Meanwhile, in House primaries across the country, Republicans largely chose to keep their incumbents, rejecting the challenges of candidates trying to align more closely with former President Donald Trump.
The largest state to vote on Tuesday was California. But the final results of many reduced races will not be known for days or weeks, because ballots by mail, as most votes are cast in the state, with postmark on election day will be counted whenever they arrive. on election day. at the end of the week, and voters who have signature matching issues have time to “cure” those issues.
Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, New Jersey and South Dakota also held primaries on Tuesday.
Here are six things to take away from the day’s races:
The loss of Boudin is a mark against the progressive movement of the prosecutor
The removal of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin may not have radical national implications (local issues and feelings among voters differ from city to city), but the loss is a clear mark against the move. progressive prosecutor that Boudin’s victory in 2019 helped drive.
And it could serve as a warning to national Democrats that the way liberal bulwark voters feel about their cities, especially the rise in homelessness, is far more instructive about how they will vote than actual crime rates and data. .
Boudin’s victory three years ago, amid concerns over police misconduct, criminal justice reform and mass imprisonment, marked a turning point for the movement to choose more progressive prosecutors to fill the most important positions. But his tenure was defined by the coronavirus pandemic and an overwhelming feeling among San Francisco residents that crime, especially the crime against property, was not a priority for the district attorney and was out of control.
Voters on Tuesday pronounced a quick trial of Boudin, indicating that his laxer approach to certain types of crimes was unacceptable.
Still, the loss is far from over because liberal cities choose progressive prosecutors. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner won re-election and Alvin Bragg, a former federal and state attorney in New York, became Manhattan District Attorney in 2021, both victories for the progressive tax movement.
Republican headlines mostly survive the challenges from the right
House Republicans who had faced primaries from the right, largely rivals who claimed the incumbents did not support Trump enough, won or were positioned to survive Tuesday’s contests.
South Dakota MP Dusty Johnson defended a challenge from State Representative Taffy Howard, who had criticized his vote to certify the 2020 election and had accepted Trump’s lies about election fraud.
New Jersey MP Chris Smith, a moderate Republican who voted in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, resisted a group of challengers that included Conservative radio presenter Mike Crispi, who had the support of allies. of Trump as Roger Stone and Rudy Giuliani.
In the California open primaries, in which the top two, regardless of party, run in the November general election, Representatives David Valadao and Young Kim, two hard-won Republicans, were both in good standing. moving forward after the challenges of Trump loyalists. , although there are still more votes to count.
A race to see is a primary in the House in Montana. Ryan Zinke, a former MP who resigned over a scandal-ridden term as Trump’s secretary of the interior and was facing questions about his residence, led former state senator Al Olszewski closely as they recounted. the ballots Wednesday morning.
A Mississippi Republican faces an intra-party revolt
Deputy Steven Palazzo did not get the majority he needed to avoid a second round of primaries for his seat on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
It is unclear who Palazzo will face on June 28, with Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell narrowly leading Hancock County businessman Clay Wagner to second place from early Wednesday, but if Tuesday’s vote were a referendum on the incumbent, Palazzo could be serious. danger.
Her main vulnerability stemmed from a harmful ethical report that she found likely misused campaign and congressional funds, sent staff on personal assignments, and attempted to use her office to help her brother return. to enlist in the Navy.
Then there was his decision to join a lawsuit against the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, with the aim of ending the vote by delegation in Congress. The problem: Palazzo made good use of the practice later, leading to accusations of hypocrisy by his rivals.
The catcher arrived late for the campaign, when he begged outside a candidate forum, citing “meetings dealing with national security,” an excuse rather undermined by his online posting of pictures of a meal with your child at a local restaurant during the event.
The race for mayor of Los Angeles is advancing in the second round
The race to be the next mayor of Los Angeles will not be decided until November, as neither businessman Rick Caruso nor MP Karen Bass will be able to win more than 50% of the vote Tuesday night.
Caruso and Bass talked about the need to address homelessness and crime, but addressed the issues with very different solutions and styles, distinctions that will likely define their campaigns until November.
Caruso, a real estate developer who has worked for years to build private power in Los Angeles, argued that the city was in a “state of emergency,” citing “a rampant homeless situation” and “people living.” with fear for their safety “. Caruso vowed to increase the size of the Los Angeles police department, against the effort to “fund the police.”
Bass, a longtime congresswoman and former member of the California State Assembly, was more progressive, highlighting her ties to the city and her years of service representing it.
But Caruso’s strong performance on Tuesday will provide a warning to more traditional Democrats running for office, especially if most of that time was spent in Congress, a body that is currently held in low esteem by both Democrats and Republicans.
The Democratic establishment governs New Jersey. Again.
It was a terrible night for progressive outsiders in the Democratic primary in New Jersey, where the party’s heavyweights – and the machinery that secures its influence – came out with a series of resounding victories.
In the 10th District of Congress, Rep. Donald Payne Jr. easily defeated left-wing rival Imani Oakley, a former legislative director of New Jersey working families. Oakley had raised money in a better-than-expected clip, but Payne benefited from reinforcements from the establishment’s allies, a support Oakley never received from progressives.
Payne’s low profile on Capitol Hill, which occupied a seat that took over from his father a decade ago, could have made the North Jersey district attractive to progressive groups if it had shown signs of weakness on Tuesday. But its resounding reputation could also serve to prevent another better-organized challenge in two years.
It was an equally sad story for progressives in the upcoming 8th Congressional District, where Robert Menendez Jr., son of New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, crushed rivals David Ocampo Grajales and Ane Roseborough-Eberhard.
Menendez Jr., who has never held office, is on his way to replacing retired MP Albio Sires, who, along with a litany of local power agents, endorsed young Menendez from the outset, effectively ruling out any possibility of ‘a competitive race.
A rising star fades in Iowa
In 2018, Abby Finkenauer rode the blue wave across the country to become a member of Congress and a rising star in the Iowa Democratic Party.
Four years and two defeats later, Finkenauer is almost gone.
The former congressman lost on Tuesday to Mike Franken in the Democratic primary in the Senate, establishing a confrontation between retired Admiral of the Navy and Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, the longtime deputy running for his eighth term. But the story of the Democratic primary is like a candidate seen as a shoot-in for the nomination missed her chance.
Democrats have long been skeptical that if Grassley shows up, Finkenauer or any Iowa Democrat would be able to oust him. But when he announced last year, Finkenauer was seen as the obvious favorite: a former congressman with deep ties to President Joe Biden who won in a Republican-leaning district in 2018 but lost a tight two-run career years later.
Then came the setbacks of the campaign, especially when the Finkenauer campaign reduced the number of signatures needed to gain access to the primary vote too much, opening the door to a challenge to its emergence. The Democrat only qualified after the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in April that she could appear, overturning a lower court decision.
Finkenauer’s loss is another example of how quickly someone who is on the rise in a match can fall.