This week on The Downballot, cohosts David Beard and David Nir discussed primary runoffs in Georgia where Donald Trump took another big fat series of losses; machinations going on in the Alaska special election to replace the late Congressman Don Young; a late redistricting curveball thrown at Democrats by the courts in Louisiana; and finally, a few international elections in Colombia and France.
They were also joined by Daily Kos Elections' Contributing Editor David Jarman for a deep dive on the late-breaking redistricting action that took place across the country since the last episode on this topic.
You can listen below or subscribe to The Downballot wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find a transcript for this week right here. New episodes come out every Thursday!
The hosts opened by recalling Georgia's May primary, where Donald Trump went 0 for 3 in his big endorsements. Georgia held runoff elections on Tuesday night, where, as Nir noted, “Donald Trump went 0 for 3.” Trump had endorsed candidates in three different House races in the 2nd, 6th, and 10th Districts and all of them lost. In the second district, this is a seat in southwestern Georgia that Democrats have held for a long time through incumbent Sanford Bishop. It is a seat that likely would have supported Joe Biden by about 10 or 11 points, according to Nir, but Republicans feel that the area is trending in their direction and they have become interested in targeting it this year. Many establishment figures had rallied around Army veteran Jeremy Hunt, but he lost to Air Force veteran Chris West by a 51-49 margin.
As Beard put it:
We've seen Georgia has really been a unique situation given how bad Trump's record has been, but it's really a very esoteric sort of win, in that the Georgia Republican party has sort of fended off Trump's attempt to try to choose specific people. But has not at all tried to stop him from leading the ideology, leading the party, none of that is in doubt. It's just Georgia's establishment has held their own in terms of keeping their people there instead of the specific Trump selections.
“It almost certainly is the case that they've done a good job with this because it's been sort of impossible to out-Trump the locally preferred Georgia candidates, as opposed to the Trump preferred Georgia candidates,” he added.
The hosts then took listeners over to Alaska, which held a special election primary last week. The four candidates who advanced from the first round were, as discussed in the last episode, former governor Sarah Palin and businessman Nick Begich, both of whom are Republicans; independent Al Gross; and Democratic former state representative Mary Peltola. Those were the four candidates who placed first, and as a result of Alaska's new law are the ones who advanced to the second round, where ranked-choice voting takes place. However, Beard noted, in a big surprise on Monday, independent Al Gross announced that he was withdrawing from the second round and that led some, including Gross himself, to think that fifth place finisher Republican Tara Sweeney would advance in his place, so that there would still be four candidates on the ballot. What’s more, Gross even released a statement co-endorsing Peltola and Sweeney, and saying that "as two native Alaska women, that they would both be good candidates to support in the runoff."
Several complications have arisen, however, that could shift the outcome of the race, as Beard elaborated. The state division of elections later announced that while Gross could be removed from the ballot because the ballots hadn't been printed yet, Sweeney would not be bumped up into the top four due to their reading of state law and the fact that it was fewer than 64 days before the election. Sweeney's campaign has announced that they're not going to challenge this decision, though it is still conceivable that someone else could as the ballots still haven't been printed for a few days yet. As he put it:
But the assumption right now is that Palin, Begich and Peltola will be the three candidates on the ballot for this second round. And as we talked about a little bit last week, Begich would probably have the advantage against either Palin or Peltola, though it's fairly unlikely for Begich and Peltola to be the final two. But Palin would probably have the advantage over Peltola. So, the big question as we do this rank choice between these three candidates is who ends up in third place and gets eliminated, whether that's Peltola or Begich?
According to Nir, there was a “truly Alaska” moment as this drama unfolded:
Sweeney's campaign manager said that the candidate was in a part of this state without cell phone reception. So, it's very possible that Sweeney for a while, didn't even know that Gross had dropped out and had endorsed her and wanted her to take his place. But ultimately I think it's near certainty that either Palin or Begich will win in that instant runoff second round on August 16th. In the first round of voting, Republican candidates combined for 58% of the vote and Democrats only got 17% of the vote. So, it's a pretty disappointing showing.
“Alaska is one of those states where Democrats often seem to be competitive, but ultimately wind up falling short. Over in Louisiana, we had what is probably the final redistricting curveball thrown at us when a federal judge ruled recently that the state's congressional map violated the Voting Rights Act because it did not create a second congressional district where Black voters could elect their candidate of choice,” Nir added.
In Louisiana, the final redistricting curveball was thrown at Democrats when a federal judge ruled recently that the state's congressional map violated the Voting Rights Act because it did not create a second congressional district where Black voters could elect their candidate of choice. Black voters make up about one-third of this state, so, as Nir said, “you would think it would make sense that there should be two Black seats out of the six that Louisiana is entitled to.” In fact, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed the map that was struck down precisely because it didn't create a second Black seat, but the court said that the Voting Rights Act requires this second seat to be drawn. It ordered the legislature to come up with an alternate map. Louisiana's Republican-run state legislature simply declined to pass anything at all. So, now a map will be drawn by the court. But this is huge: There was a very similar case out of Alabama earlier this year where again, a federal court said that the Voting Rights Act required Alabama to draw a second Black district.
Nir noted that the Supreme Court simply put a stop to that case. They said it wasn't really clear what the court's reasoning was. In a concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh claimed that there simply wasn't enough time for Alabama to draw a new map. That was really total BS on a number of different grounds. And in fact, the District Court, which ruled against Louisiana's map, spent quite a bit of ink trying to argue why those arguments that apply to Alabama don't apply to Louisiana.
To wrap up weekly hits, the hosts talked about recent elections in Colombia and in France. In Colombia, the leftist former rebel and longtime legislator, Gustavo Petro, became the first left-wing president elected in Colombia's history, narrowly defeating right-wing firebrand Rodolfo Hernandez, 50% to 47%.
Colombia had faced a long-term leftist insurgency from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which had made it all bit impossible for left-wing politics to really flourish in the country. But that insurgency was ended by a peace deal in 2016, which allowed the left-wing politics to develop in the country in a much more comprehensive way. However, large protests took place last year, as Colombians grew increasingly frustrated by longstanding problems of poverty, inequality, and state violence. That, Beard explained, really helped propel Petro to the presidency in this recent election.
”But obviously, those problems are very intractable as we've seen in a lot of countries. He'll have a lot of work to do as he becomes, as I said, the nation's first left-wing president. Petro identifies as a democratic socialist, so fairly left wing, but Colombia's really never had a president of any shade of left. It'll be interesting to see how this develops as he takes the presidency and governs the country,” Beard said.
Over in France, legislative elections took place just two months after centrist Emmanuel Macron won reelection as president. Since this schedule had formed where the legislative elections took place just two months after the presidential election, the winning president had always also won a majority in parliament in the subsequent legislative elections. But this year, Macron's centrist alliance, while still coming in first, only won 245 seats—short of the 289 needed for an absolute majority in parliament. Beard noted that for the first time, in this election, both left-wing and centrist candidates didn't really gain by being in a runoff against the far right:
It seemed like for centrist candidates, a lot of the left-wing voters stayed home, or in some cases there were left-wing voters as polling showed who voted for the far right against the centrist parties.
Then when it was a left-wing versus a right-wing candidate, again the centrists did not go overwhelmingly to the left-wing candidate. A lot of them stayed home, and some of them did even vote for the far right. There was a real loosening of the fact that previously the far right had been very isolated in these runoffs, and that really wasn't the case anymore in the selection, which is definitely concerning as you look towards the future in France.
Jarman then joined the hosts to wrap up the remaining redistricting action since they last explored the national congressional map, walking listeners through the states that saw late redistricting action this year.
The trio started in New York, which saw a lot of upheaval as Democrats passed a new congressional map that was very much gerrymandered in the party's favor. The state courts ruled that the legislature lacked the power to draw a new map, and also delayed the primary for congressional and state Senate races until August. As a result, Nir explained, a lot of districts changed one way with the Democratic map, and then shifted back in a totally different direction with the new state court-drawn map. The 11th District in particular underwent some serious changes under the Democratic map, and then reversed those changes under the court-drawn map.
The 11th District used to be centered on Staten Island, which is the most Republican part of New York, and it also included some Republican-friendly areas in southern Brooklyn like Bensonhurst. What happened with the original—the Democratic map that got struck down—is that instead of that southern part of Brooklyn, it took a jog up to the north, including Park Slope and other hipster neighborhoods closer to the center of the city.
As Jarman put it:
That made it a light blue district instead, one that it seemed like Democrats would be able to pick up. But then that map was struck down, as we've discussed, and the map drawn by the special master returned it to more of its original state from the teens district, although it's slightly bluer than it was in the teens district. But unfortunately, it's most likely to reelect the Republican incumbent, Nicole Malliotakis.
The leading Democratic candidate there is still Max Rose, who started running when all of a sudden, wow, this is a blue district, easy pickup. But he's continuing to run there even though the district has reverted to its light red roots. Maybe it was going to be a bad look of him if he bailed out at that point. But he might also think that given his unique appeal to the Staten Island part of the district, he might still have a shot here anyway.
But there is another district further upstate that is probably Democrats’ best shot at pickup in New York: the 22nd District. “So what's going on there?” Nir asked.
That seat used to be the 24th under the old lines, with most of its territory having now moved into the 22nd. New York lost an upstate seat, and thus there was a rejiggering of the numbers. Jarman noted that it is the seat that's been held by John Katko for a number of years:
Republican John Katko, who's one of the most moderate Republicans and also just a really difficult out in terms of the Democrats have tried many times to defeat him, with good candidates, and have always come up just slightly short in this swinging, but I guess you'd say, light blue district. Now, the overall numbers haven't changed. It's still a district that Biden got 53% under both the old and new lines, but with Katko out, there's definitely a better shot here for democratic candidates.
Down in Florida, where the map kept getting delayed over Republican infighting, Gov. Ron DeSantis stood firm on the idea of getting a really aggressive Republican gerrymander—despite the fact that Florida has anti-gerrymandering laws. “He clearly and seemingly correctly believed that the Florida Supreme Court, full of his appointees, would not stop him from passing a gerrymandered map. And eventually, he got what he wanted. He got a map that really hurt Democrats on a number of places. So unfortunately, we're going to go through those now,” Beard said.
Of particular note is Florida's 5th District, currently represented by Al Lawson, which is a voting rights district that is designed to elect an African American candidate. It stretches from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, but has shifted under the newly drawn maps.
Jarman offered this analysis:
Yeah. The fifth district, like you said, used to join African Americans at both ends of the panhandle in Florida. It was a very long skinny district. But, under the current configuration, it's limited just to Jacksonville. And basically what's happening is the fourth district used to contain the white parts of Jacksonville, which is represented by John Rutherford. He's the Republican incumbent. He's going to run in the fifth. So the fourth is really where there's a Republican hole. I suspect the nominee there is going to be Aaron Bean who's in the State Senate.
But what's happening with Al Lawson, unfortunately, is probably the best place for him to run is the Florida second district now, which is Tallahassee centered. But that district is the only Biden one that lost it 44 to 55, because it no longer contains the black part of Jacksonville. It's just Tallahassee, which is a blue city, but it's surrounded by some very dark red countryside. So although that district became a lot bluer, it used to be one that Biden won 30... Lost with 32% under the old lines, it's still a district to Biden, lost by double digits and probably not Lawson. Lawson isn't going to have much hope there, but it's good to see him at least persisting.
Yet another district where DeSantis successfully was able to go after a Democratic seat and basically browbeat the legislature into giving him what he wanted, was Florida's 7th District, which is currently Democratic, is a very competitive seat and probably won't be going forward.
Jarman noted that Stephanie Murphy, who was a representative for a number of years, retired even before the new map came out, likely under the expectation that she would be dealt a much worse hand. She was proven correct, eventually, once the legislative wrangling was done:
That used to be a district that Biden won by 10 points in the Orlando suburbs, which are pretty diverse and, like a lot of other Southern suburbs, moving left pretty rapidly, but the district was reconfigured to include less college educated areas further to the east, closer to Daytona Beach, and that made it a bit redder. And one worrisome thing about this district is that the Republican nominee here could be Anthony Sabatini, who's a particularly wacky member of the state legislature, but he probably has the name recognition advantage in the Republican primary.
Nir reminded listeners that there are still legal challenges pending against Florida's map under the fair district's amendments to the state constitution, which were passed a decade ago. And as Beard mentioned, DeSantis and his predecessor, Rick Scott, have managed to stack the state Supreme Court with ultra-conservative far-right justices — so it remains to be seen whether the plaintiffs will get any satisfaction from the court.
The trio also covered Ohio, which is currently stuck with a gerrymandered congressional map. But, according to Nir, there are still some opportunities for Democratic success, and maybe the most interesting district that's gotten transformed is Ohio's 1st District in the southwestern corner of the state.
Jarman offered additional background that the Cincinnati area district has been a common Democratic target, even in the last decade, despite being slightly Republican-leaning:
But what happened in the first district is this is a Cincinnati area district. It used to include a lot of Cincinnati's more conservative suburbs to the north, but redistricting in the last year condensed it a bit more to just Cincinnati and its more inner suburbs. So it's actually a considerably bluer district than it used to be in previous configurations. It's one that Joe Biden won 54 to 45 in 2020. And it's been represented ever since 1994, except for a two-year period following 2008 by Steve Chabot, who is also a really conservative Republican for such a swingy district, but he's managed to hold on, and this might finally be the end of him. His Democrat opponent is Greg Landsman, and he may be the lone new addition to the Democratic caucus in Ohio.
Lastly, Nir, Beard, and Jarman discussed smaller races that happened in Missouri and New Hampshire.
The Downballot comes out every Thursday everywhere you listen to podcasts! As a reminder, you can reach our hosts by email at thedownballot@dailykos.com. Please send in any questions you may have for next week's mailbag. You can also reach out via Twitter: @DKElections.
