By Jim Ellis — Friday, June 14, 2024
House
Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride (D-Wilmington)
All of Delaware’s key offices are open. Gov. Carney is term limited but running for the open Wilmington mayor’s position. Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long (D) has declared for governor, leaving her position open. Rep. Blunt Rochester is running for retiring US Sen. Tom Carper’s seat, and the situation pertaining to the open at-large House seat was described above.
MI-10: Court Rejects Candidate’s Lawsuit — The Michigan state Court of Appeals rejected former congressional candidate and Wayne State University Board of Governors member Anil Kumar’s (D) lawsuit to reverse the State Board of Canvassers’ decision to disqualify him from the 10th District congressional race. The Board ruled that he did not submit 1,000 legal petition signatures, which is a requirement under Michigan election law. Kumar was a factor in the race after putting $1 million of his own money into his campaign account.
Rep. John James (R-Farmington Hills) won the seat in 2022 by less than a percentage point. His 2022 opponent, former Macomb County prosecutor and judge Carl Marlinga, is running again this year as are three other qualified Democrats. Expect Marlinga again to win the primary. The general election will once again be competitive in a 10th CD that the FiveThirtyEight data organization rates as R+6.
NY-16: New Poll Finds Rep. Bowman Again Trailing — A just-released Emerson College poll (June 6-8; 425 likely NY-16 Democratic primary voters; multiple sampling techniques) sees Westchester County Executive George Latimer continuing to lead two-term Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-Yonkers) by a rather wide margin, 48-31 percent. Latimer also has the advantage in campaign fundraising.
The bad news for Rep. Bowman continues. Former Secretary of State and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton (D) also announced her formal endorsement of Latimer. Ironically, it was Bowman himself who challenged and defeated a Democratic incumbent in 2020, then-Rep. Eliot Engel. Not surprisingly, Engel has also endorsed County Executive Latimer.
While incumbents have had a perfect year so far in renomination campaigns, Bowman, a member of the controversial Democratic Socialist “Squad,” may be the most vulnerable incumbent standing before a primary electorate. The New York primary is scheduled for June 25.
States
Florida: Ex-Congressman to Run for State Senate — Earlier in the week former Sunshine State Congressman Alan Grayson (D) announced that he was ending his campaign for the US Senate well before the state’s Aug. 20 primary, yet he is not stepping away from elective politics. Almost immediately after leaving the federal campaign, he announced his entry into an open Democratic primary for a central Florida state Senate seat.
Grayson was originally elected to the 8th District House seat in 2008 but defeated for re-election in 2010. He then moved into one of Florida’s new seats gained in reapportionment and was re-elected to the House two years later from the 9th CD. He then ran for Senate in 2016 but lost the Democratic primary. He returned in 2018 with a bid to reclaim his 9th District House seat, but fell to the new incumbent, Rep. Darren Soto (D-Kissimmee) by a 2:1 margin. It remains to be seen if he can now win election to the Florida Senate.
