Will the Republican nominee receive less than 40 percent of the vote for the fourth time in party history?
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]]>Will the 2024 Republican nominee receive less than 40 percent of the vote for the fourth time in party history?
As Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown awaits his opponent to emerge from next Tuesday’s Republican U.S. Senate primary, he is positioned as a slight favorite at best to retain his seat as the seven-plus month march to the general election begins in the reddish Buckeye State.
Brown is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination for the third consecutive cycle – the ninth time a Democrat has run without an opposing candidate for the office in party history joining Senator Robert Bulkley (1932), Senator Thomas Burke (1954 special), Governor Frank Lausche (1956), former U.S. Representative Stephen Young (1958), Senator John Glenn (1992), and former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Mary Boyle (1998).
Ohio Republicans, meanwhile, are eying their third consecutive plurality winner in a U.S. Senate primary, with State Senator Matt Dolan, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, and Donald Trump-endorsed businessman Bernie Moreno each poised to receive a substantial amount of the vote.
J.D. Vance won 2022’s GOP primary with just 32.5 percent of the vote in a seven-candidate field en route to the nation’s upper legislative chamber – the second lowest support in party history for the office behind the 31.8 percent received by former State Representative Kingsley Taft in 1946’s special primary.
There have been five other plurality winners for the Republican nomination:
Of these seven GOP plurality winners, four were victorious in the general election: Harding, Willis, Taft, and Vance.
Just six of the 41 GOP U.S. Senate primaries have been competitive contests since the first primary in 1914. Not surprisingly, all but one of these were among the aforementioned plurality-winning contests.
But the closest race for the Republican nomination came in 1970 when U.S. Representative Robert Taft, Jr. eked out a 0.6-point victory against Governor Jim Rhodes.
The other five GOP primaries decided by single digits took place in:
With Republicans winning the nomination to the U.S. Senate unopposed in 13 contests, the average margin of victory has been 52.8 points overall and 31.0 points across the 28 contested races.
Democratic nominees have won by an average of 43.0 points overall and 27.4 points in contested primaries.
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]]>Cruz received more support than any other major party candidate in a contested Texas U.S. Senate primary.
The post Ted Cruz Sets Texas Primary Record appeared first on Smart Politics.
]]>Cruz received more support than any other major party candidate in a contested Texas U.S. Senate primary
As Democrats brace to hold multiple vulnerable seats in an attempt to maintain their fragile majority in the U.S. Senate, they eye Ted Cruz’s seat in the state of Texas as one of the few conceivable 2024 pick-up opportunities for the party.
For nearly a decade, Texas has made the list of possible Democratic wins in various statewide elections, but the party always comes up short – losing 166 partisan statewide contests in a row dating back to 1996.
While Senator Cruz only narrowly defeated U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke by 2.6 points en route to his second term in 2018, he did acquit himself as well as possible in last week’s Republican U.S. Senate primary.
Cruz won 88.3 percent of the vote in the three-candidate field – which now stands as the largest support received by a Democratic or Republican Texas U.S. Senate candidate in a contested primary election.
Prior to this cycle, the most support a GOP U.S. Senate candidate had amassed on Primary Day was the 87.6 percent won by U.S. Representative George H.W. Bush in 1970 in a head-to-head matchup against former New York City municipal judge and University of Dallas founder Robert Morris.
Republican nominees eclipsed the 80 percent mark four other times: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in 1994 (84.3 percent), Senator Phil Gramm in 1996 (85.0 percent), Senator John Cornyn in 2008 (81.5 percent), and Cruz in 2018 (85.3 percent).
GOP nominees have won their U.S. Senate primaries without opposition eight times: El Paso attorney U.S. Goen in 1934, Brownsville attorney Carlos Watson in 1954, Senator John Tower in 1966, 1972, and 1978, Gramm in 1990, and Hutchison in 2000 and 2006.
[It should be noted Texas Republicans held primaries in only four cycles prior to 1964. U.S. Senate nominees were chosen via party conventions in the remainder].
On the historically much more competitive Democratic side, candidates have won more than 80 percent of the vote just twice across 36 contested U.S. Senate primary ballots.
Senator Tom Connally won 84.8 percent in 1940’s three-candidate field and Senator Lloyd Bentsen won 84.8 percent in a 1988 head-to-head matchup against perennial candidate and San Antonio minister Joe Sullivan.
An average of 3.8 Democratic candidates have appeared on Texas U.S. Senate primary ballots over the decades compared to 3.3 candidates on the Republican side.
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]]>Minnesota is hosting presidential primaries for both major parties in back-to-back cycles for just the second time in state history.
The post A Review of Minnesota Presidential Primaries appeared first on Smart Politics.
]]>Minnesota is hosting presidential primaries for both major parties in back-to-back cycles for just the second time in state history
On Super Tuesday, Minnesota will join 15 other states and one territory holding presidential primaries or caucuses.
After six consecutive cycles without holding a presidential primary from 1996 through 2016, the Gopher State has now done so in two consecutive cycles for both major parties for just the second time in state history.
Minnesota’s hot and cold relationship with the presidential primary has been a particularly unusual one – coming and going every three to four decades.
The Gopher State was at the forefront of codifying primaries into its state laws.
A 1901 law established primaries for a variety of non-statewide offices such as seats in the U.S. House and the state legislature beginning in 1902.
Primaries for statewide offices did not come into play for another decade in 1912.
That cycle also saw the first wave of presidential primaries in 13 states including several in the Midwest – Illinois, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Minnesota quickly followed suit and established a presidential primary for the first time in 1913 (to be held on the second Tuesday in March) joining three other Midwestern states holding their debut primaries in the 1916 cycle: Indiana, Iowa, and Michigan.
In the March 14th primary, Woodrow Wilson ran unopposed on the Democratic side and former Iowa Governor Albert Cummins (pictured) was victorious in a three-candidate GOP field with 76.8 percent of the vote against orator Henry Estabrook and Illinois attorney and politician William Webster.
The Prohibition Party also held a primary in Minnesota in 1916 with former New York Governor and U.S. Representative William Sulzer defeating former Massachusetts Governor Eugene Foss by 15 points.
However, in March 1917, as the progressive fervor that had inspired the passage of many primary laws across the nation began to wane, Minnesota repealed its primary law after just one cycle (Iowa did likewise).
Even so, the Republican Party of Minnesota decided to hold a primary on its own in the 1920 cycle with six candidates competing in the race: U.S. Army Major General Leonard Wood, California progressive U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson, American Relief Commission Chair Herbert Hoover, Illinois Governor Frank Lowden, Washington U.S. Senator Miles Poindexter, and Ohio U.S. Senator Warren Harding.
The March 15th primary was rife with controversy with polls only open for an hour and inadequate announcements of polling station locations. Senator Johnson was critical of the process, claiming it had “disenfranchised farmers.”
Wood – one of the frontrunners that cycle – won the primary with Johnson a distant second followed by Hoover and Lowden.
That would be the last presidential primary held in the state through the 1940s.
However, in 1949, the GOP-controlled Minnesota legislature resurrected the primary in order to bolster the national prospects of former Governor Harold Stassen.
Stassen had previously won presidential primaries in 1944 (Nebraska) and 1948 (Nebraska, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin) and placed third in the 1948 convention balloting behind New York Governor Thomas Dewey and Ohio U.S. Senator Robert Taft.
The 1949 law was written to allow candidates to file to appear on the ballot, as well as permit a party member to submit the name of a candidate with petitions of at least 100 voters from each congressional district.
Even more interesting, however, was the law’s controversial provision that any candidate who was thusly ‘drafted’ and did not wish to appear on the ballot had to sign an affidavit stating he would not accept his party’s nomination that cycle if it were offered.
At this time war heroes Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower were rumored presidential candidates and, should they be drafted onto the Minnesota ballot, they would be forced into one of two potentially unattractive positions: suffer a (likely) loss to the favorite son Stassen or unequivocally take themselves out of the race (thus making the national pathway easier for Stassen).
A draft MacArthur effort landed him on the ballot, at which point the general asked his name be withdrawn.
Although MacArthur did not sign the aforementioned pledge, ultimately this portion of the primary law was struck down by former Minnesota Republican Attorney General (and former Governor) J.A.A. Burnquist.
A MacArthur state chair named Edward Slettedahl subsequently filed to run in the general’s place.
Petitions were also filed for Eisenhower whose name was also subsequently removed – with some believing party loyalists backing Stassen were behind that maneuver.
However, Stassen’s candidacy was ultimately a ‘stalking horse’ for Eisenhower with the former governor securing delegates for the NATO Supreme Commander who was unable to campaign in the states. (Stassen’s 19 delegates from Minnesota put Eisenhower over the top at that summer’s RNC to defeat Senator Taft after the first ballot).
In the end, Stassen won 44.2 percent of the vote in the Minnesota primary and a vigorous write-in campaign for Eisenhower – driven in part by a misunderstanding among the GOP electorate as to the motives of Stassen’s campaign – landed him at a close second with 37.1 percent. Eisenhower even placed first in two congressional districts.
Stassen’s plurality win in the face of the strong write-in campaign for Eisenhower weakened the former governor’s candidacy in the primary states that followed which created a worst case scenario for the Stassen/Eisenhower alliance: victories by Senator Taft two weeks later in both Nebraska and Wisconsin and three weeks later in Illinois.
All told, the plan hatched by the state GOP in 1949 in devising the primary law to boost the influence of Stassen produced many more headaches and unintended consequences than they ever could have imagined.
There was much less drama on the DFL side of the 1952 primary ballot where favorite son U.S. Senator Hubert Humphrey won with 80 percent of the vote.
However, with Eisenhower essentially running unopposed for reelection four years later, all the primary drama in Minnesota in 1956 was with the Democrats.
The party establishment candidate that cycle was Adlai Stevenson who lost handily to Eisenhower in the 1952 general election. Senator Humphrey had hoped to be Stevenson’s vice-presidential running mate.
Tennessee U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver had challenged Stevenson in 1952 and won 12 primaries.
Kefauver was up for another White House bid in 1956 and had the support of some leaders from greater Minnesota, such as freshman U.S. Representative Coya Knutson – the first female elected to Congress from the Gopher State.
Stevenson was the early favorite to win the March 20th primary, but Kefauver surged to win by 13 points – a humiliating defeat for him, Humphrey, and the DFL.
President Eisenhower won the Republican primary with more than 98 percent of the vote.
Stevenson ultimately won the nomination, but as a result of these two back-to-back embarrassing experiments in presidential primaries, DFL and GOP lawmakers agreed to repeal the primary law in 1957.
For the next eight cycles, Minnesota returned to caucusing until a 1989 law established a presidential primary to be held on the fourth Tuesday in February.
Attempts were made in the state legislature to derail the primary before the 1992 contest, but it had a champion in Republican Governor Arne Carlson who defended the primary for turning out more voters than the caucuses.
In 1992, both parties continued to hold caucuses and only the Republican primary was binding in the delegate count.
On the DFL side, the presidential preference vote was a beauty contest in which Bill Clinton edged California Governor Jerry Brown by a shade over 1,000 votes.
The Republican primary saw incumbent George H.W. Bush cruise to a 39.7-point win over Pat Buchanan with former Governor Stassen placing fourth in one of his last presidential bids – just behind uncommitted – at 3.1 percent.
Critics prevailed in 1995, citing the high costs of holding the April primary, and the primary was subsequently suspended for the 1996 cycle. That decision became solidified in 1999 when the primary law was officially repealed for the third time in state history.
Twenty-one years later, in 2016, the legislature passed presidential primary legislation once again – to begin with the 2020 cycle.
That March, a sudden exit and endorsement by U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar before Super Tuesday helped Joe Biden notch an 8.8 –point victory over Bernie Sanders. Klobuchar’s name remained on the ballot with the state’s senior U.S. Senator receiving 5.6 percent.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump ran unopposed and won more than 97 percent of the vote.
This cycle, Minnesota U.S. Representative Dean Phillips will compete in the DFL primary joining Stassen, Humphrey, Klobuchar, Edward Slettedahl of St. Paul (1952), Sharon Anderson of St. Paul (1992), Bea Mooney of Lake Saint Croix Beach (1992), former U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy (1992), and Mary Jane Rachner of St. Paul (1992) as other Minnesota residents who have appeared on the state’s presidential primary ballot over the decades.
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]]>Nearly twice as many Republican presidential candidates have lost their home state than have been victorious among those who ultimately did not win their party’s nomination.
The post Home State Blues: How Does Nikki Haley’s South Carolina Showing Compare with Her GOP Predecessors? appeared first on Smart Politics.
]]>Nearly twice as many Republican presidential candidates have lost their home state than have been victorious among those who ultimately did not win their party’s nomination
Although Nikki Haley met the top end of the support she was receiving in matchup polls against Donald Trump in her home state South Carolina primary, her 20.3-point loss was understandably characterized by most media outlets as a blowout.
Over the last half-century, the vast majority of presidential candidates had already suspended their campaigns by the time Primary Day in their state came up on the election calendar.
And, of those candidates who were still actively campaigning, Haley is hardly the first Republican to fall short in her political backyard.
Since 1972, Republican White House hopefuls have failed to win their home state primary more than a dozen times:
Every Republican presidential nominee since 1972 has won their home state primary [Note: Bob Dole’s home state of Kansas did not did hold a primary during the 1996 cycle].
However, seven non-nominees were able to still carry their home state:
Donald Trump’s home state primary in Florida will be held on March 19th this cycle.
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]]>How Long Will Nikki Haley Remain in the 2024 GOP race?
The post A Brief Review of ‘Last Standing’ Presidential Challengers appeared first on Smart Politics.
]]>How Long Will Nikki Haley Remain in the 2024 GOP race?
Although candidates would rarely admit otherwise, Nikki Haley is giving all appearances that she will remain in the race for the 2024 Republican nomination even if she loses her home state of South Carolina this Saturday.
Should that come to pass, the expectation is Haley would continue on through next week’s contests in Michigan, Idaho, and Missouri until at least Super Tuesday (March 5th).
But even if Haley lasts that long, it is possible she could still notch the record for the earliest exit of the ‘last remaining challenger’ for a major party presidential nomination in the modern primary era.
Since 1972, the earliest a presumptive presidential nominee has seen the last of his or her challengers exit the race was in 2000, when Bill Bradley suspended his campaign against Vice President Al Gore on March 9th – two days following Super Tuesday that cycle.
There has been at least one other non-frontrunning candidate still standing in April during every other major party nomination fight since 1972.
[It should be noted three other nomination battles saw the most competitive challenger bow out in March while lesser, though non-fringe, candidates remained in the race: John McCain in 2000 (exiting March 9th), John Edwards in 2004 (March 2nd), and Mike Huckabee in 2008 (March 4th).
Two ‘last standing’ challengers suspended their campaigns in April:
Three candidates did so in May:
Three candidates exited in June:
Candidates remained in the race until the party’s national convention in July during seven cycles:
Four cycles saw the final challenger withdraw at the party’s national convention in August:
In the 2024 Democratic race, Minnesota U.S. Representative Dean Phillips remains President Joe Biden’s final (non-fringe) challenger, despite needing to lay off staff in recent days.
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]]>Larry Hogan makes an 11th hour U.S. Senate bid in hopes of becoming the first sitting or former governor from the Old Line State to win election to the Senate in nearly 80 years.
The post A Brief History of Maryland Governors Running for US Senate appeared first on Smart Politics.
]]>Larry Hogan makes an 11th hour U.S. Senate bid in hopes of becoming the first sitting or former governor from the Old Line State to win election to the Senate in nearly 80 years
Steve Daines and the National Republican Senate Committee got their wish last week when former two-term Maryland Governor Larry Hogan filed his paperwork to run for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat this cycle.
Hogan was one of the nation’s most popular governors with his respective constituency when he left office in January 2023. That said, there have been recent electoral examples that demonstrate how difficult it is for even well-liked governors from states with an opposing strong partisan lean to win a seat in the U.S. Senate [e.g. Tennessee Democrat Phil Bredesen in 2018 and Montana Democrat Steve Bullock in 2020].
While the road from Annapolis to Washington, D.C. is only 30 miles, this pathway to the nation’s upper legislative chamber has only been sought by a handful of sitting or former Maryland governors during the direct election era.
The first to do so was Democrat John Walter Smith. Smith, a former State Senator and U.S. Representative, served as governor from 1900 to 1904 and was initially elected to the U.S. Senate by the state legislature in 1908.
In 1914, Smith was reelected – this time directly by the people – with a 7.1-point victory over former state Progressive Party Chair Colonel Edward Carrington. [Smith would come up short in his bid for a third term in 1920, losing by 4.0 points to Republican National Senatorial Committee Treasurer Ovington Weller].
In 1916, former Republican Governor Phillips Goldsborough (1912-1916) lost the GOP primary to physician and former State Senator Joseph France. The 1.6-point victory by France over the ex-governor remains the most competitive GOP U.S. Senate primary across the 38 contests held since 1913.
However, Goldsborough would win his party’s nomination unopposed in 1928 and go on to defeat one-term Senator William Bruce by 8.8 points that November. He did not seek a second term in 1934.
The next Maryland Governor to campaign for a U.S. Senate seat was former state executive Harry Nice in 1940. Nice served as governor from 1935 to 1939 but lost his reelection bid in 1938 to Maryland Attorney General Herbert O’Connor.
Two years later, Nice handily won the GOP nomination against former Baltimore Mayor William Broening by 21.2 points but was crushed by one-term Senator George Radcliffe in the general by 31.3 points.
Nice was the last Republican governor from Maryland to run for the U.S. Senate until Hogan this cycle.
In 1946, the aforementioned Governor Herbert O’Connor ended his second term in Annapolis (1939-1947) by first defeating two-term Senator George Radcliffe for the Democratic nomination in June and then eking out a 0.5-point win in November against business executive and U.S. Army officer (and veteran of three wars) D. John Markey.
Since O’Connor, no sitting or former governor from Maryland has won a U.S. Senate seat over the subsequent 76 years – and only one made such an attempt.
In 1986, two-term Democratic Governor Harry Hughes (1979-1987) ran for the state’s open Class III seat but placed a distant third in an eight-candidate Democratic primary with 14.3 percent in a race won by five-term U.S. Representative Barbara Mikulski.
If Hogan wins the GOP nomination in May, he hopes to fare better than his father, Lawrence Hogan, during his 1982 U.S. Senate bid. The Prince George’s County Executive and former U.S. Representative lost the general election by 26.9 points to Democratic Senator Paul Sarbanes.
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]]>For the first time in a presidential or midterm election cycle since at least 1900, less than 30 percent of states holding gubernatorial elections will feature incumbents.
The post 2024 to Have Fewest Gubernatorial Incumbents on the Ballot Since the 1800s appeared first on Smart Politics.
]]>For the first time in a presidential or midterm election cycle since at least 1900, less than 30 percent of states holding gubernatorial elections will feature incumbents
Aside from competitive open seats in New Hampshire and North Carolina, the remaining gubernatorial contests on the ballot this November are expected to be snoozefests.
But one interesting aspect about this cycle’s elections for governor is the unusually low number of incumbents who will be on the ballot.
In fact, 2024 will have the lowest percentage of governors (as well as lowest number) seeking to hold their office in any midterm or presidential election cycle since the turn of the 20th Century.
Of the 11 states conducting elections this November, five have governors who are term-limited: Delaware (Democrat John Carney), Indiana (Republican Eric Holcomb), Missouri (Republican Mike Parson), North Carolina (Democrat Roy Cooper), and West Virginia (Democrat-turned-Republican Jim Justice).
Three other states are run by governors who chose not to seek another term: New Hampshire Republican Chris Sununu, North Dakota Republican Doug Burgum, and Washington Democrat Jay Inslee.
That leaves just two governors who have announced they wish to keep their jobs (Republicans Greg Gianforte of Montana (pictured above) and Spencer Cox of Utah) and one who has not yet settled on his reelection plans (popular Vermont Republican Phil Scott).
[Scott’s filing window to appear on the August Republican primary ballot is April 22nd through May 30th].
Even under the assumption that Scott will ultimately opt to campaign for a fifth term, incumbents in a maximum of only three of 11 states (27.2 percent) will be running for another term in 2024 – the lowest percentage and number in any midterm or presidential election cycle since at least 1900.
Smart Politics examined the nearly 2,000 gubernatorial elections conducted since 1900 and found that more than half involved incumbents (1,129 of 1,992 or 56.3 percent).
All but four of the 63 midterm or presidential election cycles saw governors run for another term in at least 40 percent of the states. The four cycles with the lowest percentage of gubernatorial incumbents were:
On the other end of the spectrum, the high water mark in the 20th and 21st Centuries came in 1980 when 12 of 13 governors sought another term (92.3 percent).
In that cycle, only term-limited Indiana Republican Otis Bowen sailed off into the political sunset (until being named Secretary of Health and Human Services under Ronald Reagan in 1985).
More than 80 percent of elections for governor included incumbents in three other midterm or presidential election cycles: in 1962 (28 of 35, 80.0 percent), 2014 (29 of 36, 80.6 percent), and 2020 (nine of 11, 81.8 percent).
Since 2000, a total of 196 of 329 gubernatorial contests involved incumbents (59.6 percent).
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]]>More than two-dozen Democratic White House bids by westerners have been launched since 1972 – all came up short of receiving the party's nod.
The post Will Democrats Ever Nominate a Westerner for President? appeared first on Smart Politics.
]]>More than two-dozen Democratic White House bids by westerners have been launched since 1972 – all came up short of receiving the party’s nod
Despite the high national profile he curated this cycle – including a debate on FOX News with then-Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis – it appears it was mere speculation that California Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured) was poised to jump into the Democratic race to ‘replace’ President Joe Biden.
Should the Biden campaign see its way to the finish line at the DNC this August, 2024 will mark the 44th consecutive election cycle in which a westerner was not nominated to head the Democratic presidential ticket since the first western state voted in a presidential race (California, 1852).
Prior to California U.S. Senator Kamala Harris winning the vice-presidential nomination in 2020, the Democrats had gone 42 cycles without nominating a westerner to either the presidential or vice-presidential slots.
In the post-1972 primary era there have been more than two-dozen westerners who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination including an astounding nine in 2020: Harris, U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell (California), author Marianne Williamson (California), former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel (California by way of Alaska), Governor John Hickenlooper (Colorado), U.S. Senator Michael Bennet (Colorado), U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), Governor Steve Bullock (Montana), and Governor Jay Inslee (Washington),
Williamson added her name to that tally again in 2024 when she launched a second bid last March, but has been languishing in a distant second in Democratic horse race polling behind Biden, usually in the single digits. Robert Kennedy, Jr., also from California, also ran as a Democrat for just over six months before switching to an independent bid last October.
The most notable Democratic presidential campaigns by westerners during the modern primary era begins with Washington U.S. Senator Scoop Jackson who came in second in balloting behind George McGovern with 525 delegates.
In 1976, Arizona U.S. Representative Mo Udall and California Governor Jerry Brown placed second and third at the DNC with 330 and 301 convention votes respectively.
In 1984, Colorado U.S. Senator Gary Hart won several primaries and finished second at the DNC with 1,201 delegates.
Brown, who had also run for president in 1980, came in second in the 1992 race for the Democratic nomination with 596 delegates.
Other Democratic presidential campaigns by westerners that made much smaller footprints during this period include Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty in 1972, Hawaii U.S. Representative Patsy Mink in 1972, Scoop Jackson again in 1976, California U.S. Senator Alan Cranston in 1984, former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt in 1988, Gary Hart again in 1988, former Irvine Mayor Larry Agran in 1992, the aforementioned Mike Gravel in 2008, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson in 2008.
The furthest West Democrats have ventured to select a presidential nominee are Plains state politicians William Jennings Bryan (Nebraska, 1896, 1900, 1908) and George McGovern (South Dakota, 1972) and southerner Lyndon Johnson (Texas, 1964).
Republicans have nominated westerners for president many times beginning with former California Senator John Frémont in 1856 and most recently Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain in 2008. [With Mitt Romney in 2012 generally assigned to Massachusetts at that time, not his current home state of Utah].
The number of Electoral College votes from the nation’s 13 western states will increase from 128 in 2020 to 130 this cycle, accounting for 24.2 percent of the pie.
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]]>The 2024 race may end of up as one of the most competitive, with one of the largest fields, in state party history.
The post A Brief History of New Jersey Democratic US Senate Primaries appeared first on Smart Politics.
]]>The 2024 race may end up being one of the most competitive, with one of the largest fields, in state party history
Among the more intriguing U.S. Senate races involving incumbents this cycle is the Democratic primary contest in New Jersey, where the party might see its second largest field in history.
Embattled U.S. Senator Bob Menendez has publicly maintained he will still seek reelection to a fourth full term despite facing federal bribery charges (and very low support in horse race polls) and has until March 25th to file in advance of the state’s June 4th primary.
Meanwhile, establishment Democrats are rallying behind the state’s First Lady Tammy Murphy (pictured) to take on three-term U.S. Representative Andy Kim.
The Murray vs. Kim matchup – along with the (theoretical) Menendez candidacy and several other lesser-known candidates appearing on the ballot – sets up the New Jersey Democratic U.S. Senate primary to be one of its most competitive in party history.
Over the last 100+ years since the first primary for the office in 1916, only three of the 41 Democratic nominating contests were decided by single digits and only five by less than 20 points.
The only competitive races took place in:
Former one-term U.S. Representative Paul Krebs’ 15.6-point victory over populist advertising executive Dan Gaby in 1972 and former Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine’s 16-point win against former Governor and U.S. Representative Jim Florio in 2000 are the only other Democratic contests with victory margins of less than 20 points.
The potential for a competitive race in 2024 along with the likelihood that at least five candidates will be on the ballot also increases the chances for a rare plurality winner for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination. That has also happened in just five of 41 contests:
New Jersey Democratic U.S. Senate primaries have given the voters the choice of more than four candidates in just three cycles: five in 1966 (won by former Middlesex County prosecutor Warren Wilentz), six in 1978 (ex-NBA star Bill Bradley), and 10 in 1982 (Lautenberg).
An average of 2.1 candidates ran in Democratic primaries for the office since 1916 with 20 of the 41 victors winning unopposed: Charles O’Connor Hennessey (1918 special), Edward Edwards (1922, 1928), Frederick Donnelly (1924), Alexander Simpson (1930), Thelma Parkinson (1930 special), Percy Stewart (1932 special), A. Harry Moore (1934), William Ely (1938 special), William Smathers (1942), Elmer Wene (1944 special), George Brunner (1946), Archibald Alexander (1948, 1952), Charles Howell (1954), Harrison Williams (1964), Robert Torricelli (1996, 2002), Bob Menendez (2012), and Cory Booker (2014).
Prior to 2024, only five of the 69 candidates to appear on a New Jersey Democratic primary ballot were women:
In addition to Murphy, the 2024 primary ballot is also poised to have the name of a second woman candidate – progressive labor leader Patricia Campos-Medina, who is campaigning to the left of Rep. Kim and the First Lady.
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