Super
Tuesday Primary – A Pretty Good Day for Dems
By Joanna Williams
The June 5th primaries, which were spread across
four time zones and eight states, represented the biggest single day of
elections until November.
Biggest
Stories of the Night: California and New Jersey. The road to taking back the House clearly
runs through seven districts in California that have Republican incumbents but
were won by Hillary Clinton (just like our very own 6th Congressional
District), and 4 more likely flips in New Jersey.
Despite fears that California’s “jungle” primary (top two primary
winners – regardless of party – advance to the general) could freeze Dems out
of some of the races, it appears that there will be strong Democratic
candidates in each of the seven key CA races and also in the four important NJ
races.
The
Pink Wave: it was a great night for women - they made up 23% of the non-incumbent House candidates,
up from 16% in 2014/2016. In non-incumbent House primaries from March 2018 to
now, women won 47% of their races compared to men who won just 24% of theirs. A
couple of firsts in New Mexico: Deb Haaland won her primary to become the first
Native American to serve in the House, and Michelle Lujan Grisham won her
primary to become the first Democratic Latina Governor.
Turnout:
Outside of California, Democratic turnout was up 71% over the 2014 midterms
while GOP turnout was up just 5%. (Despite
major GOTV efforts in CA, turnout was in the low 20’s statewide.)
