Tuesday’s primaries

Grimm’s comeback and other big storylines in Tuesday’s primaries

President Donald Trump backed incumbents over outsiders claiming his mantle, like ex-Rep. Michael Grimm and a South Carolina governor hopeful.

By STEVEN SHEPARD and SCOTT BLAND

Two of Donald Trump’s biggest cheerleaders are on the ballot in Tuesday night’s marquee primary elections. Unfortunately for them, Trump is backing their opponents instead.

Former Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) and South Carolina businessman John Warren have emulated Trump’s brash style on the campaign trail and vowed to back him in office. But they’re up against Trump-endorsed Republican incumbents, for the House district based in Staten Island and the governorship of South Carolina, respectively. Trump is backing Rep. Dan Donovan — though Grimm argues that Donovan, who voted against the GOP tax act, is insufficiently supportive of the president — and Gov. Henry McMaster, who was the first statewide elected official to endorse Trump in 2016.

The typically spontaneous Trump is showing off a pragmatic streak: Donovan would likely sail to reelection, while nominating Grimm, who served time in prison for tax fraud, would potentially put another Republican seat on the battleground map this fall. But Trump’s endorsement also speaks to how he is balancing his spontaneous side with his responsibilities to incumbents as leader of the Republican Party.

Democrats are also picking a nominee to take on popular Gov. Larry Hogan in Maryland — where they could potentially elect the state’s first African-American governor later this year — and both parties are setting up open governor’s races in Colorado and Oklahoma. Several Democratic House battleground primaries are on tap in New York as well, alongside some unusually robust primary challenges for New York City members.

Polls close in runoffs in South Carolina at 7 p.m. Eastern time and at 8 p.m. in Mississippi. In the primaries, polls will close in Maryland and Oklahoma at 8 p.m., Colorado and New York at 9 p.m. and at 10 p.m. in Utah.

Here are POLITICO’s top things to watch as the results roll in:

Trump’s swampy picks
John Warren has pledged to “drain the swamp” in the state Capitol if he’s elected governor. Grimm’s campaign signs have “Trump 2020” printed on the back.

And yet, Trump has gone in another direction in both races. He is backing Donovan in New York, giving the buttoned-up former Staten Island district attorney and outside allies the cover to air ads proclaiming him a Trump ally. (Donovan also went on TV to tout a bill that would require post offices to display pictures of the president.) And Trump is sticking with McMaster, the South Carolina governor and political veteran who ascended to his state’s top job in the first place because Trump plucked Nikki Haley from the governorship to join his Cabinet last year.

While the president has played a powerful role this year in Republican primaries featuring an anti-Trump candidate, his endorsement has not always been enough to boost a candidate over the finish line in other races — as former Sen. Luther Strange of Alabama can attest after losing his special primary to Moore last year. Trump also lost the first time he waded into a congressional primary, on behalf of now-former Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) in 2016.

But both Donovan and McMaster’s primaries could be close, and any bump in support from Trump’s endorsement could be critical. The only independent poll in New York’s 11th District showed Grimm leading Donovan, and McMaster’s weak showing two weeks ago raises alarm bells.

Romney launches his third act in electoral politics
Another unlikely Trump endorsee on the ballot on Tuesday? Mitt Romney — the former Massachusetts governor and two-time presidential candidate running for Senate in Utah, who in 2016 said Trump had “neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president, and his personal qualities would mean that America would cease to be a shining city on a hill.”

Romney is the heavy favorite in Tuesday’s primary. Pre-election polls show him earning roughly three votes for every one going to state Rep. Mike Kennedy, who has urged GOP voters to choose someone more supportive of the president.

For now, Romney is trying to walk a rhetorical tightrope — embracing the endorsement of a man about whom he wrote in an election-eve op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune, “I have and will continue to speak out when the president says or does something which is divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions.”

Tuesday’s vote count will be a good indicator of how fine a line that is — at least in Utah, where Trump earned only 45 percent of the vote in 2016.

New York’s restless Democratic activists strike out against entrenched incumbents
Four longtime Democratic members in New York are being challenged Tuesday by young, liberal candidates arguing that it’s time for new blood in the city’s congressional delegation.

Three of the four have been in Congress for at least two decades. Rep. Eliot Engel, 71, is seeking a 16th term in the House. Carolyn Maloney, 72, is in her 13th term in the House. Joe Crowley, 56, is in his 10th term. Yvette Clarke, 53, is the relative newcomer, first elected in 2006.

Crowley has the most at stake. The chairman of the House Democratic Caucus could be a speaker- or minority leader-in-waiting. But his opponent, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has painted Crowley as out of touch, especially with the nearly half of his constituents who are Latino. The geography of the district — which contains parts of Queens and the Bronx — favors Crowley. In the 2016 presidential primary, twice as many votes in the district were cast in Queens, where Crowley dominates Democratic politics, as were tallied from the Bronx, from where Ocasio-Cortez hails.

Maloney’s opponent, former Obama staffer Suraj Patel, is the most provocative. A New York Times story last week detailed how Patel and his staffers use dating and hook-up apps to lure unsuspecting singles into political discussions, and Patel’s campaign has condoms bearing the campaign’s logo. (Maloney’s district includes the East Side of Manhattan and parts of western Queens and Brooklyn.)

Engel faces three opponents in his northern Bronx and southern Westchester district, most notably self-funder Jonathan Lewis, who has contributed or loaned $656,000 to his campaign. Clarke’s opponent, community organizer Adem Bunkeddeko, was endorsed by The New York Times, which could be influential in parts of the Brooklyn district.

In another sign of how the mood in the city’s Democratic Party has evolved, three of the four incumbents were unopposed in the primary two years ago — and Maloney, the only one to face a primary challenger, won 90 percent of the vote against a nominal opponent.

Energy on the left has brought these new candidates into the race — but Tuesday will show whether they are a real threat to the existing political order.

Democratic self-funders go for broke
David Trone, co-owner of the Total Wine & More retail chain, really wants to be a congressman. Trone, the second-place finisher two years ago in a Democratic primary in Maryland’s 8th District, spent $13.4 million — but won just 27.1 percent of the vote. (That’s more than $189 per vote, for those keeping score at home.)

Trone was defeated but unbowed. When Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) announced last year he planned to forgo reelection in a neighboring district to get a head start on a uphill presidential bid, Trone lunged for the new district — and for his checkbook. Trone has spent $11.5 million on his primary bid in the state’s 6th District, which includes all of Western Maryland but takes in some of the tony D.C. suburbs in Montgomery County.

But the nomination is far from a sure thing. Trone faces seven other candidates in Tuesday’s primary — including state Del. Aruna Miller, who was endorsed by EMILY’s List.

In Colorado, another Democrat has also made an eight-figure investment just to win a primary. Rep. Jared Polis kicked in $11.3 million of his own cash into a campaign for governor.

Like Trone, Polis’ leading challenger is a woman: former state Treasurer Cary Kennedy. Most see Polis as a slight favorite in the four-candidate field, which also includes former state Sen. Mike Johnston and Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne.

Even if he wins the nomination, Polis faces a competitive and expensive general election fight in the battleground state. The favorite in the GOP primary is state Treasurer Walker Stapleton, but Stapleton faces another self-funder, former state Rep. Victor Mitchell, who has loaned his campaign just under $5 million.

Maryland Dems fight for the chance to face Hogan
There are nine candidates on the ballot for the Democratic nomination for governor in Maryland, but most observers see the contest as a two-man race between Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker and former NAACP President Ben Jealous — either of whom would be the first African-American governor in state history if they could beat Hogan in the fall.

The Democratic primary has drawn parallels to the 2016 presidential primary: Jealous was an early backer of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Sanders campaigned with Jealous in the final days before Tuesday’s primary. Jealous has also had prominent out-of-state figures — like Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) — visit Maryland for his events.

But the Baker-Jealous battle is also a test of geography: Each comes from one of the two poles of Democratic politics in the state. More than 1 in 5 Democratic voters in the state reside in Prince George’s County (21 percent), where Baker has served as county executive for the past eight years. Jealous is from Baltimore City (14 percent of registered Democrats) and is expected to win there.

Montgomery County — to the north and west of D.C. — could be decisive: 18 percent of registered Democrats reside there, and neither man can claim it as a stronghold.

Lamborn reborn?
Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado is fighting to avoid becoming the third House Republican to lose renomination this year. He’s fortunate that he even has a chance.

Lamborn is only on the ballot thanks to a federal judge, who reinstated the six-term congressman after the state Supreme Court booted him from the primary for using ineligible signature gatherers.

Back on the ballot, Lamborn isn’t a sure thing. He’s had problems in primaries before: He was nearly ousted in the 2014 primary, and he almost didn’t qualify for the 2016 ballot at a GOP convention, barely earning enough delegates to advance to a primary.

One factor potentially in his favor: There are four other Republicans on the ballot on Tuesday who could split the anti-Lamborn vote.