Obviously, there’s a lot going on. TPM’s staff spent yesterday reporting on and analyzing the last batch of Supreme Court decisions this term. Meanwhile, we’re hurdling toward midterm elections so consequential, President Trump can’t talk about anything else but the SAVE Act or he gets sad. Progressives exceeded expectations in several key Colorado races last night, winning primaries for governor and several congressional seats.
So, we think it’s time we get together to have a chat. We’re partnering with our friend Marisa Kabas for an evening of conversation, trivia, and drinks. (Yes, trivia. new thing we’re trying out. Don’t miss it.) Get your tickets today and join us Wednesday July 29 at Crystal Lake in Brooklyn. More details here.
10:39 p.m.: Kiros now appears to be pulling ahead with Election Day votes. Currently only up five points with 73% in but this looks like it’s going to keep going in Kiros’ direction. Too early to call but the direction looks clear.
9:47 p.m.: Hickenlooper survives, various network calls. By ordinary standards it’s a healthy margin — 57%. But for someone so established in Colorado Democratic politics, Gonzales’ 43% is very impressive. Bennet looks like he’s toast but no calls yet. DeGette-Kiros still neck and neck.
9:35 p.m.: It seems like John Hickenlooper is probably going to pull through. 50% of the votes in and he’s at 58% to Julie Gonzales’ 42%. That’s a big margin. But it’s still a pretty big showing for a challenger. Sen. Michael Bennet looks to be in the process of losing by a similar margin to Phil Weiser, whose candidacy is almost all based on “fight.” Kiros-DeGette is neck-and-neck. Kiros 47% to DeGette’s 45% with about 2/3rds of the votes in. The people I talked to in Colorado broadly predicted these results. Hickenlooper survives, Bennet loses and probably DeGette too. That’s about where we are, though the DeGette race is far too close to call. I’m trying to get a read now on where remaining votes are.
Decades-long reader/member, and I wanted to say that Josh’s take on Hickenlooper’s run is spot-on. I have voted for Hickenlooper (and Dianne Degette, the incumbent House member for Denver who is in a tight race as well), but I’m more than ready for those who will push for top-to-bottom reform. My husband and I actually ran into Hick in our neighborhood on Saturday night and we told him to fight the good fight. He thought we meant the primary, not the fight for our democracy.
I’ve really enjoyed your recent posts (and reader emails) processing the recent New York primary elections. I strongly agree with the point you’ve emphasized that “left/right” is less salient than “fighter/non-fighter” in the current roiling within the broad left-of-center coalition. And I’d take it a step further and argue that anyone coded as “establishment” carries a strong presumption of belonging to the “non-fighter” camp.
We’ll know these results a bit later this evening. But I wanted to share a couple emails from TPM Readers. I was struck that most or all of the emails we received on these primaries were from longtime supporters of the incumbents in danger tonight, sometimes knowing them personally. They almost uniformly want them booted.
From TPM Reader DC …
Super interested to read your thoughts on the “earthquake” of the potential that Sen. Hickenlooper could lose his primary.
I’m a longtime Denver resident. I live a block away from Sen. Hickenlooper. I have hosted fundraisers for him for Mayor and Governor. But I voted against him in the primary. I thought of it as a “protest” vote—i.e., he’s likely to win, but I need to send the message anyway that just being a Democrat with huge name recognition is not enough.
One of the most encouraging things I have seen recently are complaints from the right, as well as what we might call the supercilious center, bewailing, whining about, or just generally objecting to adding new Justices to the Court. They’re talking because they see it coming. I’m not saying it’s a certainty. Obviously they want to forestall it. But this isn’t just something folks like me, or others, are talking about. We have their attention. We clearly have the Justices’ attention. That shows we are moving in the right direction.
I’m writing today because I want to address one of the most common and one of the best (although still insufficient) opposing arguments. That is this: if you expand the Court, won’t Republicans come right back and expand it even more? And then don’t you just have an on-going war of tit-for-tat expansions?
