of folks here in DC spooked folks out in Oregon and kind of called into question her electability she's denied all of that but I think that's a big part as well of why we're seeing some consolidation behind Bynum whether it will work or not I don't know I mean she's trailed and all the available polling that we have McLeod Skinner has

amount of name ID because she's run for this seat. She ran for a different district out in the eastern part of the state. I believe she ran for a statewide position in 2020. So she's been around for a while. She's a known quantity, whereas Bynum has a lot of work to do introducing herself. I do think, though, either one of them will be highly competitive in the general election, given that this district is just so Democratic at the presidential level.

Well, and then to round out the month, we have the runoff in Texas 23, which is a huge geographic district that includes parts, I believe, of suburban San Antonio and all the way down to the Rio Grande and the Mexican border and has a number of counties there, plus smallish rural counties in between. This is an R on R race, incumbent Republican congressman

Tony Gonzalez easily led in the first primary, but Texas requires 50% and he didn't get it. How do you see this challenge coming up? I'm of two minds here. It's never a good sign for an incumbent to be dragged into a primary runoff situation.

in any state but Texas with that 50% threshold, that's not good. It means that more people wanted you out than wanted you in. And that certainly applies to Tony Gonzalez. He's caught in a lot of heat from his own party over some votes he's taken. He voted to codify gay marriage protections.

He voted in favor of the gun bill that was negotiated by Texas Senator John Cornyn in the wake of the Uvalde shooting. Uvalde, of course, in this congressional district. So he has made some enemies. The thing that makes me a little bit more bullish about his chances is that his opponent, Brendan Herrera, has a lot of baggage himself. This is a guy who

His claim to fame is a YouTube channel where he shoots a lot of guns and talks about guns from history and gets himself in trouble sometimes with the jokes he makes about the guns that shot JFK or the guns that the Nazis used and really kind of making what could most charitably be described as jokes and really poor taste jokes.

about historical events also about baron trump donald trump's son uh... you know kind of snarky comments the uh... the op op file on him is is uh... long and deep and is being weaponized right now against him so

I don't know how this one is going to turn out, quite frankly. I think that it will say a lot about where Texas Republican voters are if Brandon Herrera ousts Tony Gonzalez.

And and, you know, I think that it's this is kind of the rare case where I, you know, I think Democrats made a misstep by not investing a little bit more in their own primary in this seat. This used to be one of the most competitive districts in the country when when Will Hurd held this seat.

in the late 2010s, it was constantly at the top of the battlefield. Tony Gonzalez only won a narrow victory in 2020. The seat got a little redder and redistricting, but it's still not a deep red seat. And I think if Democrats had tried to get someone more credible in place,

to take advantage of exactly the situations happening. We could be talking about this race in the fall as a real pickup opportunity if Herrera were the nominee. But as it currently stands, the nominee for the Democrats is a guy named Santos Limon, who seems like a real person and perfectly fine, but isn't raising any money and not the kind of candidate that might be able to catch fire if given the opportunity.

Well, Jacob, that's a wonderful waltz through the primaries, and I'm sure that this is one of the reasons why people download this podcast. We get references to local papers. We get inside reporting from our guests. I really look forward to having you back on the podcast later this year.

Where can my listeners follow your work? So they can follow my work on Twitter or X, I suppose. My handle is at Jacob Rubashkin. It's just at first name, last name. And they can read Inside Elections, which is available at insideelections.com. Our ratings are public. Some of our stories are public and the rest of it requires a subscription. But if this is the kind of thing you're interested in, I think it's well worth the money.

Well, thank you very much, and I look forward to having you back on Beyond the Polls. Thank you. With Lucky Land Sluts, you can get lucky just about anywhere. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to... Has anyone seen the bride and groom? Sorry, sorry, we're here. We were getting lucky in the limo, and we lost track of time. No, Lucky Land Casino, with cash prizes that add up quicker than a guest registry. In that case, I pronounce you lucky. Yay!

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Congressional primaries are places where parties' futures are forecast because trends that will become national in scope tend to be surfaced first in the battles in safe seats. There's a battle for an open, safe Republican seat in the western suburbs of Phoenix in Arizona 8. There are a number of candidates and one humdinger of an ad. Let's listen.

What does dishonest Abe Hamaday believe? Dishonest Abe supported Chuck Schumer's amnesty bill. Maybe because Abe's parents were illegal immigrants. Dishonest Abe said women have the right to abort their babies. Dishonest Abe supported cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and the military. Dishonest Abe said America was founded on Islamic principles. He even said Israel was behind 9-11. Arizona can't trust dishonest Abe Hamaday.

Yeah, he went there and he went there and he went there and he went there and there and there. This is one of the more over-the-top ads that I've seen in a while. But it makes perfect sense if you're Blake Masters. Let me give you the lay of the land in Arizona 8. Blake Masters was the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for Senate in 2022. He lost by about eight points to Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly.

But he spent millions of dollars in doing so and has substantial name identification. Abe Hamaday is the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for Secretary of State. He did much better, narrowly losing by less than a point to the current Democratic incumbent.

Two Trump-endorsed candidates, two candidates with credibility with the base, neither has ever lived in Arizona 8. They are the definitions of carpetbaggers. But both decided to jump into this race when the seat opened with Debbie Lesko's resignation.

Polls showed that Blake Masters had a lead over Hamaday, but it was not a huge lead. And then Trump went ahead and endorsed Hamaday. Game over, you might think, in a race like this. Arizona has no runoff requirements. All you need to do is get one more vote. He has strong AIM ID. He has credibility with the base. And now he has Donald Trump.

So what does Blake Masters have to do? He has to tear down Abe Hamaday. He has to tear down Abe Hamaday big time. And that's why this ad went there and there and there and there. Basically, this is an argument that Abe Hamaday is somebody who is not representative of conservative values at all. He is somebody who supports amnesty, somebody who supports abortion, somebody who hates the military, somebody who is, well, and then they go there.

This is somebody who is a Muslim. Now, they don't use the word, but the ad starts out with Abe Hamadeh, who apparently has or had a beard, with the background of mosques and minarets. When you hear, what does dishonest Abe Hamadeh believe? The picture you're seeing is an Arab-looking man with mosques and minarets in the background.

Then you have the typical pictures that you would expect to see. On Amnesty, you have a picture of Chuck Schumer, an immigrant, streaming across the border. And then you make sure that when they're talking about his status as an immigrant, they say that on the line, on the pictures, it says that his parents were two Syrian immigrants. Again, let's dig the knife in. Let's try and use prejudice. I'm not commending it as something that one ought to do, but

That's why I say he went there and there and there. There are overt messages, he's not a conservative, etc., etc., and there's covert messages, and this one has covert messages in spades. We go into a picture of 9-11 and the burning two towers. He says Israel's behind 9-11. Obviously, to the extent there are Jewish Republicans in the district, that's not something they're going to be thrilled at. People who are

Patriotic supporters of America are going to look and say, that's crazy talk. But again, what's the sort of person who might say that Israel attacked America?

That's a covert message. And it ends with a picture of Abe Hamadeh on pilgrimage to Mecca. He's wearing an Islamic robe, and in the background are, again, clearly Islamic buildings, probably a mosque. This is an ad that goes there in spades, as I said before. This tries to say,

Get away from this guy. Run away from this guy over and over and over again. They even have a website, dishonestabe24.com, where presumably the curious person can go find even more information that will make them run away from Abe Hamaday. Is it going to be enough? I don't know. Typically, ads that go over the top

may be less effective precisely because they go over the top. But typically over-the-top ads aren't aired this early. The primary is in late July. This is early April. Typically over-the-top ads are last-minute desperation ads that when you know you can't win, you just look at the kitchen sink and say,

I might as well. But clearly, Blake Masters looked at the kitchen sink three months out and says, if Donald Trump's on the other side, I got to throw now.

But even if he knocks down Abe Hamaday, is that going to help Blake Masters? Well, first of all, you have to think that this is going to inspire Hamaday to come back in some kind. And it's not like Masters is free of controversy. The statement about America being founded on Islamic principles comes from something that Hamaday wrote as an 18 or 19-year-old on a blog. Well,

Blake Masters has some controversial things he said on a blog when he was in college 20 or so years ago. Expect that to come back into the race. Talk about Social Security and Medicare. Blake Masters is on tape from two years ago saying that he thinks that Social Security ought to be privatized. That was used against him by Mark Kelly over and over and over again. Don't be surprised if Abe Hamaday comes back with an ad that talks about that.

So what happens when candidate A throws mud at candidate B and candidate B throws mud at candidate A? Sometimes candidate C is the one that benefits. And the example par excellence of that is Barack Obama. He was a little-known state senator from Chicago running in what most people thought was a quixotic race to become a United States senator in 2004, when the two candidates who had more money and more backing than him started throwing mud at each other. Suddenly,

Candidate C looked a lot more interesting. He won that primary, he gave the keynote speech that year at the Democratic Convention, and a star was born. Don't be surprised if, by June, if this keeps up, that some of those other candidates who have money start to look a little bit more appealing than either Masters or Hamaday. The fact that this is a

political version of a cluster bomb launched against your opponent three and a half months out in a multi-candidate race means this is one of the riskier, even though it's one of the more catchy and direct, even if over-the-top ads that I've seen in a while. And the risk and the directness are why this is this week's Out of the Week.

That's it for this week. Join me next week for a special treat, a debate between Rui Teixeira and Patrick Ruffini over which party should be the working class' choice. Until then, let's reach for the stars together as we journey beyond the polls.

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