Such a lovely place!

Eight states held primary elections yesterday, and while we won't be bringing you results for the hotly contested water quality board race in Teaneck, New Jersey, there are pleasant surprises to report. For one thing, in New Mexico, Democrat Deb Haaland won the primary for the First Congressional District, a solidly blue district that includes Albuquerque. That means come November, the USA will finally have its very first Native American woman member of the House (there are two serving Native American men already there). Haaland will be running against Republican Janice Arnold-Jones, and if elected, would mark one hell of a milestone, as HuffPo notes:

To get a sense of how significant Haaland’s presence in Congress would be, consider that more than 10,000 people have served in the House and nearly 1,300 have served in the Senate since the first Congress met in 1789. Not a single one was a Native American woman.

“Crazy, right?” Haaland said in a February interview with HuffPost. “It’s 2018.”

Damn well about time!

The most-watched bunch of primaries took place in California, where, to not a lot of surprise, Dianne Feinstein took the top spot in the US Senate race with 44 percent of the vote. The real race was always for second place in California's bizarro "top-two" primary system, in which the top two vote getters, regardless of party, go on to the general election. The Sacramento Bee reports it's still too early to say who Feinstein's opponent will be in the fall: Republican business guy James P. Bradley and Democratic former state Senate majority leader Kevin de León each had 10 percent of the vote as of this morning.

The race to replace retiring Gov. Jerry Brown is at least all set; former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom (D-Of Course) finished first, and will face Republican John Cox in November. In a hilarious CNN piece, we learn that Cox, a businessman (they all are), promises a general election campaign that will be serious, issue-oriented, and "importantly, it's going to be civil." We also learn that this is John Cox's idea of a "civil" election-night statement:

Cox, speaking to supporters in San Diego tonight, attacked Newsom for imposing high taxes in California and "protecting MS-13."

"You're the one that's making our communities less safe," he said, adding that he will get rid of the "sanctuary state" law if he is elected.

Yup, fighting the New Cruelty is all about being a big friend to criminal gangs. Good thing Cox isn't going to be uncivil.

As for the seven Republican-held US House seats Democrats had targeted to flip, it turns out that, despite some well-founded fears that an abundance of Democratic candidates might split the vote, shutting out Ds altogether, the Sacramento Bee reports all seven so far look to be competitive in the fall. Here are a few of the biggies:

10th District: Sitting congressman Jeff Denham came in first, with 38 percent of the vote, and as of now, second is held by Democrat Josh Harder with just under 16 percent, but right behind him is Republican Ted Howze with more than 14 percent.

22nd District: It would have been a beautiful dream to send Devin Nunes back to husband his cows, but he came in first with 58 percent, followed by Democrat Andrew Janz with 32 percent.

25th District: Incumbent Republican Steve Knight came in first, and while second place isn't set yet, the top two contenders are both Democrats: Katie Hill, at 20 percent, and Bryan Caforio, at 18 percent.

39th District: In this race to replace retiring jerkwad Republican Ed Royce, the top candidate in the scramble is Republican Young Kim (22 percent), while Democrat Gil Cisneros is in a solid second place with 19 percent. SacBee calls Cisneros's second place "comfortable."

48th District: Russian-favored Republican and notorious house-rental slob Dana Rohrabacher squeaked out a first-place finish with just 30 percent, while Dems Harley Rouda and Hans Kierstead are tied for second at 17 percent each. Rohrabacher's Republican challenger, Scott Baugh, is behind both of them at 16 percent.

49th District: Republican Darrell Issa is leaving Congress to go set fires in the private sector, so big crowds from both parties ran to replace him. In this one, looks like the R vote got split the most: Out of eight Republicans, Diane Harkey came out on top with 25.5 percent of the vote, followed by two Democrats, Mike Levin (17. percent) and Sara Jacobs (15.5 percent).

That 10th District race, for a seat in the Modesto area, won't be affected at all by the primary's one big fuckup, which hit Los Angeles County. A "printing error" led to 118,522 registered voters being left off the rolls, but the county instructed all the polling places in the county to let voters whose names weren't on the official lists submit provisional ballots. That could significantly delay the final vote tallies in the affected area, but the two Congressional races where names went missing from voter rolls, in the 25th and 39th districts, both appear to face little chance of ending in a shutout of Democrats now.

Also, CNN reports that one of the voters whose name didn't appear on the rolls was actor Henry Winkler, beloved for his role on "Arrested Development" as Barry Zuckerkorn -- they've got the worst lawyers! -- plus some other past and present gigs.

CNN solemnly notes, in case you were wondering, "It's unclear if the Fonz voted with a provisional ballot," indicating that the news outlet is not entirely clear on the line between reality and television.

In other cool primary news, in Iowa, Zach Wahls, who as a teenager gave a passionate speech to the state legislature defending both of his moms back in the bad ol' pre-Obergefell days, won his primary and will now be, at 27, the Democratic candidate for a seat in the state Senate. He's running in a very blue district against a Libertarian, so congratulations, Mr. Wahls!

We are also reliably informed that Montana voted for the woman, probably because of terrible, evil, sexist Identity Politics, as espoused here by some big jerk:

In Law & Order news, the Etowah County (Alabama) Sheriff who pocketed a cool three-quarters of a million dollars meant to feed inmates got beat in a REPUBLICAN primary. Maybe they've all got kids doing nickels?

And voters recalled Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky from office. Persky is the judge who sentenced that horrible Stanford swimmer guy Brock Turner to just six months in jail after Turner raped a woman behind the dumpster. Bye-bye, awful judge! Bye!

Now all we have to do is wait for Donald Trump to get a bee in his bonnet and try to pardon Turner, who was convicted on state charges of sexual assault. Rudy Giuliani will no doubt explain presidents can do that, too.

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