LM Otero/AP Photo
Voting booths in Arlington, Texas, in 2016
While the presidential primary was Super Tuesday’s top draw, there were plenty of down-ballot races with major implications for November’s general election. All over the country, progressive challengers mounted major long-shot bids against incumbents, or jockeyed for recently vacated seats. There were also a handful of important ballot measures. However, like at the presidential level, the night was decidedly mixed or worse for lefty challengers, with more moral victories than outright triumphs.
The race with perhaps the most national attention from progressive forces came in Texas’s 28th Congressional District, where 26-year-old immigration and human rights lawyer Jessica Cisneros, a political upstart portrayed as the Lone Star State’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, took on Henry Cuellar, an eight-term incumbent and one of the most notoriously conservative Democrats in the chamber. Cisneros sported endorsements from a who’s who of progressive groups and politicians including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Ocasio-Cortez herself. Cuellar, who’s known as Trump’s favorite Democrat and votes with him 70 percent of the time, was backed by Nancy Pelosi, the DCCC, and Charles Koch–backed political groups. Pelosi put her weighty thumb on the scale for Cuellar, a reliable anti-labor, pro-gun, anti-choice voter, and a marked obstacle for the “Democratic agenda” in her own chamber.
The race remained tight enough through the night that neither candidate could stage a victory party; finally, this afternoon, Cisneros conceded, with Cuellar beating her out by a narrow 52-48 margin. That, despite his lengthy incumbency, his massive cash advantage, and an army of outside groups spending on his behalf, marked an achievement for the latecoming Cisneros. It sets her up favorably to challenge Cuellar again in two years, when she’ll have more name recognition, funding, and organization.
You can analogize the Cisneros outcome to an upcoming race in a couple of weeks in Illinois, where Marie Newman lost in 2018 by a similar margin to another zealously anti-choice House Democratic incumbent, Dan Lipinski. Newman is running again and has a solid chance to finish the job. If Cisneros decides to give it another chance, she could find similar success. Nearby, in Texas’s Tenth District, that two-cycle trend delivered for progressive challenger Mike Siegel, who booked a top-two finish to qualify for a runoff in the Democratic primary, the winner of which will take on Republican incumbent Michael McCaul. Siegel nearly knocked off McCaul in 2018, despite having no support from the DCCC.
In California’s 53rd Congressional District, the race to replace outgoing Democrat Susan Davis also yielded relatively positive results. CA-53 is a solid but not deep-blue district in Southern California, and polling showed Republican Chris Stoddard likely to win one of the top two slots for November’s general election. But the first- and second-place finishers were both Democrats. Sara Jacobs, scion of the multibillion-dollar chip manufacturer Qualcomm, came in first, buoyed by her vast individual wealth and a super PAC funded entirely by her billionaire grandparents. But San Diego City Council President Georgette Gómez, endorsed by the state Democratic Party, a number of prominent unions and progressive organizations, as well as Sanders, AOC, and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Mark Pocan, came in second, and will face Jacobs in November.
It appears that Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey will need a runoff to dispatch former San Francisco DA George Gascón. Lacey has just over 50 percent of the vote currently, but with late-arriving ballots typically moving toward more-progressive candidates, Gascón will likely force the runoff.
Elsewhere, however, long-shot bids failed to materialize. In Texas’s 25th Congressional District, Democratic Socialists of America member Heidi Sloan lost by a 40-point margin to Julie Oliver, who herself ran on Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Meanwhile, in the 25th District in California, a recently flipped Republican-to-Democratic district, where candidates were competing to replace the recently departed Katie Hill, Democrat Christy Smith and Republican Mike Garcia advanced to a runoff. Cenk Uygur, co-founder of progressive news network The Young Turks, finished a distant fourth, with single-digit support.
In Texas’s senate primary, anointed favorite of the Democratic establishment MJ Hegar cruised to a comfortable victory, though not an outright majority. She’ll face a runoff from the second-place vote-getter, a title still hotly contested: As it stands, progressive Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among others, narrowly trails Royce West, who holds 13.9 percent of the vote compared to her 13.7 percent. Because of long lines late into the night, it’s likely there are ballots left to be counted, though it’s unclear if that will be enough to push her over the edge. The winner of that runoff will take on Republican John Cornyn in November.
In North Carolina, Chuck Schumer’s warmed-over pick in the state’s Senate primary, Cal Cunningham, won decidedly over progressive challenger Erica Smith. There were concerns from the Democratic establishment that the DSCC’s hasty endorsement of Cunningham might go sideways, as Smith racked up endorsements and enthusiasm in a spirited challenge for the seat. Democrats were even crying foul about the possibility of Republican groups intervening to elevate her, insinuating concerns about just how uninspiring Cunningham’s candidacy has been. But Schumer got his man. Cunningham, who served one term in the state Senate nearly two decades ago, will now take on Republican Thom Tillis in the general in November, a race that could prove crucial for Democrats’ fate in the Senate come 2021.
Elsewhere, Maine rejected a ballot measure, Question 1, that would have been a triumph for anti-vaxxers, as Gabrielle Gurley wrote in the Prospect. Legislation to narrow exemptions for vaccinations will now stand. Measure R in Los Angeles County, which will increase oversight of the sheriff’s department, won resoundingly.
There remain some important down-ballot primary races in the weeks to come. All eyes will be on the Newman-Lipinski race, for example, in less than two weeks. Still, Super Tuesday was absent any major breakthrough wins, and the progressive wing of the party has seen far better nights. With numerous states voting throughout March, however, there may still be help on the way.
