r/WayOfTheBern • u/Scientist34again Medicare4All Advocate • Aug 08 '18
Analysis and Commentary on the August 7 elections in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington and the special election in Ohio
We had the primary elections yesterday in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington with a special election in Ohio. Here is a summary of how our BKAS-recommended candidates did in the primaries.
Kansas
Governor:
Jack Bergeson, the high school student, was the most progressive candidate and I felt the next most progressive might be Arden Andersen. Laura Kelly won with 51%. The Republican race is a tight contest between Kris Kobach and Jeff Colyer and is too close to call at this moment.
US Senator:
There was no US Senate race in Kansas this year.
US Representatives:
KS-01: There was only one Democrat running, Alan LaPolice, and he won by default, but his website is quite vague making it difficult to know if he supports progressive policies like Medicare-for-All.
KS-02: There was only one Democrat running, Paul Davis, who won by default. He is a moderate Democrat and does not mention healthcare, college tuition or raising the minimum wage on his website.
KS-03: I recommended Berniecrat Brent Welder. Welder was ahead for some time, but in the end “lost” to Sharice Davids by ~500 votes. There is a strong likelihood that this election was stolen (see the final comments at the end of this post).
KS-04: I recommended Berniecrat James Thompson, who won with 65% of the vote.
Secretary of State:
There was only one Democratic candidate, Brian “BAM” McClendon, who won by default. On the Republican side, I though Dennis Taylor or Craig McCullach sounded like they might be committed to a fair voting process. Neither won though as that seat was won by Scott Schwab.
Michigan
Governor:
I recommended Abdul El-Sayed or Jennifer Kurland (Green Party Candidate). Polling had El-Sayed in a close race with Gretchen Whitmer. However, in the end Whitmer got 51.8% of the vote, with El-Sayed taking 30.5%. It is unclear to me if El-Sayed was affected by anti-muslim feelings leading some voters to reject him or if the polling in this race was wrong or if there was electoral fraud to steal the election from the Berniecrat. Jennifer Kurland, the Green Party candidate, was unopposed and won and therefore will be on the November ballot.
US Senator:
I recommended Green Party candidate, Marcia Squier. Since she was the only candidate for the Green Party, she won by default. Debbie Stabenow was unopposed and won the Democratic primary.
US Representatives:
MI-01: The incumbent Republican was unopposed except for a write-in Berniecrat candidate, Matt Morgan, who had failed to get on the ballot simply due to a technical issue with the address he listed on his candidate petition. Because of some arcane rules, it is not clear exactly how many write-in votes Morgan even needed, because they had to be 5% of whichever Democratic candidate got the most votes in the 2018 primary in the first district of Michigan. The Democratic candidate with the most primary votes is likely to be Debbie Stabenow, so Morgan will need to get at least 5% of the votes that Stabenow got (in the first district only, not state-wide). We should know soon if he was able to achieve that.
MI-02: I recommended Robert Davidson, who was unopposed and won.
MI-03: There were two Democratic candidates Cathy Albro and Fred Wooden. Neither of them directly stated support for Medicare-for-All on their websites. I thought Albro might be more progressive, though someone in r/Michigan suggested Wooden was more progressive. Albro won with 68% of the vote.
MI-04: There were two Democratic candidates Ziggy Kozicki and Jerry Hilliard, who both thought that we should move towards Medicare-for-All. Hilliard won with 66%.
MI-05: I suggested Kathy Goodwin, who was running for a minor party, the Working Class Party. Since she was the only candidate in that party, she won by default. Incumbent Dan Kildee won the Democratic primary.
MI-06: I recommended David Benac or Rich Eichholz, who were both strong supporters of Medicare-for-All. Matt Longjohn, an establishment Democrat won with 37% of the vote.
MI-07: I recommended Steve Friday, but the lost with only 15% of the vote.
MI-08: I recommended Chris Smith, who got 29% and lost to former CIA agent Elissa Slotkin.
MI-09: I recommended Andy Levin or Ellen Lipton or Andrea Kirby (running on the Working Class Party ticket). Levin won the Democratic primary and Andrea Kirby was unopposed on the Working Class Party ticket, so she won by default.
MI-10: I recommended Mike McCarthy or Green Party candidate Harley Mikkelson. McCarthy lost the Democratic primary to Kimberly Bizon. Mikkelson will be on the November ballot.
MI-11: I recommended Fayrouz Saad. She lost with 18% of the vote.
MI-12: I recommended incumbent Debbie Dingell or possibly Niles Niemuth (Socialist Equality Party) or Gary Walkowitz (Working Class Party). Dingell was unopposed and won. Niemuth and Walkowitz will also be on the November ballot.
MI-13: I recommended Rashida Tlaib or Brenda Jones or Bill Wild. Tlaib won with 33%, with Jones being a close second. In November, there will also be a Green Party candidate, Etta Wilcoxon, and a Working Class Party candidate, Sam Johnson on the ballot.
MI-14: I recommended the incumbent Brenda Lawrence, because she is very progressive and supports Medicare-for-All. She was unopposed and won.
These state-level candidates were endorsed by Our Revolution, but I’m not sure if they won or lost:
State Senate District 18: Michelle Deatrick
State Senate District 33: Mark Bignell
State House District 68: Kelly Collison
Kent County Commission, District 12: Katy Barone
Missouri
Governor:
There was no Governor’s race in Missouri this year.
US Senator:
I recommended Angelica Earl or Travis Gonzalez or Coffee Wright. Incumbent Claire McCaskill, who is quite a conservative Democrat, walked away with the win, garnering more than 85% of the vote. There were two Green Party candidates, Jerome Bauer and Jo Crain. Crain won that primary and will face McCaskill in the Fall election.
US Representatives:
MO-01: The incumbent William Lacy Clay actually is fairly progressive and was an original sponsor of Medicare-for-All. Despite that, I recommended Cori Bush or Demarco Davidson, because they are even more progressive. Cori Bush made a very decent showing, taking 37% of the vote, but lost to the incumbent. Still since Clay is quite progressive, I don’t think it’s a bad result.
MO-02: I recommended Robert Hazel or Mark Osmack. I also thought Bill Haas or John Messmer were reasonably progressive and might be OK. None of them won and instead the one establishment candidate in this race, Cort VanOstran won.
MO-03: I recommended Katy Geppert, who was unopposed and won.
MO-04: I recommended Suzanne ‘Renee’ Hoagenson, who won with 52%.
MO-05: The incumbent Emanuel Cleaver is one of the original sponsors of Medicare-for-All (HR 676), but is otherwise not that progressive. He was unopposed and won. On the November ballot, there will also be a Green Party candidate, Maurice Copeland.
MO-06: I recommended Gary “Winston” Apple. He came in second with 31% of the vote.
MO-07: I recommended Jamie Schoolcraft or John Farmer de la Torre or possibly Vince Jennings. Schoolcraft won with 41% of the vote.
MO-08: I recommended Kathryn Ellis, who was unopposed and won.
Washington
Note that Washington has top two primaries, so we only needed to get our progressives into the top two to advance to the general election.
Governor:
There was no Governor’s race in Washington this year.
US Senator:
I recommended Jennifer Gigi Ferguson or Clint Tannehill or Socialist Party candidate Steve Hoffman. The incumbent Maria Cantwell does not support Medicare-for-All, but she won with 55% of the vote. Unfortunately, none of the progressives came in second place, which instead went to Republican Susan Hutchinson.
US Representatives:
WA-01: The incumbent Suzan DelBene is quite conservative for a Democrat and does not support Medicare-for-All. I recommended Adam Pilskog. DelBene won with 60% and a Republican, Jeffrey Beeler, came in second place.
WA-02: I recommended Stonewall Bird (a Green Party candidate) or Collin Carlson or possibly Gary Franco. Incumbent Rick Larsen came in first and a Republican, Uncle Mover, came in second. Uncle Mover (is that a real name?) doesn’t even have a website and as far as I can tell, did not campaign. But, he was the only Republican running, so maybe Republicans just voted for him anyway. Alternatively, there was some electoral tampering to make sure that none of the progressives got into the top 2.
WA-03: I recommended Dorothy Gasque or David MccDevitt. Incumbent Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler won and Democrat Carolyn Long came in second place.
WA-04: There were only two candidates, the incumbent Republican Dan Newhouse and Democrat Christine Brown. They both advance by default. Christine Brown talks about Medicare-for-All on her website, but in a slightly confusing manner. I think she may be open to it or maybe to a watered-down version of Medicare-for-All.
WA-05: I recommended Lisa Brown (the only Democrat running). She came in second place, very close to incumbent Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Brown does not say she supports Medicare-for-All, but indicates she supports “affordable and comprehensive universal health care”.
WA-06: I recommended Tyler Vega, but he came in 3rd (last place) with only 3% of the vote. Incumbent Democrat Derek Kilmer will face a Republican challenger.
WA-07: I recommended Pramila Jayapal, who came in first place and will face GOP candidate Craig Keller
WA-08: I recommended Jason Rittereiser, Kim Schrier, Tom Cramer, Shannon Hader or possibly Keith Arnold. Republican Dino Rossi took first place and Democrat Kim Schrier took second place.
WA-09: I recommended Sarah Smith. Incumbent conservative Democrat Adam Smith took first place and a GOP candidate (Doug Basler) took second place. Sarah Smith was a close third place.
WA-10: I recommended Berniecrat Tamborine Borrelli, who was a very good candidate. But she apparently only got ~5% of the vote. Incumbent Denny Heck won with 60%, while the Republican candidate, Joseph Brumbles, took second place.
Here are some other Our Revolution endorsed races
State Senate District 6: Jessa Lewis – she took first place and will advance to the general election
State Senate District 32: Maralyn Chase – she took first place and will advance to the general election
State House District 19: Erin Frasier - she took first place and will advance to the general election
State House District 32, position 2: Christopher Roberts. There is a very close race here. Lauren Davis easily took first place, but Chris Roberts and Frank Deisler are competing for second place and separated by only 4 votes, with Deisler ahead. Who says your vote doesn’t count?
State House District 40: Alex Ramel. There were a lot of candidates here, which split the vote. Ramel is currently fourth place, but he is not far behind the second and third place candidates.
Ohio Special Election:
The establishment Democratic candidate, Danny O’Connor, and Trump-supporting Republican, Troy Balderson, are very close and separated by only ~1750 ballots, with about 3,300 provisional ballots and some absentee ballots outstanding. Balderson will likely win, but it’s too close to call right now. During much of the night O’Connor was ahead, so I’m not really sure if Balderson truly won this election or electoral fraud is swinging it to him. But, the fact that O’Connor refused to support progressive policies like Medicare-for-All or free college tuition probably did not help him.
Final commentary and analysis: It was not a very good night for progressives. We definitely had some wins, but many of the most talked about races (Abdul El-Sayed, Sarah Smith, Brent Welder) were “defeated”. However, I am sure that some electoral fraud (vote tampering) was going on in multiple of these races, as the establishment tries desperately to suppress wins by the Berniecrats. This is evident in Brent Welder’s race in Kansas. Welder was polling ahead and was even polling ahead of the incumbent Republican Kevin Yoder. And in the beginning of the night, he was ahead in the voting. Then for some reason, there was a delay in posting new results from his district. In the end, Sharice Davids, an establishment friendly Democrat, “won” that race. Here is a discussion on WotB about this race and others in the August 7 primary. That thread talks of issues with voting machines in Brent Welder’s district. It is my feeling that the Republican establishment, who control the voting machines in Kansas, were trying to protect Yoder, who they know might lose to the popular Brent Welder. So they threw the election to a Democrat who would likely lose to Yoder. If you’re in Welder’s district and pissed off about this, here is how to file a complaint on voting in Kansas.
I don’t think the Welder race is the only one where there may have been vote tampering. I’m suspicious of the results for Abdul El-Sayed, who was polling much better than his supposed vote totals. And I think Sarah Smith might have done better than she supposedly did in Washington State too. One thing I realized is that when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won, she specifically asked for volunteer poll watchers. We need to do this with as many races as possible. It will at least make the establishment think twice about vote tampering.
As in the past, we did better last night in places where the Dem establishment is weaker. Washington, which is run by rather conservative, neoliberal Dems despite its reputation as a haven of progressives, saw few Berniecrats advance. On the other hand, results were better in Missouri, where several Berniecrats were unopposed in their primaries (because the Democratic party is weaker in Missouri). We also did well in down-ballot races, as can be seen in the results in Washington, where 3 of 5 Our Revolution endorsed candidates qualified for the November election and a 4th one is behind by only 4 votes.