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What Does the Magic 8-Ball Say?
Primary Reflections
by Janet Singer & Kathy Goodman
It is human nature to look for patterns and to make predictions, to read the tea leaves and shake our Magic-8 Ball for answers and explanations. So it is natural, now that some of the major primaries have been held, to examine the results to find clues for what our political future in November will be. As the Magic 8-Ball might have said, “Reply hazy, try again.”
We do know a few things. On the Democratic side, we have fewer centrist white men running, but this may simply be the result of the fact that primary voters tend to be more progressive than general election voters. On the Republican side, some of the most extreme candidates went down in flames (Madison Cawthorn in NC and Jody Hice in GA), but some won (Doug Mastriano for PA Governor and domestic violence perpetrator Herschel Walker in GA). All the Republican nominees for Federal or statewide office in NC and PA are election deniers. Trump’s endorsement may have helped some candidates, but it didn’t prove decisive in every race (Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger survived Trump’s vengeance campaign in GA). Yet virtually all Republican candidates continue to spout the Big Lie–whether they believe it or not. It remains to be seen whether that will hurt these candidates in November, but the false stolen election narrative remains potent in the Republican party.
The primary results help narrow our focus on the work we need to do in advance of the November election.
For the Senate race in Pennsylvania, we will be working for John Fetterman, an unconventional candidate who is known for campaigning in shorts and promoting the legalization of marijuana. He will be running against either Oz or McCormick as they go through the recount process.
For Pennsylvania Governor, we have a strong candidate in current Attorney General Josh Shapiro. This race has moved from “toss-up” to “leans Dem” because his opponent, Mastriano, one of the most conservative candidates running, is a QAnon conspiracy promoter who was at the Capitol on January 6th and wants to ban abortion. The results of that race will reveal whether there are candidates for statewide office who are just too far gone for the general.
In North Carolina, Cheri Beasley, former Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court is our Senate candidate. Her opponent Ted Budd is a member of the Freedom Caucus who voted against certifying the election and is an evangelical gun shop owner.
Primary wins by a pair of controversial Republican Congressional candidates, Sandy Smith (who had to actually issue a statement saying she had never run anyone over with a car or hit anyone in the head with a frying pan) and Bo Hines (who filed to run in three different NC districts before deciding where he might win the primary), could help Democrats Don Davis (NC-01) and Wiley Nickel (NC-13) in these two competitive North Carolina seats. North Carolina has been on the redder side of purple, but definitely competitive if we can get out the vote.
In Georgia, we will be working hard to turn out voters for Stacey Abrams for Governor, Bee Nguyen for Secretary of State (a crucial office to preserve our democracy in 2024) and Raphael Warnock to help keep the US Senate blue. Georgia has become ground zero in the fight to preserve our democracy and will be an important swing state in 2024.
Even if the results from these primaries cannot help us predict November results, we know that what happens in 2022 will have an enormous effect on the 2024 election. We simply must keep election deniers out of office, particularly in the battleground states where the integrity of elections is most threatened.
We do not need to predict the future. We can start working now to create the future we want. Activism is a muscle. Let’s start flexing it.
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