In
several previous articles I have highlighted Theodore White's landmark Making
of the President series in regards to show how both political parties have,
in many ways, not changed in their philosophies during the five Presidential
campaigns he covered as an observer. This is true no matter which side of the
aisle you're on and how you view the opposition as being 'worse then you ever
remember it'.
In
my most recent entry in regard to what White referred to as 'The Movement'
– which was mostly fueled by outrage
over the Vietnam War but still holds many doctrines true half a century later –
he writes in his early chapters how by 1970 The Movement took over several
state Democratic conventions and many 'Peace candidates' won at gubernatorial
and Congressional level. However he adds that many of them would lose districts
and states that had been held by Democrats for years and those who won their
primaries, such as Bella Abzug and Ronald Dellums, would overwhelmingly win
their primaries but in their first election dramatically underperform the
previous Democratic incumbents in the previous general election.
So
as a student of history I asked the obvious question: is there a similar
parallel with those among the Justice Democrats who have managed to
successfully primary Democratic incumbents and then fail to perform as well in
the general election that immediately followed.
To
this point in the history of this updated version of 'The Movement', there have
been relatively few case studies to look at. In the first four election cycles
of their existence to date four members members of 'The Squad' have
successfully primaried Democratic incumbents and then went on to win the
general. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in 2018, when she successfully primaried Joe Cowley in the New York 14th,
Jamaal Bowman in 2020 when he successfully primaried Eliot Engel in the New
York sixteenth and Cori Bush who would successfully primary Lacy Clay in 2020
in the Missouri 1st and Marie Newman that same year who successfully
primaried Dan Lapinski in the Illinois 3rd.
So
far this cycle two incumbent Democrats have also been primaried but since the
general has not happened yet I shall omit them. However in one case I'm going
to go in depth because it has a direct parallel to White's book.
What
I shall do very briefly is provide a record of how in each seat the previous
incumbent did in their last election prior to be defeated in their primary and
contrast it with the margin each Justice Democrat in their first general
election. And because all but Ocasio-Cortez are no longer in Congress, I'll
explain how each one lost their seats in a subsequent election and how
their opponents did in the one that followed.
Joe
Cowley, 2016 general election results: 70.13 percent over Republican's 13.6
percent
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: 2018 general
election results – 78.17 Percent to Republican Candidate's 14 percent
Until
fairly recently this was the most famous success the Justice Democrats had with
AOC successfully primarying a man who was not only one of the most progressive
members of the House but also very highly placed in Congressional Leadership.
Many believed Cowley had a chance to become Speaker when Pelosi retired.
And
indeed AOC is very much the exception that would seem to prove the rule: she
did far better in the general election in 2018 than Cowley did two years
earlier. Furthermore one can't rule out the possibility she could have improved
her margin had Cowley not continued to run on the Working Families Party and
taken 9 percent of the vote away from AOC.
Dan
Lapinski, 2018 general election results 73 percent – 25 percent for Republican
Marie
Newman, 2020 election results – 56.37 percent to 43 percent for Republican Mike
Friclione
Here
we have to go into more detail. Dan Lapinski was one of the members of the
surviving members of the Blue Dog
Democrats which by now referred to a Democrat who had won in a fairly
conservative district. He'd held that seat since 2004.
In
2018 Marie Newman made an attempt to primary him, running to Lapinski's left.
Many more conventional Democrats endorsed her including Kristen Gillibrand and
Luis Guiterrez and Jan Schavosky of Illinois. Despite all that Lapinski
defeated her narrowly with 51.2 percent of the vote to her 48.8 percent and
then went on to win a landslide
Two
years later she ran again, this time endorsed by many more progressives among
them AOC and the new Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Many progressive women's
groups endorsed her even further because candidates they'd endorsed in Texas
has lost primary races. She narrowly managed to defeat Lipinski by a little
more than 2.5 percent of the vote. But her margin over Republican Mike
Friclione was far smaller than Lapinski in his win.
And
the following year the Illinois legislature passed a new congressional map that
radically changed her district. She therefore chose to switch districts and
challenge Democrat Sean Casten in the redrawn 6th. In that district
41 percent of the voters were from Newman's former district and 23 percent were
from Casten's former district . Despite that Newman would lost to Casten in a
landslide, receiving just 29 percent of the vote to Casten's nearly 68 percent.
For the record Casten's district is more conservative and he managed to win by
9 percent of the vote over his Republican opponent.
Eliot
Engel, 2018 general Election results -
Unopposed
Jamaal
Bowman: 2020 general election results -84.17 percent
I've
discussed Bowman's electoral history several times but its worth going into
detail from this perspective.
Engel
was so popular in his district that in his previous three elections he had run
unopposed in the general. When Bowman managed to successfully primary him in
2020 it was basically the same story, although a Conservative nominee did run
and got 16 percent of the vote. (The Conservative Party has existed in New York
since the late 1960s and is sometimes separate from the Republican Party.)
After
the 2020 election New York drew a new set of Congressional maps, which now
included Southern Westchester County and the Northern Bronx. Bowman was
challenged by Westchester County legislator Vedat Gashi and Catherine Parker.
Bowman survived his primary and won in the general – but with only 64 percent
of the vote versus his Republican challenger Miriam Flisser.
In
2024 Bowman was successfully primaried by George Latimer. He would run against
Flisser and win with 71 percent of the vote to her 28 percent.
Based
on Bowman's complete electoral history it seems safe to argue he was
underperforming in his district compared to his predecessor and successor.
Lacy
Clay, 2018 General Election Results: 75 percent to Republican 19percent
Cori
Bush, 2020 General Election Results -78.78 percent to Republican 19 percent
Bush's
history is by far most complicated. Like Marie Newman in 2018 she attempted to
primary a Democratic incumbent Lacy Clay. Clay defeated her easily by nearly a
twenty point margin and then went on to destroy his opponent in the general.
Two
years later Bush managed to successfully primary Clay with much of the same
progressive organization that had backed Newman and won by a somewhat larger
margin in the General then Clay's last win.
Two
years later Bush was primaried by Steve Roberts, who was endorsed by Clay. Bush
trounced Roberts in the primary and won in the general but by a somewhat
smaller margin over Republican Andrew Jones receiving 73 percent to Jones 24 percent.
During
the last election cycle Bush was primaried by Wesley Bell. Bell won over Andrew
Jones by 58 percent, a far larger margin that Bush's over that same candidate
two years previous.
Of
course the saga of Cori Bush is not over. In less than a month she will attempt
to primary Bell and try to regain her seat.
Given
the complete electoral history of these four candidates it would seem to give
credence to the argument that the Justice Democrats do have a history of
underperforming in the general election compared to their predecessors – and in
some cases, their successors.
And
we are going to get more evidence to that fact one way or another no matter how
the remaining primaries turn out. Because two Justice Democrats this cycle have
managed to successfully primary Democratic incumbents – and one in particular
has historical evidence of things to come.
In
1970 Bryon G. Rogers, who had represented the Colorado 1st since
1950 was successfully primaried by Craig S. Barnes, a peace candidate. In that
race he was defeated by his Republican opponent Mike McKevitt, largely because
Rogers's more conservative supporters would throw their support to him in the
general election. (The following year he was defeating for reelection by
liberal Democrat Pat Schroeder.)
Now
56 years later in that very same district Melat Kiros, one of the Justice
Democrats, managed to successfully primary 15 term incumbent Diana DeGette.
Eight
years earlier in their first cycle Saira Rao attempted to do so but only
received 31.75 percent of the vote. Kiros succeed where Rao failed – but it
remains to be seen just how well she will do in the general. DeGette despite
flagging support from the left in her district still managed to win by nearly
55 percent of her Republican opponent in 2024.
And
it is not as those Kiros has been immune to the kind of demagogic statements of
others in the Squad, past and present, all of which could be a problem in a
district that basically comprises much of Denver. While it is highly unlikely
in this age of hyper-partisanship that DeGette supporters will cross party
lines to vote Republican, while running in the primary Kiros made several
statement that her opponent will easily be able to use as negative ads. The
most notorious was an interview she gave on the eve of the primary in which a
Colorado broadcaster asked to comment whether last year's attack in Boulder – a
firebombing that led to the deaths of several Jews – was a hate crime. Rather
than give a direct answer Kiros gave the kind of deflection I've come to
associate more with Republicans in recent years, saying there was no way to
know what was in the mind of the attacker. Republicans have made meals of
Democratic candidates for decades by running TV ads playing their comments out
of context. It will take a lot of work for Kiros to walk this comment back in
the general election, though I'd still be stunned if she lost.
In
his chapter on The Movement White referred to the Liberal Doctrine as having
three major core tenets: war is always immoral, diversity can never be wrong
and money will solve every social problem. He also memorably said that to candidates
who ran as part of this movement: "What was morally right, they felt, must
be politically sound." George McGovern would win the Democratic nomination
for President in 1972 as a candidate who would advocate for all of these tenets
with that moral certainty – and the result was by far the biggest electoral defeat
for a Democrat at the Presidential level in electoral history.
Nearly
half a century later Bernie Sanders and his acolytes have run on a platform
that, for all of the 21st century changes to it, essentially is
little more than a much more radical version of everything The Movement stood
for, both in terms of the core tenets of the Justice Democrats platform, all of
which essentially argue for one of these three beliefs and their decisions that
all of these things are morally right. And tellingly even after nearly four
decades of a Republican Party that has become more conservative with each new
President and Congressional Leadership, the electorate as a whole has no more
appetite for it then they had for the Movement in the 1970s. It is essentially
only popular with the same people it was half a century ago: college students
and young, rich, mostly white people. And while the candidates may make up a
more diverse membership then half a century ago, in terms of race and gender,
those who have voted for them are, at their core, no different than those who
campaigned for McGovern. The multi-racial coalition that has been the center of
the Democrats ever since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by and large, has never
supported these candidates with the same fervor of their predecessors: they
certainly haven't come out in numbers to put them into office in the last four
election cycles and much of this one.
Many
on the left have spent much of the last half century focusing not on making
their policies more acceptable to the masses but rewriting history to put forth
a narrative to the faithful, to
essentially turn Liberal Theology into a kind of Progressive Fundamentalism. In
their narrative the idea of liberalism are still immensely popular with the
masses, regardless of the results of any election to the contrary. It is the
system that has failed, the institutions that are corrupt, the political
parties that have sold out, the masses have been brainwashed by the conservatives.
It is as impervious to reason that any election denier or MAGA candidate in the
last decade: our approach is correct, it's the electorate that is either
too stupid or too unenlightened to see the truth.
In
this relating of the failures of the
Justice Democrats that I've illustrated in previous articles – their inability
to win statewide office, to flip Republican districts at any level, increasing
diminishing returns in recruiting candidates to run each cycle and their overall
failure to achieve more than a few wins in the House - are cast aside. They don't see the nearly 100
elections they've lost in the last eight years as a sign that the masses don't
want what they're selling; they see the seats they've won as a sign that
victory is inevitable and that their movement will prevail. The danger is not
that it has any chance of succeeding but that the Democratic Party as a whole
will choose to buy what the Justice Democrats are arguing and the media's
narrative, fed entirely by the Justice Democrats themselves, is buttressing.
This
narrative falls apart when one gives more than a surface look at the Justice
Democrats actual electoral history. Their underperforming their predecessors and
successors in that history is another critical part in deconstructing the façade
they've carefully built. Their core belief is no different then the Movement: what
is morally right is politically sound. That was not true in the 1970s and its
no more true today and it is imperative that they be called on this as often as
possible for the sake of the Democratic Party's future.
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