Whoa, mama! August has so, so many juicy primaries on tap, which is why we've brought Daily Kos Elections Editor Jeff Singer back to discuss all the best races for this week's edition of The Downballot. There's the GOP battle for Arizona's governorship, where Trump's pick has been absolutely slain by her drag queen ex-friend; two pro-impeachment Republicans in Washington state trying to keep their political careers alive; a heavyweight rumble between two 30-year veteran incumbents in New York City; and lots, lots more.
Co-host David Nir recaps the back-to-back dropouts in Wisconsin's Democratic primary for Senate that have solidified Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes as the undisputed frontrunner. He also criticizes the handwringing over Democrats' meddling in a Michigan primary, saying it's not the Democratic Party's responsibility to make sure Republicans nominate sensible candidates—that's the GOP's job (if it even cares to). David Beard, meanwhile, previews the snap election just called in Italy, where the right looks set to perform well.
David Beard:
Hello and welcome. I'm David Beard, contributing editor for Daily Kos Elections.
David Nir:
And I'm David Nir, political director of Daily Kos. The Downballot is a weekly podcast dedicated to the many elections that take place below the presidency from senate to city council. You can subscribe to The Downballot wherever you listen to podcasts, and we would be particularly grateful if you would leave us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts.
David Beard:
We have got an extremely busy month of August coming up for politics. So, what do we have in today's episode?
David Nir:
We are going to be discussing some big developments in the Democratic primary for Wisconsin's extremely competitive Senate race this week, and a controversial move by the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] DCCC to meddle in a GOP primary for a key House seat in Michigan. A snap election has also been called in Italy, so we are going to preview what that looks like. But most importantly of all, we are bringing on Daily Kos Elections editor, Jeff Singer, once more to do a deep dive into the many, many races that we have on the docket in the month of August. There is a ton of ground to cover, so please stick with us for this terrific episode.
David Beard:
To start off our weekly hits, we've got the Wisconsin Senate Democratic primary, where some really surprising developments have taken place over the last week. So tell us what's going on there, Nir.
David Nir:
Yeah. So on Monday, one of the Democrats running to take on Ron Johnson, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, dropped out of the race and endorsed Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, who has led in most polling and in fundraising. And then on Wednesday, former Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, who had been heavily self-funding his own campaign, also dropped out and also endorsed Mandela Barnes. So obviously a really good week for Barnes, who to my mind is the most electrifying and interesting candidate running in that race. He would be the state's first black Senator, among other achievements. He doesn't have the primary completely sewn up. There is still one other notable candidate in the race, state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski. But again, she has generally trailed Barnes on most metrics. And the overall theme of this week is the state Democratic party consolidating behind Barnes. I think he'll probably be very tough to beat.
David Nir:
Honestly, the only frustrating thing is it would've been nice to have had the past year to all rally around Barnes. Obviously, Ron Johnson is one of the most-hated Republican senators among progressives in this country. But at the same time, I'm not worried about Barnes having the resources he'll need for this race. We have seen it time and time again; Democrats in competitive senate primaries in recent years have seen their fundraising explode after they win their primaries. Certainly, this was true of John Fetterman in Pennsylvania just a few months ago, and I think the same thing will happen with Barnes. People are really geared up to help give Johnson the boot, especially with this being one of the most important Senate races this year. Again, Barnes still has to actually win this primary, but I am feeling good about his chances now.
David Beard:
It's definitely interesting to see these two candidates drop out so close to the primary. It's certainly not unheard of, particularly in races where there's one candidate of sort of one ideological stripe or there's a distinction and the other candidates sort of need to consolidate to defeat that candidate. But that wasn't really the situation here. There wasn't like a clear progressive/moderate division. There just seemed to be some acceptance that Barnes was comfortably ahead and was probably going to win, and these two candidates decided to just sort of get out in front of that, which is not something you see very often, but hopefully will sort of help jumpstart Barnes ahead of the primary.
David Nir:
It's something that we certainly wish we might see more often. The amazing thing is that Lasry spent more than $12 million of his own money on the race. So, a little bit late to come to this realization, but certainly better late than never. We are going to move over to another Midwestern state to talk about a House race in the 3rd congressional district, which is based in the Grand Rapids area. And thanks to Michigan's new nonpartisan redistricting commission, it just became considerably bluer. This seat is held by Republican freshman Peter Meijer, who was one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump. Of course, that earned him a primary from a far-right candidate endorsed by Trump, named John Gibbs. And with just a little bit of time left before the primary, the DCCC went in and started spending money to boost Gibbs. They're doing this with the now very standard line that he's too conservative and handpicked by Trump. So, it's a very thinly veiled “attack.”
David Nir:
The difference here is that we have seen a huge outpouring of hand-wringing and pearl clutching in response to this. And I know that Democratic meddling in GOP primaries is often a divisive issue, but really, I think that a lot of the complaints are just total garbage here. It is not the Democratic Party's responsibility to make sure that the Republican Party runs sane, sensible pro-democracy candidates. That is the Republican Party's job. And to say that it is somehow hypocritical for Democrats to do everything in their power to try to flip this seat and ensure that Democrats retain control of the House of Representatives is absurd to me. Yes, Peter Meijer has very occasionally sided against the GOP and Donald Trump. But if he's reelected, he is going to vote for Kevin McCarthy or whoever Republicans put up for Speaker of the House. He is not going to vote for the Democratic candidate for Speaker. He won't even abstain. He is opposed to letting Democrats control the House, as well he should be. He is a Republican.
David Nir:
Yes, John Gibbs is crazier. He is further to the right. As an individual, he is certainly a more dangerous candidate. Should he win? But the Republican Party itself is an incredibly dangerous political party, and Peter Meijer winning renomination makes it more likely that he'll defeat the Democrat, Hillary Scholten, rather than John Gibbs. And if Peter Meijer wins, that makes it more likely that Republicans will pick up the House of Representatives, and that puts us much closer to a crisis of democracy. I am adamantly in favor of Democrats doing what they need to do and being aggressive to ensure that the party retains control of the house. Parties govern Congress, not people. Don't get hung up on who John Gibbs is. Get hung up on who the Republican Party is. They are scary and they must be defeated, and this is one of the tools that we have in our arsenal.
David Nir:
And let's also be clear; Republicans do the same thing. They just have fewer opportunities because Democrats put up far, far fewer unelectable candidates, but Republicans did try this in North Carolina in the Senate race in 2020. It didn't work for them, but they would certainly try it all the time if they could. So I am absolutely tired of this pearl clutching. I am tired of the concern trolling. I am tired of scolding reporters who claim that this undermines the Democrats' message about democracy. Regular voters are never going to hear about these kind of campaign tactics. It's only reporters who think that Democrats are somehow undermining their own message. But the fact of the matter is that, if Republicans do not want crazy candidates to represent them on the ballot, then they should run better candidates and help those candidates. That is their duty.
David Beard:
And I think if you want to question the effectiveness of playing in the other party’s primaries, that's one question I've often wondered how effective this actually is often, but that's totally separate from whether or not you should be able to do it. And then I also think that there were other options, like if the idea is that we need to protect Peter Meijer because he voted to impeach Trump, he could have run as independent. He could have said that he wasn't going to vote for Kevin McCarthy for a leader. He would only vote for somebody who denounced the Big Lie. Those were options that he could have taken if he wanted to separate himself from the Republican Party. But he didn't choose to do any of that. Did he take a courageous vote to impeach Donald Trump? Sure. Does that mean that we have to give him a free pass to be congressman for life until somehow the Republican Party has reformed himself? Of course not. So that's just the reality of politics. And if you don't like it, you're just going to have to deal with it.
David Beard:
Lastly, I want to take us across the Atlantic to Italy, where snap elections have been called after incumbent Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who led a government of national unity, resigned soon after the populist Five Star Movement, and then the right-wing parties League and Forza Italia, all subsequently left the national unity coalition.
David Beard:
So the elections are going to be on September 25th. And right now the right-wing coalition of the League, which you may know as its former name, which was the Northern League as it started out in Northern Italy and then rebranded itself as it became more popular throughout the country. But as the League, Forza Italia, and Brothers of Italy are currently the favorites to win the election and form the next government. If they do, Brothers of Italy leader, Giorgia Meloni is the favorite to become the first female prime minister of Italy.
David Beard:
The Brothers of Italy are polling neck and neck with the center-left Democratic Party for first place. But the other two right-wing parties are polling significantly stronger than any potential allies for the Democratic Party, which makes it hard for the center-left to form any sort of coalition to actually win the election and govern the country moving forward. Particularly the Five Star Movement, which got 32% back in 2018, is expected to fall to around 10%. Now, they're a populist anti-establishment movement that had really done very well in recent years, but it sort of collapsed among divisions within itself as these populist movements also often do. They sort of stood for a lot of different things that were anti-establishment, like some were pro the European Union and some were anti, and various issues like that. And then the longer they were sort of in power, the more that the infighting sort of caused the party to collapse. There's been a split in the party. And so it's sort of led to sort of a bit of a collapse for it, which really hurts the non-right-wing parties.
David Nir:
Well, that does it for our weekly hits. We have Daily Kos Elections Editor Jeff Singer joining us to do a preview of a very, very big month of primaries coming up in August. So please stay with us after the break.
David Nir:
We are about to flip the calendar on the month of August, and that means we have another huge ton of primaries in store for us. And so we're welcoming back Daily Kos Elections Editor Jeff Singer to preview all the big races with us. Jeff, thank you so much for coming on again.
Jeff Singer:
Thank you. It's great to be back.
David Nir:
Coming up this Tuesday, August 2nd, we have primaries in five states: Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington. A lot of very big states. In Kansas, in particular, we have already mentioned a race that's on the ballot that is not a primary, but rather the constitutional amendment that Republicans have put before voters to amend the state constitution to say that it does not include a right to an abortion. We have discussed that one a bunch. The one poll we've seen shows that race very close. But there are so many other primaries that we do want to hit. And you know what? Jeff, why don't you start off with the big statewide races in Arizona?
Jeff Singer:
Yes. So probably the biggest race to watch is the race for governor, where Republican incumbent, Doug Ducey, has termed out. And originally it looks like there'd be this big crowded Republican primary to succeed him, but the field has narrowed dramatically. And it's turned into yet another proxy battle between Donald Trump and a governor he once loved and now hates. Trump's candidate here is Kari Lake. She's a former TV news anchor who has fallen very, very, very deep in the far-right conspiracy rabbit hole. Ducey, meanwhile, is backing Karrin Taylor Robson, who's a member of the Arizona Board of Regents, which governs higher education. Robson is very wealthy. She's been using her money to outspend Lake, but most polls still have Lake up by varying margins.
Jeff Singer:
Even though Lake is in the lead, or maybe because she's in the lead, she's already laying the groundwork to cry foul for a loss. She said, "We're already detecting some stealing going on." And this is a Republican primary she's talking about. But Lake's opponents will remind everyone that she was an Obama and Hillary Clinton supporter just a few years ago. And to make things even more complicated, a prominent Phoenix drag queen named Richard Stevens recently responded when Lake targeted drag performers as "grooming and child abuse." He posted images of the two together during their now-severed friendship, and revealed he performed for Lake in drag multiple times. Not the image most far-right candidates have. That has made it into an ad starring a different drag queen, who's called Lake a phony. So this is quite the race we have here.
David Nir:
And what's going on on the Democratic side, who is most likely to take on the GOP nominee?
Jeff Singer:
The Democratic side has become a duel between Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who's one of the few Democratics who hold statewide office, and the former mayor of Nogales, Marco Lopez. There have been far fewer polls here. But Hobbs has led in what we've seen. And she's enjoyed this huge financial edge. So it would be a surprise if she's not the Democratic nominee.
David Nir:
So we also of course have to talk about the senate race. This is a key target that Republicans are hoping to flip just two years after Democrat, Mark Kelly flipped this seat from the GOP in a special election in 2020. So what's the deal here?
Jeff Singer:
There are five Republicans competing here. The front runner is Blake Masters, who is the protégé of Republican mega donor, Peter Thiel. Trump's also for Masters. It looks like Masters' main opponent is wealthy businessman Jim Lamon, who's been spending plenty of his own money on ads, portraying Masters as a California transplant who isn't a real conservative. One Lamon ad even showed Masters call the Unabomber "a subversive thinker that's underrated," which Masters himself admitted "probably isn't the best thing to say during a campaign."
Jeff Singer:
There are three other candidates here. One of them is Attorney General Mark Brnovich, but he's struggled with fundraising. Trump hates him because he didn't do enough to advance the Big Lie. He's been in third in most of the numbers we've seen. So it really looks like the question will be whether Masters can keep his lead against Lamon.
David Beard:
So let's move to Missouri, a race that we talked about a little bit last week, where Senator Roy Blunt is retiring. And there's a number of Republicans running in that primary. Obviously, most notably Eric Greitens, who's attempting a comeback. So tell us about that race.
Jeff Singer:
So Greitens looked like the front-runner at the beginning, mostly because of name recognition, even though he resigned in 2018 because of multiple scandals. He has several opponents, but the two main ones look like Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler. Hartzler has endorsement from Missouri's other senator, Josh Hawley, who the internet has had some fun with over the last week or so. But Trump's not so keen on the Congresswoman. He recently said, "She sought my endorsement, I told her no." Which as far as Trump goes, that's actually pretty nice, but not what she wanted. Greitens meanwhile has been on the receiving end of a very well financed super PAC, that's one ad's quoting testimony from his ex-wife alleging that he abused one of their sons and Schmidt has... He's taken his share of attack ads from Greitens's and Hertzler, but nothing to the same degree and some recent polls show him ahead.
David Beard:
Moving up to Michigan, we've got the governor's race where a number of Republicans are competing to take on democratic incumbent, Gretchen Whitmer, so what's the state of play there?
Jeff Singer:
If you asked me about this race in May, I would've given you a very different answer than I'm giving now, because that month two major candidates, former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, and wealthy businessman Perry Johnson were thrown off their Republican primary ballot after too many of their signatures ruled fraudulent. Craig, who was the front runner until then, is running a write-in campaign, but he struggled to get traction. So now candidates who were the underdogs are suddenly getting some second life.
Jeff Singer:
There are five of them. The front runner now looks like Tudor Dixon, who's a conservative radio host. She is the backing of some very influential Republicans, including the DeVos family, including Betsy DeVos. Dixon herself has been running quite far to the right. She says she wants to outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. Her main opponent looks like wealthy businessman Kevin Rinke. He's been running ads suggesting that because DeVos resigned from Trump's cabinet riot for January 6th, Dixon is being controlled by never-Trumpers. There are a few other candidates, real estate agent Ryan Kelley, who made the news last month when he was arrested for his alleged role in the January 6th riot. Most polls have shown Dixon ahead by varying margins. Rinke looks like her main opponent.
David Beard:
And briefly, when news about Kelley came out, it seemed to briefly actually give him a boost in the Republican primary. But fortunately that is faded. So hopefully people getting arrested does not help them in winning elections, but we'll have to see. Then finally in Washington where they have a top two primary, so all of the candidates run on one primary ballot. And like in California, the top two candidates advance to the general election; we've got two congressional races we want to talk about, so tell us about those.
Jeff Singer:
So these are the races in two seats that Trump carried. Washington's 3rddistrict in the southern part of the state, and the 4th, just to the east. It has two Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, each running for reelection. Jaime Herrera Beutler in the 3rd, and Dan Newhouse in the 4th, against candidates Trump is endorsing. Herrera Beutler's main opponent is Army veteran Joe Kent, who has Trump's endorsement. Kent has ties to far-right figures, and he's defended Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but this is a top two primary, so all sorts of weird shenanigans happen. One of them is that an outside group has started airing ads to promote a third Republican, evangelical author Heidi St. John, who really hadn't been getting much attention beforehand. Kent said that this was an effort to try to split the far-right vote and help Herre Butler advance to the general election.
Jeff Singer:
And he probably is right about this. Kent is trying his own maneuvers though. He sent mailers out to Democrats, arguing that one of the Democratic candidates, auto repair shop owner, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, is the only pro-choice candidate, which seems to be his effort to try to get Democrats to vote for her instead of Herrera Beutler, and thus keep Herrera Beutler out of the general election, so this is a volatile one. Lots of maneuvers and counter maneuvers are happening. This one could get messy.
Jeff Singer:
Similar situation in the Fourth District, where Newhouse's main opponent is Loren Culp, who's a former small town police chief, and he was the 2020 nominee for governor. Culp lost that last contest to Democratic incumbent Jay Inslee by a wide 57 to 43 margin, but Culp refused to concede that obvious loss, which helps explain why Trump's for him. But Culp has struggled with fundraising. He's got some little outside support beyond the Trump endorsement. There are also five other Republicans and just one Democrat, so even though Trump carried the seat by a very wide margin, it's quite possible that, that one Democrat will advance and the fight is just over which Republican will join them.
David Nir:
Moving on later that same week, believe it or not. We have the Tennessee Primaries. We are not going to dive into any of those races right now, though keep an eye on the open, and heavily gerrymandered, 5th District. The weird thing you'll notice, though, is that Tennessee's primary is on a Thursday. This always happens, and every two years everyone asks, "Why is Tennessee's primary on a Thursday?" And the answer that researchers have come up with is absolutely nobody knows. So moving on to the following week, August 9th, we have four more states, Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The top of the list here for sure is Wisconsin: perennial swing state, always home to close elections. And here we have huge races for Senate and Governor. At the top of the show, we discussed the developments in the Senate race. So Singer, why don't you tell us about what's happening in the race to take on Democratic Governor, Tony Evers. What's going on the Republican side?
Jeff Singer:
So Evers in 2018, narrowly ousted Scott Walker. Republicans want that seat back very badly. Until April, the front runner was Walker's former Lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, but things got very complicated then when seemingly out of nowhere, wealthy businessman Tim Michels, who lost a 2004 Senate race to Russ Feingold, and really hadn't been seen since suddenly got in, started spending his own money heavily on ads to reintroduce himself, and then the polls showed him in a very close race with Kleefisch. Trump then endorsed Michels, and what's very interesting is just over the last few days, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel dived as far into Trump's psyche, as you'd really like to go.
Jeff Singer:
And what the paper said was that Trump had told Michels how in 2019 Kleefisch's daughter had gone to her high school prom with the son of state Supreme Court justice, Brian Hagedorn, who is a conservative who's ruled against Trump on some attempts to steal the election. That did not sit well with Trump, so even though these are the kids of these two people, not either of them themselves. The two kids went to prom. That's enough to get Trump to say, "Ooh, I don't like that." It's Trump, so we'll never know why he does what he does, but it's possible when the story of this race is written, we'll say that if that prom date hadn't happened, Trump would've stayed out of it.
David Nir:
I mean, that story is both totally disgusting, totally hilarious, and totally believable when it comes to Donald Trump. So we're going to keep marching right along. The following week, August 16th, we have two more states, Alaska and Wyoming. Now, Alaska definitely requires a bit of extra background here because they radically overhauled their primary system. So why don't you tell us about the system they're using now and what's going on in the race for the seat that was once held by the late Don Young, the former Dean of the House.
Jeff Singer:
In 2020, Alaska voters narrowly voted to just do away with the primary system altogether. No more Democratic or Republican primaries, everyone runs on one ballot, and the four candidates with the most votes, the four, they advance to a general election. And in the general election, there's an instant runoff or rank choice ballot. So two big changes to the system.
Jeff Singer:
Everyone expected that the first time the system would get a workout would be for the August primaries, but everything changed when Don Young died suddenly. They had their top four primary in June. Four candidates advanced. One very, very well known: Sarah Palin. Another with a very familiar name, Nick Begich III. He's the rare Republican of what's been a very prominent Alaska Democratic family. Another, Al Gross, who's an independent. He was the Democratic nominee for Senate in 2020, and the fourth is Democratic former State Representative, Mary Peltola, but this four-way matchup isn't happening, because Gross, just after the primary, dropped out and endorsed Peltola. So because of when Gross made his departure, it was too late to substitute him on the ballot, so now there are three candidates instead of four facing off. So on August 16, three candidates, Palin, Begich, and Peltola will run against one another with a rank choice ballot. But at that same time, there will also be a different top four primary for the next term in Congress. So at the same time, if they're facing off, they'll be going up against over two dozen other candidates. And the four candidates who get the most votes will be facing off again in November for a regular two-year term.
Jeff Singer:
So quite a lot, quite complicated. Because Palin, Begich and Peltola are facing off in the specials, it's a pretty good bet all three of them are going to advance to November for the regular term. The question is who's going to be number four. That might be Tara Sweeney. She's a former Trump administration official who came in a close fifth in June. But things can get complicated here.
David Nir:
Also on that same day, we have Wyoming's primary, which has been watched with intense closeness. Of course, this is Congresswoman Liz Cheney in her fight for survival. Does she have any chance?
Jeff Singer:
If you believe the polls, no. It's looking very bad for her. Cheney knew she was taking a huge risk when she voted to impeach Trump, and kept trashing him afterwards, and joined the January 6th committee. That was a huge, huge risk in one of the most Republican states in the country. Cheney's hoping that she can encourage Democrats to cross over and vote for her in the Republican primary against Trump's candidate. But certainly, Harriet Hageman, who ran for governor in 2018, but the polls show Cheney far behind. If she wins, she's earned an upset for the ages.
David Beard:
And then finally on August 23rd, we have two more primaries, but they're pretty big ones. We've got Florida. And importantly, we've got the New York congressional races, which were delayed from New York's regular primary due to redistricting fallout from the New York courts. And so we've got a couple of really important congressional races taking place.
David Beard:
Then let's start with New York's 12th district where we've got two Democratic incumbents facing off.
Jeff Singer:
It's not unusual in a redistricting year to see two incumbents running against each other in a primary. We've seen that happen a few times this cycle already. But what's rare is that they're both 30-year incumbents, Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler. I don't think we've ever seen an incumbent versus incumbent race with two people who have so much seniority between them.
Jeff Singer:
This remains a safely Democratic district, but it's been transformed. It combines Manhattan's Upper East and Upper West Sides for the first time in over a century. Maloney represents about 60% of the seat. Nadler represents most of the remaining 40%. But, there's another complication. Attorney Suraj Patel, who lost to Maloney by a close 43 of 39 margin in 2020, is also running. There aren't many policy differences between the three candidates, but they're emphasizing different things.
Jeff Singer:
Maloney's talking about how important it's to keep a woman in office, especially in this day and age. She ran an ad saying, "You cannot send a man to do a woman's job." Nadler has been highlighting that he's the only remaining Jewish member of New York's delegation. Patel, who would be the first Indian American to represent New York in Congress, has also been positioning himself as an alternative between the two. We don't have any recent polls to go off of, so this could be anyone's race.
David Beard:
And then we have a special election in New York's 19th district. What's happening there?
Jeff Singer:
This seat in the Hudson Valley is open because representative Antonio Delgado, a Democrat, was picked to become Lieutenant Governor by Kathy Hochul, after her first choice was arrested in a campaign finance scandal. The fact that Delgado resigned from his swing district to become Lieutenant Governor of New York, which is not usually a very powerful position, surprised a lot of people. But it's off a special election.
Jeff Singer:
And because it's for the final months of Delgado's term, it's going to happen using the map that's been in place since 2012, instead of the new one. This is New York's 19th, which has been a swing district for a long time. Biden won it by a narrow 50 to 48 margin, four years after Trump won it 51 to 44, so quite competitive here.
Jeff Singer:
The Republicans nominated Dutchess County Executive Mark Molinaro, who was running against Delgado before he resigned. Molinaro was the party's 2018 nominee for governor against Andrew Cuomo. He badly lost statewide by a 60 to 36 margin. But he won this district 53 to 42. So quite a huge difference. Some of that was likely to this area having problems with Andrew Cuomo, but Molinaro leads a large county. He's a well-known guy, and he's had a huge head start running here.
Jeff Singer:
The Democrats are feeling a different County Executive, Ulster County's Pat Ryan, who ran against Delgado in the 2018 primary before he was elected county wide. This is a swing district; it can be very hard for Democrats to hold in a midterm. That's not looking too great. And even Ryan's poll recently showed Molinaro ahead by a few points. Ryan though, he's hoping that by focusing on abortion rights, he can pull ahead.
Jeff Singer:
To add to the complications, the two candidates are going to be running again in November, but under the new map in separate districts. Ryan's going to be running for the new 18th district while Molinaro is going to be running for the new 19th. So there's a chance that no matter how things go in August, the two are going to be serving together in January.
David Nir:
There are, of course, a ton of other races throughout the month of August. And if you want to stay on top of all of them, you have to sign up for our daily newsletter. It's free. It's called The Morning Digest. Go to dailykos.com/morningdigest. And before each big primary week, Jeff Singer puts together the most fantastic preview you could possibly imagine of every race, not just the ones that we've had time to mention on this podcast. Jeff, thank you once again for joining us and for illuminating all of these many, many races and candidates for us and all of our listeners.
Jeff Singer:
Thank you. It was great to be here.
David Beard:
That's all from us this week. Thanks to you Jeff Singer for joining us. The Downballot comes out everywhere. You listen to podcasts every Thursday. You can reach us by email at thedownballot@dailycoast.com. And if you haven't already, please like and subscribe to The Downballot and consider leaving us a five star rating and review. Thanks to our producer, Cara Zelaya and editor, Tim Einenkel. We'll be back next week with a new episode.