Nancy Mace Is The Riley Gaines Of Swimming Toward The South Carolina Governor's Mansion!
Plus oh well, it's Graham Platner, and other results from this week's primaries!
In the latest round of primary elections, voters in four states chose candidates for the November general elections, and something something national consequences, something something Donald Trump’s continued clammy grip on the Republican Party, yadda yadda. Primaries were held Tuesday in Maine, South Carolina, Nevada, and North Dakota. And in California, vote counting in last week’s primary for governor was complete enough that Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, secured the second spot in the at-large gubernatorial primary, so it’ll be him and Democrat Xavier Becerra facing each other in November. Funny how Democrats somehow only frauded up the LA mayor’s race, while the very same vote count process put Hilton on the ballot.
One might even think the cries of fraud were complete bullshit!
Maine: Well Fuck, But Susan Collins Is Still Worse
As polls, expectations, vibes, and Aunt Sally’s aching knee predicted, problematic progressive populist Graham Platner won the Democratic primary for US Senate in Maine, getting just short of three quarters of the vote. He’ll now go on to face incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who ran unopposed in her primary. With control of the Senate riding on whether Democrats can flip four currently Republican-held seats blue, the Maine Senate contest has, yet again, national implications.
As we’ve said a time or six (including in this morning’s Tabs), Platner is kind of a shithead, but he’s the shithead Maine voters chose and we’re stuck with him. Our initial admiration for him went pretty quickly into milkshake duck territory when the news of his damn Nazi tattoo broke, and his insistence that he didn’t know what it was until late last year strains credulity, to say the least, and we’re credulous enough to believe Texas will someday turn blue.
Since then, the WTFs have just kept coming. Collins’s campaign is already hitting Platner over the tattoo, the old Reddit posts, the sexting with married women, and the recent New York Times story about women who dated him who say his behavior was violent and frightening. Yes, the accuser with the harshest criticism has worked on Republican campaigns, and Platner has denied her allegations that he physically abused her. But two other women also said he weirded them out.
Even with all that having been aired prior to the vote Tuesday, most Maine Democratic primary voters’ enthusiasm for Platner apparently overcame whatever doubts they had about him. Turnout across the state was high, suggesting that fears about Democrats staying home didn’t come to pass (although that could still be a risk for November).
Now that Platner is the nominee, our position remains about where it was after Janet Mills dropped out of the primary: Crom knows we’d prefer someone better, but Platner, warts and all, even if he becomes another John Fetterman, is still better than Collins, who will continue to vote with Trump on damn near everything. Even if he’s a dirtbag, he’s still an antifascist dirtbag, and getting Democrats in control of the Senate is key to reining in Trump’s dictatorial agenda. Let’s just be honest and say that a dirtbag is far better than a fascist, and let’s not pretend that Platner is going through any kind of redemption arc.
Vote for the dirtbag, it’s important.
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South Carolina: Nancy Mace Out, Lindsey Graham Persists Like A Bad Odor
In the Palmetto State, Rep. James Clyburn (D) easily won his primary and is likely to hold the seat, for an 18th term in the House. Clyburn benefited from the Republican-dominated state Lege’s decision to not join the rest of the former Confederacy in redrawing every last majority-Black congressional district out of existence this year.
But before you get carried away and accuse South Carolina Republicans of having a fit of decency or ethics, several top Goopers in the Lege said last month they opposed redistricting because early voting was already underway for this very primary. Still, that’s better than Louisiana, slightly, in the voting rights race to the bottom. For this year.
The really big outcome from South Carolina was that Rep. Nancy Mace, of the House Republican Batshit Awful Caucus, finished fifth — dead last — in the state’s gubernatorial primary. After this year, she’s both out of Congress and maybe even out of elected office forever, though here we note that the evil baddies in slasher flicks never seem to stay dead, either.
True to hateful bigoted form, Mace was an asshole right up to the final days of the primary, pandering to xenophobes by introducing a constitutional amendment that would ban naturalized citizens from serving in Congress, serving as federal judges, or serving in any position requiring Senate confirmation. She insisted that three of her Democratic colleagues in the House — Reps. Ilhan Omar (Minnesota), Shri Thanedar (Michigan), and Pramila Jayapal (Washington) — are “all making clear every single day their loyalty is not to America.” Jesus, what a vile person.
While campaigning in Greenville County earlier this month, Mace screeched, “I didn’t come out of a slum in India. I am born and made here in America.” Gosh, we sure feel bad about Trump turning against her after she called for releasing the Epstein Files.
Trump’s endorsed GOP candidate in the governor’s primary, Lt. Gov. Pamela “not Nancy Mace” Evette, wasn’t able to get enough votes to secure the nomination outright, and will go up against state Attorney General Alan Wilson in a runoff on June 23. Mace endorsed Wilson, probably out of spite, although last year she had attacked Wilson, baselessly claiming he was protecting defendants accused of child sex abuse.
Always being very mature, after Trump endorsed Evette, Mace immediately went to Twitter and Facebook to lie about it in an attempt to gaslight voters.
“Pamela Evette is NOT ENDORSED by DONALD TRUMP,” Mace wrote, incorrectly. “Do not believe her LIES.” Mace posted an AI-generated image of herself posing with Trump.
Oh, and speaking of assholes, Lindsey Graham easily fended off a primary challenge from self-funded business guy Mark Lynch, clearing the 50-percent threshold to avoid a runoff with 56 percent of the primary vote. Trump had unironically warned that it’d be a “DISASTER for the Republican Party” if Lynch won, which, hmmm, sounds vaguely familiar to something we heard a decade ago … what was that?
Oh yeah, that.
In the Democratic primary for Senate, Dr. Annie Andrews, who we like a hell of a lot, won the chance to run a long-shot bid against Graham. It’s a weird year, but probably not weird enough to dislodge Graham from the seat he’s clinging to like a goddamn candiru fish.
Nevada And North Dakota: Hey, You Had Primaries Too!
Fully a quarter of the states beginning with N also held primaries Tuesday. In Nevada, incumbent Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo won, while Aaron Ford, the state attorney general, won the Democratic nomination to run against Lombardo. Nevada is one of several states where Democrats have a pretty good shot at retaking the governor’s office; the Cook Political Report rates Nevada as a “toss up.” If Ford pulls off a win this fall, he’d become Nevada’s first Black governor. Trump’s tariffs and general nastiness have hurt international tourism, and his dumb war has driven Nevada gas prices to be among the highest in the country, so lots of Nevadans may be primed for a change.
Also in Nevada, Donald Trump’s endorsement seems to have been a key factor in the GOP primary for Congressional District 2, the lone Republican-leaning district among Nevada’s four House seats. The seat is open after Rep. Mark Amodei announced he’s retiring. Trump’s endorsed candidate, retired Lt. Col. David Flippo, lived in the district only a few months, but he nonetheless defeated former state Sen. James Settlemayer, who was endorsed by both Amodei and Lombardo.
And in the primaries for North Dakota’s sole House seat, incumbent Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R) easily won over former State Department official and veteran Alex Balazs, who was endorsed by the state Republican Party after Fedorchak blew off the state GOP convention. We’re betting incumbency helped Fedorchak a lot more than Trump’s endorsement, but he’ll brag about it anyway.
Fedorchak will be in a rerun of her 2024 race against Democrat Trygve Hammer, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary. In 2024 he managed to get 30 percent of the vote, and with Trump’s tariffs hurting farmers, Hammer might … well, do a lot better, but he remains an underdog. If he wins, that would really rustle Republicans’ lutefisk!
The statewide primary saw only 21 percent turnout, up from even lower turnout in 2024, possibly because Fargo had a primary for mayor, dontcha know.
[CNN / AP / NBC News / Nevada Independent / The Hill / AP]
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OT: I swear to God, you can't make this stuff up.
"Former Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino's nascent 2028 presidential campaign suffered a blow when Jacob Engels, a controversial figure tasked with launching the candidate's online presence, was arrested at a budget motel and charged with felony methamphetamine possession."
https://bsky.app/profile/rawstory.com/post/3mnzrc6qdrg27
Now that Nancy Mace is done, I hope she gets the mental health care she desperately needs. That woman is not right in the head.