Sara Gideon Gonna Give Susan Collins Something To Be Concerned About. Your Primary Election Roundup!
Also results from Texas and ... wait, crazy-ass Dr. Ronny won? Yikes.
Three states h eld primary elections yesterday: Maine, Alabama, and Texas. Or maybe it was two and a half primaries, since Texas's elections were run-offs to settle races where nobody got over 50 percent of the vote in the March primaries. The biggest result was in Alabama, where Trump devotees drove a stake through the political career of former senator and Trump's first attorney general Jeff Sessions. Former Auburn f'ball coach Tommy Tuberville will face incumbent Democrat Doug Jones in November, and that race is generally agreed to be the Republicans' best chance to pick up a seat in the Senate this year. Read more on Sessions's demise in Stephen'spolitical obituary for ol' Jefferson Beauregard Racist . In Maine and Texas, Democrats also picked candidates for Senate in what could turn out to be a really bad year for Republicans. Let's hope!
Maine: Susan Collins Is Very Concerned
Democrats chose former state House Speaker Sara Gideon to go up against incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins, who people finally seem to be tired of. Collins took one genuinely courageous vote in opposition to Donald Trump, joining Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and the late John McCain to block the repeal of Obamacare in 2017. But since then, Collins has become a self-parody with her statements expressing grave concerns about various Trump policies, followed by her votes in favor of any damn thing Trump wants. The final straws were her votes to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, followed by her vote to acquit Donald Trump in this year's impeachment trial. (Her bullshit statements about both horrible men, suggesting they were actually not monsters, didn't help.)
Gideon faced two other Dems in the primary, Betsy Sweet and Bre Kidman, but neither really got a lot of traction. Gideon won easily last night, getting 70.3 percent of the vote. Sweet was far behind with just 23 percent, and Kidman got just 6.7 percent. Gideon and Collins have already been campaigning mostly against each other, and with national Democrats making the race a top priority this year, Collins will be facing the toughest, most expensive challenge of her career. Now that the primary has been decided, Gideon will also receive the over $4.1 million that was raised in a crowdfunding campaign for "Susan Collins' Future Opponent," which was started after Collins's vote to confirm Justice Kegstand.
Texas: It's MJ Hegar Against John Cornyn
In the runoff for the Democratic nomination for US Senate, Air Force veteran MJ Hegar edged out state Senator Royce West, with 52.1 percent to Royce's 47.9 percent. Politico notes the race had "turned bitter in the final stretch, with West and Hegar exchanging significant attacks, according to the Dallas Morning News ." Republican incumbent senator John Cornyn tried to do a little ratfucking in the race too, running TV ads saying Royce was "too liberal" for Texas, with the hope that Democratic primary voters would choose Royce. It was an unsuccessful ploy that attempted to recycle Claire McCaskill's 2012 ad calling Todd Akin "too conservative for Missouri," which maybe proves Democratic voters are less likely to take voting advice from a GOP incumbent.
Cornyn's campaign quickly got to work trying to tie Hegar to national Democrats that Texas Republicans supposedly hate, insisting Hegar only won against Royce because she had support from "Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer, to whom she is now indebted."
Most election forecasts have the Senate race leaning Republican, but it's not a lock yet; a lot will depend on the course of the pandemic, and lots of Texans are already pissed off at GOP Governor Greg Abbott for rushing into reopening. Whether that'll hurt Cornyn remains to be seen. It's also hard to say how stupid he'll make himself look — maybe he'll try once again to complain that a comedian who endorsed Hegar is too potty-mouthed.
Also Texas: Congrats, Dr. Ronny!
Donald Trump's former White House doctor, Ronny Jackson, managed a win in the Republican runoff for Texas's 13th Congressional District, in a race to replace retiring congressman Mac Thornberry. Thornberry's endorsed successor, Josh Winegardner, had actually come in first in the March primary, but didn't get over 50 percent, and Trump of course endorsed the dude who insisted in 2018 that Trump wasn't overweight, and could also point to "camel" better than anyone alive. Jackson got 55.6 percent of the vote in the runoff, and is likely a lock to win a seat in Congress from the deeply red district. The Trump endorsement may have helped, or perhaps it was Jackson's frequent appearances on Fox News, where he opined about the pandemic and also pushed Trump's bogus lies that Barack Obama spied on the Trump campaign.
Make room, Louie Gohmert! There's gonna be a whole new Texas dipshit in the House! In addition to all the other Texas dipshits!
Also ALSO in Texas, former congressman Pete Sessions, who was beaten by Democrat Colin Allred in 2018 , won a primary in a whole 'nother district in a bid to get back to Washington, where he can complain about Washington insiders again. Here's hoping Donald Trump hears that "Sessions won" and has a screaming hissy in public, THE END
[ CNN / Politico / WaPo / Image: Video screenshot, Banksy on Instagram]
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