Democratic Party’s future

Here’s what we just learned about the Democratic Party’s future

Voters chose centrist and establishment-backed candidates in several key races.

By Lisa Kashinsky and Andrew Howard

Democrats didn’t take many chances in critical November battlegrounds on Tuesday.

Voters played it safe in picking establishment-backed Josh Turek to take on GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson for an open Senate seat in Iowa and putting up moderate military veteran Rebecca Bennett against Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in one of the most competitive House districts in the country.

The results were more mixed in bluer territory. In Los Angeles, embattled Mayor Karen Bass advanced to a runoff early Wednesday morning. But in New Jersey, progressive Adam Hamawy, a U.S. Army veteran with a complicated personal history who has been sharply critical of Israel’s war in Gaza, emerged from a 12-candidate primary to succeed progressive retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman in a safe district.

It’s a split screen that shows Democrats are attempting to reconcile their desire for electability in tough races with the demands of a base that has shifted to the left on Israel and other key issues.

And it’s one that’s tempered by the deluge of super PAC spending in several of these races: VoteVets, a group that works to elect Democratic veterans, dropped $11 million combined between Iowa and New Jersey. And a new group that was created to serve as a counterweight to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and has boosted Israel-critical Democrats became the biggest spender in Hamawy’s race.

Here are some key takeaways from the biggest primary night of the year.

The Democratic establishment roars back

Chuck Schumer scored a major win with Turek’s triumph in Iowa, even though the Senate minority leader had kept a lower profile in the race and didn’t outright endorse him. It’s a romp that comes during an otherwise volatile week for party leaders as they deal with the fallout from presumptive Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner’s latest scandal in Maine.

National Democrats viewed Turek, a Paralympic gold medalist who preached “prairie populism” and had twice won a conservative-leaning state legislative district, as a stronger offering in November than rival state Sen. Zach Wahls, who built his campaign around an anti-establishment “Iowans over Insiders” pitch. After the contest was called, multiple race raters shifted the Senate contest from “likely” to “lean Republican.”

VoteVets, which is often aligned with the Democratic establishment, poured nearly $10 million into boosting Turek and put another $1 million behind Bennett in New Jersey. Turek is not a veteran, but he attributes his spina bifida from birth to his father’s exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.

“It helps to have a $10 million spending advantage in a race. But the fact of the matter is Josh Turek has an incredible story, and was a great candidate and is going to be a great nominee against Ashley Hinson,” said Jeff Link, an Iowa-based Democratic strategist who was not working for either Turek or Wahls. “If you need a guy to reach out to Trump voters in Iowa, I would say the guy whose father voted for Trump is probably not going to say anything offensive to Trump voters, but also is going to stand up for progressive, populist points of view.”

In California, where results were still rolling in early Wednesday, establishment-aligned candidates were mostly pulling ahead. Embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was projected to advance to a runoff. In the governor’s race, former Biden Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra was up in early returns. And Scott Wiener, a prominent state senator, will advance in the race to succeed retiring former Speaker Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco, with Pelosi-backed Connie Chan leading progressive firebrand Saikat Chakrabarti for the second slot.

In New Jersey, Bennett breezed through on a more moderate message than her three rivals — and a resume that closely mirrors that of new Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who won in a landslide last November — in the 7th Congressional District, one of the country’s most competitive seats. Kean has drawn national attention because he’s been absent from Congress for nearly three months. Now, with a moderate candidate on the general election ballot in addition to Kean’s mysterious absence, Democrats are buoyed by their party’s outlook.

“One thing we heard over and over, whether in the field or in polling, was voters wanted someone who could win in November,” said Dan Bryan, a longtime Democratic strategist in the state who is working with Bennett. “You see voters making distinctions. In bluer districts in New Jersey, they’re going for more progressive candidates. But in this district, they went for someone who can appeal across the spectrum.”

Overall, the Democratic establishment ended the night on stronger footing than their GOP rivals.

Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) lost his gubernatorial bid — despite a last minute endorsement from President Donald Trump — following frustrations that he hadn’t taken the primary seriously, especially as popular Democratic Auditor Rob Sand has amassed a warchest for the general election. And Rep. Dusty Johnon (R-S.D.) is poised to miss the runoff in his state even though he and Feenstra both heavily outspent their rivals.

An AIPAC counterweight rises

Heavy spending by the pro-Israel lobby has dominated Democratic primaries so far this year. On Tuesday, a group specifically created to counteract AIPAC’s influence put its stamp on the map.

American Priorities spent over $1.5 million on advertising to promote Hamawy, making the group the single biggest spender in the race, per tracking firm AdImpact. Hamawy, who volunteered at a Gaza hospital and has called the war a genocide, overcame connections to “The Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman, whom he appeared in court for — though his years in the Army as a combat physician helped blunt that criticism.

Voters “sent a clear message: they want representatives who are independent, not tied to foreign interests, and willing to speak honestly about American foreign policy,” American Priorities wrote in a memo Tuesday night.

The group also claimed Hamawy’s win showed “AIPAC’s spending is not unbeatable.” AIPAC did not appear to spend in the race.

Hamawy, who is all but certain to win the deep-blue seat in November, said in a statement Tuesday that he would fight “for health care, not bombs, to abolish ICE, and to unrig the economy once and for all. I will never take money from corporate PACs or AIPAC.”

It’s a big win for the group that has had mixed results so far, winning a House race in Pennsylvania but falling just short in North Carolina, where it spent nearly $1 million on ads against Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee. The group also spent nominally in a Texas House primary.

Another race where American Priorities invested — California’s 22nd District — was still too close to call on Tuesday night as votes were being counted.

The mystery continues

Pop-up super PACs suspected of having Republican ties have spent in Democratic races across the country, and so far without much luck. That streak continued on Tuesday in Montana and New Jersey, where Republicans sought and failed to get their preferred matchups for November.

In New Jersey’s 7th District, Real Change PAC — which has suspected GOP ties — ran ads accusing Bennett of not standing up to ICE as a way to boost her primary opponents. The group spent more than $650,000 on the race, according to federal campaign finance reports.

In Montana, Democrat Alani Bankhead defeated state Rep. Reilly Neill even though he was boosted by a PAC connected to retiring GOP Sen. Steve Daines. Bankhead had mystery support of her own, with the newly-created Progressive Vet PAC spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on her behalf.

The assumption among many Republicans — and hope from many Democrats — is that Bankhead will bow out of the race and clear a one-on-one matchup for independent Seth Bodnar against Republican Kurt Alme. Bankhead has so far denied those rumors, but Republicans were trying to shore up Neill so she could siphon off votes from Bodnar in the general election. Meanwhile, local outlets are tying Progressive Vet PAC to Bodnar, citing a connection to former Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, given many of Tester’s former staff now work on Bodnar’s campaign.

A mystery PAC with GOP ties previously failed to boost its preferred candidates in Nebraska’s competitive 2nd District as well as Texas’ 35th District, where the group was trying to propel to victory a controversial Democrat who was widely condemned by her party for wanting to turn a local ICE detention center into a “prison for American Zionists.”