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The Downballot: Jumbo June primary preview (transcript) [1]

['Daily Kos Staff']

Date: 2024-06-06  

Whoa mama! June is chock-full of juicy primaries, so we've brought Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer on this week's episode of "The Downballot" to give us the lay of the land. In South Carolina, we've got not one but two GOP primaries marked by accusations of infidelity on the part of Republican incumbents, while North Dakota will vote on a ballot measure that could spark a legal upheaval and pave the way for congressional term limits. And in Colorado, of course, we've got Lauren Boebert's switcheroo, but there's so much more, so tune in!

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Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap Tuesday night's primaries, which saw a Trump-endorsed candidate lose in New Jersey thanks to the death rattle of the "county line" system. In Iowa, meanwhile, a Republican congresswoman had her own near-death experience despite outspending her challenger 100-to-1. And in New Mexico, progressives ousted several reactionary Democratic incumbents in the legislature, opening the door to more progressive legislation next year.

Subscribe to "The Downballot" wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. New episodes every Thursday morning!

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

David Beard: Hello and welcome. I'm David Beard, contributing editor for Daily Kos Elections.

David Nir: And I'm David Nir, political director of Daily Kos. “The Downballot” is a weekly podcast dedicated to the many elections that take place below the presidency, from Senate to city council. You can subscribe to “The Downballot” wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode.

Beard: Well, we are deep in the middle of primary season, so there's a ton to talk about this week.

Nir: There sure is. We are recapping Tuesday's primaries, especially some of the big races in New Jersey, but also some contests in Montana, Iowa, and New Mexico. And then we are bringing on Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer to preview the elections for the rest of June. There is so much to talk about. It is an action-packed month ahead. It's an action-packed episode, so let's get rolling.

Nir: So, of course, as we said at the top of the show: tons of primary action this month, the month of June. And we are starting off by recapping Tuesday night's primaries, mostly in New Jersey. And we had an interesting development in the New Jersey Senate race. Now, on the Democratic side, there was no surprise. Congressman Andy Kim cruised with 75% of the vote. His nearest opponent had 16%. He's the Democratic nominee. He's a fantastic candidate. We love him here at “The Downballot,” and we know he's going to run an excellent campaign.

In fact, he already has run an excellent campaign. Though his biggest victory really came several months ago, long before primary night, when, thanks to the strength of his candidacy, he prompted New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy — that is, the wife of Governor Phil Murphy — to drop her extremely well-funded bid. It just looked like she was going to have no chance against this popular quasi-outsider.

And then, just days after that, Kim was also successful in a major lawsuit that he brought, challenging the state system of awarding preferential ballot placement to candidates who win local party endorsements. This practice you've heard us talk about before is known as awarding the county line. This one-two punch was easily the biggest body blow to the Jersey political establishment in ages, maybe ever. And no matter what happens in the rest of Kim's career, he'll always be remembered, well, for two things. One, for that extraordinary photo of him down on the floor, cleaning up the mess that the riots left at the Capitol on Jan 6th. And number two, for having the guts to take on this entrenched New Jersey machine.

But there was also something interesting, and maybe somewhat unexpected, that happened in the Republican primary, where self-funding real estate developer Curtis Bashaw beat Mendham Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner 46-38. Serrano Glassner had Trump's endorsement which, of course, is often a very potent, if not the most potent, thing to have in a GOP primary. But Bashaw won anyway, thanks to the county line.

Beard: Now, you may be asking yourself, didn't we just talk about how the county line had been eliminated? And that was true on the Democratic side. But as you might remember, the judge who ruled in Kim's favor said that his decision only applied to the Democratic primary, not the Republican primary. Kim brought this lawsuit with a couple of other candidates, but all in the Democratic primaries. So no one had standing to say that the county line on the Republican side was a problem. So it ended up sticking around for this primary.

Now, the judge telegraphed very strongly that the GOP line would also be doomed if someone with standing brought suit against it, but nobody did in a timely fashion. So it's very likely that the Republican line will never exist again going forward. But for this one election, it still happened.

Nir: Yeah, and it had a powerful impact. Bashaw had more lines than Serrano Glassner. And, importantly, the counties where he had the line had twice as many Republican voters as those where Serrano Glassner had the line. And as a result, the GOP wound up nominating the kind of candidate it almost always spurns. Bashaw is gay, for starters, but he also has avoided taking the completely crazy stances on so many issues, whether it's election denial or abortion, that Republicans insist on taking. It's really rare to see a candidate like this actually succeed in a primary. And we know that the county line is the critical reason why he was able to.

But let's not go overboard here. He's still going to have an exceptionally hard time winning in November. The last time New Jersey sent a Republican to the United States Senate was in 1972. So we are talking about more than half a century of tradition and precedent that Bashaw is going to have to overcome. And I just don't see that happening. Jersey always seems like it's fool's gold for Republicans, and I don't see why 2024 would be any different.

Beard: Yeah, I totally agree, obviously. Bashaw might do better than another Republican who embraced these crazies, but I don't see him having much shot at winning. But I do want to go back to the line. There's a lot of talk about the line historically, how powerful it was, and I think this is such a great example. One of the biggest stories of Republican primaries is that the Trump-endorsed candidate almost always wins these Republican primaries. And just the ballot set up here is powerful enough to overcome what's normally determinative in Republican primaries, which just goes to show how powerful the county line has been.

Nir: Now, there is still one wrinkle because, of course, this is Jersey, and nothing is ever uncomplicated there, though I remain skeptical. But the day before the primary, Senator Bob Menendez filed to run for reelection as an independent. Now, of course, Menendez skipped out on the Democratic primary after polls showed him getting obliterated, following his indictment on federal corruption charges. Now, he's in the middle of that trial, which is slated to last until at least next month.

It's very questionable whether he is actually running any real sort of campaign. Some people have even speculated that he's continuing to run — or say he's running — so that he can raise campaign funds to pay for his legal bills. I'm not so sure about that. He could have just started a legal defense fund if he wanted to, or could have said he's running for some other office in the future and not actually go through the trouble of gathering signatures to get on the ballot as an independent.

On the flip side though, the New Jersey Globe reported that Menendez has no campaign staff and is running his entire campaign himself. So, yeah, that definitely does not have the hallmarks of a serious bid.

Beard: Yeah, if I had to guess, I would guess that he doesn't actually appear on the November ballot. But let's say that he does, and he does genuinely do whatever he's doing to run as an independent on his own without any sort of campaign, I don't think he's very likely to have a major impact. His approval ratings are terrible. He's not someone who ever had a strong personal following the way that some senators do.

It's New Jersey, obviously; it was the county line and it was the establishment that got Menendez into the Senate seat and kept him there. So it's not like voters are wishing for Senator Menendez to make a heroic comeback or something. So even if this three-way race happens, I would expect Menendez to do very, very poorly and for Kim to still win.

Nir: Yeah, we actually saw one independent poll a couple of months back that tested Menendez as an independent with Kim and the various Republicans. And Menendez got single digits, and Kim was still comfortably ahead of either GOP candidate. So I don't even think he can play spoiler at this point. But if that's what he wants to try to do in the waning days of his political relevance, okay, dude, go for it. You are a total goner no matter what happens at your trial. We're done with you.

Beard: Yes, but we haven't seen the last of the name Menendez overall, though. Because in Northern New Jersey, in New Jersey's 8th district, Democratic representative, Rob Menendez, despite his father's grave legal troubles that we just talked about, managed to defeat his pretty well-funded primary challenger, Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, by a 54-36 margin. There was also a third candidate that scooped up around 10% of the vote.

So you do wonder how close a two-way contest might have been. But Menendez did get over 50%, so he probably would've won even a two-way contest. Now, that share of the vote isn't very impressive for an incumbent, but Bhalla ran a pretty strong campaign. And, obviously, going from being on the county line to losing it, along with the legal troubles of his father, could have been a recipe for disaster for the younger Menendez.

Nir: Yeah. And, ultimately, that 18-point margin of victory was pretty solid. Though, had the county line been in place, I am sure he would have won by quite a lot more. I suppose the question is whether other up-and-coming politicians in this part of New Jersey look at this and say, "Well, he won anyway, in spite of everything going on with his father and all the negative headlines coming out every single day because of that ongoing trial." Or if they say, "Well, he only took 54% and Bhalla got his campaign started later in the cycle. And maybe someone with a longer head start who doesn't have to worry about the county line at all would have a better chance." Because, of course, when Bhalla launched his campaign, the county line was still in effect. So we'll see if the Menendez clan has much of a future at all in coming elections. I don't know; I feel like I'm 50/50 on whether he'll get another tough challenge.

Beard: Yeah, my guess is, if there was a year or two challenge to him after he won the office last cycle, this was the cycle to do it, with his father's legal troubles, with the end of the county line. What we see in other states is that incumbents do very well without the county line. The establishment is good at getting incumbents reelected. They generally know what they're doing, they know how they're able to win primaries.

And so I would expect New Jersey Democrats to largely adjust to not having the county line, and do all the other things that you need to do to make sure all of your incumbents avoid primary challengers or win those primaries when they happen. So my suspicion is that Menendez is going to have that seat for as long as he wants it.

Now, New Jersey was obviously the big state of Tuesday night, but there were a couple of other states that had some other primaries that we want to talk about. And one of those is the Montana Senate. The GOP primary wasn't seriously contested after Representative Matt Rosendale's self-immolation. But Republicans are now officially committed to former Navy SEAL, Tim Sheehy, whose entire personal biography is riddled with question marks and holes. Now, of course, Jon Tester is facing a very, very tough fight, as he always does, potentially the toughest fight of his career. But Tim Sheehy has some real question marks that we're going to see come to the fore more and more throughout the summer and fall. And I think this race is going to remain very competitive after that happens.

Nir: Absolutely. And Tester also is the kind of guy — we've seen it in his past campaigns — who clearly revels in taking the fight to his Republican opponents. He always finds a way. This is not someone who shies away from brutal campaigns. Obviously not; he's a Democrat in Montana. So is this going to be as joyous as John Fetterman slamming Dr. Oz? I don't know. But the GOP has a lot of ripe Senate targets this year. And I like Tester's sense of humor. I like his attitude. I think this is going to be a pretty entertaining campaign.

Beard: Yeah, Tester's races have always been extremely close. And it's always relied on bringing up his Republican opponents' negatives. Obviously, he has pretty good positives. You have to, to be a Democrat in Montana. But it's also gone after the Republican for being outside the mainstream. And that's what we're going to see here with Sheehy.

Nir: One other state that was on the docket Tuesday night was Iowa, where we didn't really think there were going to be any competitive primaries, and it turned out that there was one. We keep seeing these near misses in Republican primaries. It feels like they're getting more and more common.

In Iowa's 1st congressional district, sophomore Congresswoman, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, defeated Christian activist David Pautsch by just a 56-44 margin. And that really stood out because Pautsch had raised all of around $35,000 for his campaign. Miller-Meeks had pulled in $3 million. So we are talking about someone who was being outraised 100:1.

Now, the contours of this race are very familiar for folks who track these challenges on the Republican side to incumbents. Pautsch had complained that Miller-Meeks doesn't have a passion for the relevance of God in our community. And he had attacked her vote in favor of protecting same-sex marriage and interracial marriage. He also attacked her for voting against Jim Jordan to become Speaker of the House after Kevin McCarthy got the boot.

But when he first launched his campaign back in November, we noted in our newsletter, the Morning Digest, that religious figures like Pautsch often weigh challenges like this, but it can be hard to tell whether they'll have any juice. And, frankly, if you had asked me before polls closed on Tuesday night, I would've looked at it and said, "Yeah, well, he didn't raise that much money; it didn't look like his campaign really caught fire." But, obviously, we don't have a close front seat the way that local folks might in Iowa. And so this is one that I think a lot of national observers really missed out on.

And Pautsch did have some juice. He runs a popular annual prayer breakfast and it draws in headliners. They're not the kind of headliners that we'd ever want to see. The most recent one was Kari Lake. And his grievances seem to strike a nerve. And that could really be bad news for Miller-Meeks in the future for a future primary challenge. But that's if she gets that far. She faces a serious and very well-funded challenge in the general election from former state Representative Christina Bohannan. And this is a district that Donald Trump won by a very small margin, just 51-48. Democrats actually flipped this seat in 2018. They lost it in 2020. It's certainly very possible that another flip is in the making. And, yeah, that primary result from Miller-Meeks does not show strength.

Beard: Yes, obviously, we see ideological primary challenges pretty often. They're fairly common. But the difference here is that Miller-Meeks is not somebody I would consider to be particularly moderate. Now, she's not in the House Freedom Caucus, she's not in that right 25% of the Republican Conference. But I would place her firmly in the middle. And the success here in going after somebody who you would consider is a pretty generic middle-of-the-road Republican in a seat that, as you mentioned, was very, very competitive in the last presidential election, I think really shows how the Republicans have started becoming a snake eating its own tail sort of thing, where nothing is ever good enough. No one is ever conservative enough. If you're not Marjorie Taylor Greene, if you're not Lauren Boebert, you are going to get primaried by somebody who's like, "You're a RINO. You're not a real Republican. You're not out being a crazy person," because that's what they want.

Nir: Well, of course, Lauren Boebert is facing a primary. We'll discuss that after the break with Jeff Singer. But one last batch of races that we wanted to mention very briefly: New Mexico also had primaries. Taking center stage were Democratic primaries for the state legislature. Several moderate to conservative Democratic incumbents lost primaries on Tuesday night to progressive back challengers. It looks like there were two in the state Senate and three in the state House.

And you might say, "New Mexico is a pretty blue state. Democrats are now in firm control of the state government there. Does this really matter?" And the answer is absolutely yes. Some of these more conservative Democrats have caused a lot of trouble in recent years. And they've done so on issues where there is just no earthly reason to stand opposed to the rest of their party. One of the Democratic senators who lost, Daniel Ivey-Soto, had watered down a voting rights bill. As a result, he ensured that a new automatic voter registration system for the state would not take effect until after the 2024 elections. I’ve got to believe that Democrats in New Mexico, especially Martin Heinrich, the senator who is up for reelection this year, would much rather have had automatic voter registration well in place ahead of this election. Anyway, it's certainly good news, moving forward, that these troublesome reactionary Democrats are going to be able to make a lot less trouble.

Beard: Yeah. And the more that a state is reliably blue or red, the more important primaries like these matter. Because in New Mexico, we're pretty confident that Democrats are going to be running the government. And so these Democrats who are conservative or reactionary will end up in positions of power. And what we see often in these situations is that they end up with a committee chair or a key role in someplace that allows them to stop up bills and prevent them from coming to the floor or prevent them from passing. Obviously, it's different in every state, but these things really matter. And I would expect to see New Mexico be able to pass more progressive legislation in its next session if there are more progressives and fewer conservative Democrats like this.

Nir: Well, that does it for Tuesday night, but we have a ton more primary action coming up for you. Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer will be joining us after the break to preview some of the top races for the rest of June. We have so much more to talk about. It's going to be a lot of fun. Please stick with us.

Nir: Joining us on “The Downballot” this week is the most reliable number one source for information about down-ballot primaries in the nation, Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer, who is here to preview the primary races taking place throughout the month of June. Jeff, thank you so much for coming back on the show.

Jeff Singer: Thank you. It's great to be back, Nir.

Nir: So we have a ton of contests to get through. June is super, super busy. And that's not even counting the races that we already recapped from Tuesday night. But let's hit the ground running, and want to hit Nevada first. We have a house race with a sort of bizarro GOP primary in a competitive Democratic-held seat.

Singer: Yeah, so this is Nevada's 4th congressional district. It's the northern portion of the Las Vegas area and extends into the rural areas. It's represented by Steven Horsford. Biden won 53% of the vote here. But it could be competitive, especially if the polls that we've seen in Nevada — which is always hard to poll, I should say — are onto something and Trump's doing well there. But it's a weird primary, as you said.

The guy Donald Trump just backed is former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, who is a former longtime conservative Democratic legislator. He lost a big state Senate primary in 2012 and got elected in a nonpartisan race to lead North Las Vegas a year later. He eventually switched parties, ran for governor two years ago, and did really badly. But he's back. He wants to take on Hosford and Trump. He's not a guy who really complains about someone being a former Democrat. He's a former Democrat at one point, so he's happy to endorse him.

But some Republicans are pretty mad about this. And it's not really because of Lee's past. Lee, a few weeks ago, appeared on a radio show hosted by Brian Shapiro. And Shapiro asked, "Would you support Trump if he's convicted?" And Lee painfully struggled for several seconds to formulate a sentence. And eventually, he said, "I'm not going to answer that question." And that's got some people pretty pissed. Laura Loomer, who pretty much always just says, "Trump is right, Trump is god," said, "No, that is horrible. Whoever put this in front of Trump wants to undermine him. I want him to see this." Whether Trump will or not is another question.

But Lee's main opponent is Air Force veteran David Flippo, who, I'll just say, does have a good name if you want to flip a house seat. And he's hoping that Trump... There'll be some sort of backlash against this. So far, it really hasn't exited the far-right fever swamps of the place formerly known as Twitter. But we'll see if Trump takes any notice of this or if he just doesn't care.

Beard: Yeah, it's interesting in what gets Trump's attention and what doesn't. Because I could definitely see someone putting this in front of his face, and him getting mad, and changing the endorsement, and causing a huge upheaval in the race. Or I could see him just never getting around to seeing it and nothing comes of it. So that's probably the main thing to keep an eye on, is if anything comes from this shared clip.

Now, we've got a couple of other states that are voting on June 11th that we want to talk about, and we want to move over to the East Coast and South Carolina. There are three Republican primaries that we want to talk about. And let's start with one of the more notable folks in the house — that's Representative Nancy Mace — and her primary in South Carolina's 1st district.

Singer: Yeah. So what can you say about Nancy Mace that hasn't already been said? She was a Trump campaign official in 2016, was elected to the House in 2020, and immediately condemned the January 6th attack. Doesn't vote to impeach Trump, but she's very mad at him. He endorses her opponent for 2022. She wins. Then, it's like she gets a complete personality transplant or re-personality transplant. She becomes just super MAGA. She joins seven other Republicans voting to end Kevin McCarthy's speakership in October. Now, Trump is for her, and she faces a primary opponent who's a bit different, former state cabinet official Catherine Templeton. She ran for governor six years ago, and lost the Republican primary to Governor Henry McMaster, who's for Mace. It's like South Carolina is a very small political world. And this is a super expensive primary.

Mace is straddling the line between what may be two of the biggest fault lines in GOP politics. Republicans who've crossed Trump. She's now on the right side of that line as far as Republicans are concerned; she's very pro-Trump. And Republicans who crossed Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy's not Speaker; he doesn't have much power, but he does know a lot of friends who have a lot of money and want to spend it to get revenge. Or to just make sure that the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy aren't around much longer to cause trouble for whoever the new Republican leader happens to be next year.

So it's just this massively expensive primary. There's just been a lot of money directed against Mace. But she has a lot of allies herself, including people other than Trump who wanted to see her gone two years ago. So it's just this giant mess. And it could go on another two weeks because South Carolina requires candidates to win a majority of the vote to avoid a runoff in two weeks from then, on the 25th.

And there's a third candidate named Bill Young. He's raised very little money and got very little attention. But he just needs to get a small portion of the vote to potentially keep either candidate from winning a majority and prolonging things. Unfortunately, this district is very gerrymandered; it takes in coastal South Carolina and the Charleston suburbs but carefully avoids heavily black areas around the city of Charleston itself. Trump won 53% of the vote here. There are some interesting Democrats running, but it's a big reach, even given all of this. It’s maybe worth keeping an eye on, but the Republican nominee probably is going to be the next member of Congress here.

Nir: And, of course, South Carolina's 1st district is the seat that the Supreme Court upheld very recently. We talked about it on last week's show. They said that a lower court ruling that found illegal racial gerrymandering here was incorrectly decided. And so they allowed the GOP to maintain — as you said, Singer — this very carefully drawn gerrymander, cutting out the black voters in the Charleston area to make sure that no matter who emerges from this primary. This seat is likely going to be safe in November.

Beard: Now, in another South Carolina district that may be more traditionally South Carolina, very ruby red, up in the northwestern part of the state, we've got Representative Jeff Duncan, who had some infidelity accusations, retiring. So we've got an open race here in the Republican primary.

Singer: Yeah, so Jeff Duncan, believe it or not, is one of two Republican congressmen from upland South Carolina who's been accused of infidelity. And we'll be talking about the other one. But Duncan is retiring, and there are several Republicans campaigning to replace him. It's probably going to a runoff. Trump took sides. He endorsed pastor Mark Burns who, even for people in today's Republican Party that Trump endorsed, is really out there. We could do a whole episode on just things Mark Burns has said. He's really bad.

But I'll just give you one example. In 2022, around the time that he was waging another campaign for the 4th congressional district — not the 3rd, the 4th — Burns pledged to restore the House Un-American Activities Committee. That was the main body in the '40s and '50s that was involved in the communist witch hunts. He wanted to restore it, not to bring back Joe McCarthy and his legacy, he wanted to go much further than that. Burns wanted it to, "start executing people who are found guilty for their treasonous acts."

And he had names. He said the people he wanted to be found guilty and executed are Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, who happens to represent South Carolina in the Senate, and anyone who promotes "LGBTQ indoctrination." So, yeah, even for Trump guys, this guy is out there. But in today's GOP, he has a chance to at least make it to the runoff or even win. And as you said, winning the primary, that's winning the general election here.

Nir: I got to say, even with these crazy, absolutely out there, super dangerous Republican candidates, I'm almost a little bit impressed that they're getting the acronym pretty much right these days. They're getting the full LGBT and the Q. Wow, we're winning.

Beard: He's respectful of the people that he wants to murder so at least there's something.

Singer: Yeah, that's the nicest thing I think anyone has said about him in a long time. Yeah, and Burns, though, is not on a glide path to victory. He does have some interesting opponents. There's Air National Guard Lieutenant Colonel Sheri Biggs, who is endorsed by Henry McMaster. He's a longtime Trump ally. He even did an ad saying, "Trump needs conservative fighters forming Congress," or something like that. And watching that, you'd think Trump was endorsing Biggs. There's even a picture of Trump and Biggs together, as Trump smiles and gives a thumbs up. So voters can be forgiven for thinking that Biggs is actually Trump's candidate when she's not.

Then, there's state Representative Stewart Jones. He's part of the State chapter of the Freedom Caucus, which has made a lot of trouble for GOP leadership. In fact, a few weeks ago, one legislator was just so upset with their antics, he took to the floor of the State House wearing tinfoil, just to make a scene, and just to say, "These people are completely nuts."

So there's another candidate worth watching, Kevin Bishop, who is a longtime communications director for Lindsey Graham, the guy Mark Burns wants to be executed. So quite a primary he's found himself in.

Nir: Well, that is not awkward at all. But you mentioned the 4th congressional district where there is also some GOP infidelity. What's going on there?

Singer: Yeah, so this is held by William Timmons, and he's been dogged by infidelity accusations that he really hasn't pushed back on for the last few years. He denies that he used government resources to cover up an affair. He's deflected questions about whether that affair took place in the first place. Timmons, two years ago, got only 53% of the vote against Mark Burns. So that was enough to avoid a runoff, but pretty weak.

And someone's stronger is trying to get to him, state Representative Adam Morgan who leads the Freedom Caucus. Adam Morgan also has a very, very DC name, ironically. But it's been a weird primary. Trump is for Timmons. And Timmons is doing something that I don't think we've ever seen a Republican do in a primary, especially in South Carolina. He's running ads saying, "Morgan is too restrictive on abortion." Timmons is saying, "I'm anti-abortion, but this guy wants no exceptions at all. This guy's out there." And he's not just saying this on the campaign trail; he's saying this in ads. So this is not something we ever really see. And unlike the 1st and the 3rd districts, there are no other candidates running in the primary. So this one gets settled in round one.

Beard: And so just to be clear, the incumbent Republican is criticizing his primary opponent for being too restrictive on abortion in the Republican primary?

Singer: Yeah. It's not something we've ever seen, not even in the last few years, I don't think.

Beard: I will be very interested to see whether or not that is a successful play. That would certainly be one for the record books.

Nir: Well, in addition to primaries in June, we also have at least one ballot measure that is going to go before voters. So we're going to head out to North Dakota. Singer, what is going on up there?

Singer: So we have an amendment called Initiated Measure 1, which either does very little because the courts block it, or it has very, very wide-ranging effects well past North Dakota's boundaries. So this measure would prevent anyone over the age of 80 from representing the state in Congress. The problem with that is, back in the '90s, the US Supreme Court said, "Okay, there are some qualifications the US Constitution establishes, including there's a minimum age to serve in either house, but no maximum age." And other things like "States can't pass term limits," or "States can't say that to be in the House, you have to live in your district, just your state." So if that precedent was upheld, this measure would go really nowhere, even if it passes. They have a provision that says, "Okay, if the courts strike it down, it'll just list the candidate's ages on the ballot." So it would have a small effect, but not much.

But conservatives are hoping that the Supreme Court is going to revisit that 30-year-old precedent and say, "Hey, actually, states can go beyond what the Constitution says." And if that happens, we'd have much bigger things to worry about than whether 80-year-olds can run for Congress in North Dakota. You could see all sorts of hijinks take place. And that feels like something that probably wouldn't get settled for a long time. It's always hard to predict how these things will go, but this is one of those things that could be worth watching well past Tuesday.

Nir: Yeah. And to be clear, the ramifications could be pretty intense. Because many states have tried to pass congressional term limits, and they keep getting struck down by the Supreme Court, based on this case from back in the '90s that you mentioned, Singer. If that old precedent gets tossed by the wayside — and it seems like the conservatives on the court might be interested in doing that — because Clarence Thomas was a dissenter in that case way back when. So that could be a sea change in American politics because you would have tons of states, I am sure, pass term limits, whether at the ballot box or legislatively.

And that would just cause a gigantic mess. We have seen in so many state legislatures the way that term limits cause huge problems by sapping institutional knowledge. We can't get into it. It's a topic for another day. But definitely keep an eye on this one. It might not pass. It might not pass. I suspect it probably will. But if it does, we have to follow the litigation that will ensue very closely.

Beard: Now, moving on to the next week and June 18th, we've got a couple of states with primaries we want to talk about there. And we're going to start in Oklahoma, where we've got another interesting Republican primary challenge to an incumbent.

Singer: Yeah, so this is Oklahoma's 4th district, a safely Republican seat in the southeastern part of the state. Tom Cole chairs the powerful Appropriations Committee. He's been there for 22 years. Powerful guy who has been safe. He has a super-rich opponent named Paul Bondar, who just literally showed up and just started spending millions upon millions to get rid of him. And by literally showed up, I mean, Bondar voted in Texas in March and then moved to Oklahoma. He has very weak roots in the state. That's something that Cole and his allies, including a well-funded super PAC that has spent millions here, are reminding voters of. So if Cole has problems, this is going to be one of the ultimate examples of, "Hey, spending a lot of money in congressional races really does paper over a lot of problems." Though, as David Trone found out the hard way in Maryland, that's not always the case.

Beard: Now, we just talked earlier in the show about Mariannette Miller-Meeks, and somebody who's really in the mainstream of the GOP having some real trouble with somebody who came from the far right. So there's a little bit of similarity here, in that, I could imagine Cole getting the far-right crazies really upset with him. He's a pretty middle-of-the-road GOP incumbent.

Singer: Yeah, and Bondar's run ads showing Cole praising none other than Adam Schiff, the almost certain next Democratic senator from California, someone Republicans hate. So, yeah, Cole's just one of those guys who's just been around forever. Very institutionalist guy, very conservative, but he isn't a fire-breather.

Nir: I also have to say, long, long-time fans of Daily Kos Elections, going back to the Swing State Project days, will remember that in 2008, Tom Cole was chair of the NRCC during an absolutely catastrophic cycle, the second cycle in a row where Republicans were completely doomed the whole way through. It was a total disaster. And at the Swing State Project, we kept counting down to what we were sure was going to be his firing, like a head coach of a team that is struggling through the season. We called it the Tom Cole Death Watch. And we were wrong. Tom Cole managed to survive to the end of the cycle, but what a brutal cycle it was. Republicans got totally messed up. And, yet, Tom Cole stuck around in Congress all these many years later. It would be really quite something if he were to go out finally by losing a primary. Honestly, I don't know what I'm rooting for here, but I'm just enjoying this trip down memory lane talking about Tom Cole.

Singer: And we might get to enjoy it a little bit more because there's a few other candidates on the ballot. And Oklahoma's another state where, if you don't win a majority, you go to runoff. The other candidates are pretty marginal but it could happen, and we could have several more weeks of this.

Beard: Now, the other state on June 18th that we want to talk about is Virginia. And Virginia might have the mother of all Republican primaries here, where we've got a Republican incumbent who is really going up against anyone and everyone to try to keep his seat because people want to get rid of him. Tell us about Virginia’s 5th district.

Singer: This is represented by the chair of the Freedom Caucus, Bob Good. It's a conservative scene in the central and southern parts of the state. And I said before, like Mace came down on the pro-Trump, anti-McCarthy wing, so she has opposing forces against her, they're united on this one. They want Good gone. Good endorsed Ron DeSantis. Trump hates him and endorsed his opponent, state Senator John McGuire. And Good also voted to get rid of Kevin McCarthy. And anyone who wants a stable Republican leadership hates him. They're just spending lots of money against him.

Good does have some allies, including Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, and his super PAC. So he's not defenseless, but he's in a really, really bad situation. And it was really bad when, about a month ago, McGuire released a poll that showed Good losing by 14 points. And Good did not release a poll in response. What his campaign said was, "The only poll that matters is the final count on election day." If you respond to really bad poll numbers with something like, "The only poll that matters is the poll on election day," it means you don't have good poll numbers to share. You don't have anything to push back on. And this was before Trump endorsed. So if Bob Good wins, we'll give it to him. That's a big upset.

Nir: Well, we call what the Good campaign said “loserspeak.” It is the ultimate, ultimate hallmark, especially for a candidate who's behind. I would be absolutely shocked if Good pulled this off. And we haven't seen any House incumbents go down in a primary, except, of course, in Alabama, where we had the incumbent versus incumbent race. I really think that has a huge asterisk next to it. So I'm thinking maybe Bob Good is going to be that first guy.

Singer: Yeah, William Timmons and Nancy Mace'll be happy if he was the first guy, that's for sure.

Nir: So in the final week of June, on June 25th, we have a few more states with big primaries, Colorado and New York. Singer, give us the lay of the land.

Singer: Okay, so Colorado, you know we're going to talk about Lauren Boebert. There's no way we can't. So to recap, she almost lost in 2022 in the 3rd district in western Colorado to Democrat Adam Frisch. Adam Frisch starts running again, and raises a ton of money. Boebert is being swamped by scandal, Beetlejuice for one thing.

Nir: But can I just say how funny it is that there's a Beetlejuice scandal? That almost makes me feel a little bit good. We’ve got Donald Trump fomenting coups, and all kinds of corruption, and just the world falling apart. And then Lauren Boebert's top scandal this cycle is Beetlejuice.

Singer: Yeah. And, well, that was good enough for her to decide, "I want to get out of here." And so she decides, in December of last year, "I'm going to run for a completely different congressional district at the other side of the state, the 4th district," which is being vacated by Republican Ken Buck, safely Republican. So that sets off big, big implications for both seats.

We'll start in the 3rd. This is a seat that Trump won with 53% of the vote in 2020. But as first shown in 2022, it is potentially winnable for a well-funded Democrat, especially against a really bad Republican. And Democrats have just the really bad Republican that they want Republicans to replace Boebert with, former state Representative Ron Hanks. You might remember him from two years ago. He ran for the Senate. Democrats spent a lot of money to try to get him as the opponent for Michael Bennet, because he was just this weak, far-right, election denier who wants to ban abortion in all situations. Didn't work then, although Bennet beat the guy that Hanks lost to anyway.

But, this time, Democrats are trying again. They're running ads saying, "Ron Hanks is too conservative for Colorado." Basically, if you see an ad in a primary saying, "Too conservative," you know it's meddling from the other side. So Hanks has very little money, but Democrats are hoping they can propel him to the nomination and then beat him. But he has to get past some other opponents.

His main rival is attorney Jeff Hurd, who was running against Boebert before she swapped districts. Hurd actually is a good fundraiser. He's conservative, but he's not Ron Hanks conservative. Adam Frisch has just a ton of money, but this feels like a district where you really need a lot to go right if you're a Democrat to win. And Hurd, he might still be beatable, but Ron Hanks is the guy they want. He's the closest you can get to Lauren Boebert 2.0.

Nir: After Boebert pulled this district-shopping maneuver, there was almost a knee-jerk reaction in some quarters, saying, "Oh, well, forget it. Adam Frisch can't possibly win Colorado's 3rd district. He could only do it because of Boebert." Well, I would note that, in 2022, Democrats who were running statewide — Bennet and also Jared Polis, who was seeking reelection as governor — did quite well in the district. It was very, very close in both races. And on top of that, just because you get rid of Boebert doesn't mean that you're going to get a decent Republican candidate as a replacement. And whoever is behind this maneuver to try to elevate Ron Hanks, they've obviously done some polling. You don't spend this kind of money without doing that. That shows that Frisch could beat him. And that this is a winnable, flippable district. So, yeah, just because we don't have Boebert here does not mean you should write this district off.

Beard: Now, we do have Boebert somewhere, and that is Colorado's 4th district, where she has fled to the safety of a Trump 58% district. But she does have some primary challengers.

Singer: Yeah. So this district, because Buck decided to resign early, it's going to be on the ballot twice on June 25th. Once for the special election for the final months of Buck's seat, that's going to be a general election. And then there's the primary. There was a GOP convention in the spring to pick the nominee for the special election. Boebert's enemies hoped that the delegates would pick one of the candidates running against her. That person would pretty much be the de facto incumbent for the primary, and so they could rally behind that person.

No such luck. They nominated Greg Lopez, who's a former mayor of the community of Parker. He's not running for the full term. He is running just for the final months of Buck's term, against a Democrat named Trisha Calvarese. And special elections are weird, but Trump won 58% of the vote here. It's a big, tough one.

But Lopez isn't our main concern. It's whether Boebert can win the primary for a full two-year term. And she has five Republicans running against her, including some current elected officials. But that's the problem. No one's emerged as her main opponent. One of them, Jerry Sonnenberg, is a local county commissioner and former state Senator. He just ran an ad saying, "I'm not Lauren Boebert, I won't embarrass you." But remains to be seen if he could really be the candidate that anyone who really doesn't like Boebert, but doesn't know who to vote for to stop her, can rally behind.

And Boebert, for all her flaws, has money. She has Trump behind her. She does have a fan base, even on the other side of the state. So it's likely she's not going to get a majority of the vote. She might not even get close to that. But one of the Republicans, unless she completely bombs, needs to just be her main opponent. And so far, that doesn't seem to be happening. Outside groups haven't really gotten involved here. See if that changes. But probably the most likely thing is Boebert gets nominated with a plurality and then wins the general election. But we'll see. If nothing else, anything involving Lauren Boebert is unpredictable.

Nir: Well, we have to wrap up with my home state of New York. And in the 16th congressional district, we are about to see the first real test of AIPAC versus a Democratic incumbent who has taken a very hard line on Israel.

Singer: Yeah. So that incumbent is Representative Jamaal Bowman. His opponent is Westchester County Executive, George Latimer. It's a dark blue seat. And AIPAC really wants Bowman gone. It's spent already close to $11 million on ads going after him. That's probably going to rise in the next few weeks. And AIPAC's not bringing up Israel in this. They're using instances of Bowman voting against the Biden administration from the left to say, "He's unreliable. He wants to undermine Biden."

And Bowman has also made trouble for himself. There was that fire alarm in late September. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor. There were those old conspiracy theory poems about 9/11 that The Daily Beast discovered there from about a decade ago. Bowman says, "I don't believe in any of that." But it was an unwelcome distraction at a time when he really couldn't afford it.

Bowman's fought back. He's argued, "I've been a good congressman. I've been a progressive. Latimer's supported by Republican donors who are funding AIPAC." And Bowman, who's black, has argued that Latimer, who's white, has worked to portray him as "an angry black man." So it's a tough race. I think a lot of people will be very happy when this one's over.

Beard: Yeah. And I think, as opposed to these Republican primaries that we've talked about a lot, and there are a lot of them, there aren't nearly as many of these competitive Democratic primaries. But what you do see here is that you've got an incumbent Democratic representative, who has had some scandals, like you listed. And he's got an opponent who's well-known in the area and has a ton of money behind him. And that's really the recipe for a primary challenge on the Democratic side to take shape. So I think this one's very competitive and we'll have to wait and see how it goes.

Nir: Well, we did see some polling a while back, admittedly, before this huge AIPAC ad campaign started up, that showed Latimer ahead. And the Bowman campaign didn't really have an answer in terms of contradictory numbers.

Singer: Yeah, that poll came from a group that's been going after Bowman hard, Democratic Majority for Israel, so not exactly an unbiased source. But, yeah, Bowman, he did dust off a poll from March showing things really close, but that was an earlier poll for one thing. And we haven't seen any fresh numbers. So see how this one goes.

Nir: Well, wow, that was a lot. We have been previewing the June primaries with Daily Kos Elections Editor, Jeff Singer. Jeff, thank you once again for coming on the show and sharing all your knowledge with us.

Singer: It's great to be back, and especially coming very close to the 10th anniversary of one of our most shocking primaries we've ever watched, the defeat of then-House majority leader, Eric Cantor, in Virginia 10 years ago Monday. As crazy as these races we've gone through are, that one, I don't think we've ever seen anything like that for a House race since.

Nir: Well, that is a fantastic anniversary to remember, of course, Jeff Singer, that is exactly the sort of thing that you would recall right at your fingertips. So we will be thinking about that one as the primaries unfold this month, including Virginia's.

Beard: That's all from us this week. Thanks to Jeff Singer for joining us. “The Downballot” comes out every Thursday everywhere you listen to podcasts. You can reach out to us by emailing thedownballot@dailykos.com. If you haven't already, please subscribe to “The Downballot,” and leave us a five-star rating and review. Thanks to our editor, Drew Roderick. And we'll be back next week with a new episode.

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