Tuesday’s Surprising Election Results Just Changed Everything.

Image courtesy of Five Thirty Eight

Yesterday’s primary elections, which occurred in two swing states, two solid red states, and one very blue state, delivered a surprising set of results. This has progressives cheering and Republicans worried. It also leaves a lot for political analysts to consider and for activists to apply going into November’s midterms. Here are some key takeaways.

Abortion Foes Lost Big in Reliably Red Kansas

The biggest news of the evening was that a ballot measure to remove abortion rights from the state constitution failed resoundingly. Foes of abortion had put the measure up intentionally on a primary rather than a general election, believing incorrectly that this would aid its chances of passage. As of Wednesday morning, that measure was being rejected by high double digits, with nearly 59 percent opposed and only 41 percent in favor, defying some of the early polling there predicting a “yes” win by some four points.

Importantly, the votes against the measure were not contained to large Democratic strongholds in Kansas. Even in counties that went solidly for Trump in 2020, the measure failed badly, or at least the swing in votes was astounding. In Leavenworth County, which Trump carried by 21 points, the measure was failing by 59 to 41 percent. In Reno County, which Trump carried by 34 points, the measure was evenly split. In short, abortion foes got a thumping statewide, likely due to high female voter turnout. As election analyst David Beard noted late Tuesday night, the Kansas abortion vote received “140,000 more votes than the two governor primaries combined, which means nearly 20% of voters came out just to vote on the amendment.”

MAGA Is on the March in the Swing States

Despite the setback in Kansas for conservatives, Trumpian candidates scored wins in the states of Arizona and Michigan, where election denialism still has a firm grip on GOP primary voters. By contrast, the most extreme MAGA candidate in deep red Missouri, Eric Greitens, failed to win his primary.

In Arizona, Trump-backed candidates won their primaries for the senate and secretary of state races, with the governor’s race still too close to call. Blake Masters, who is backed financially by billionaire Peter Thiel and was endorsed by Trump over his rivals, defeated Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich yesterday, setting up a fight with the incumbent Democrat, Sen. Mark Kelly, in November. Brnovich may have seen the writing on the wall, releasing his office’s report yesterday that found that reports of hundreds of dead voters casting ballots in Arizona were without factual support. (Brnovich can now conveniently claim that he lost the race because he spoke the truth.)

Speaking the truth didn’t help AZ House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who had testified against Trump and election denialism at the January 6 hearing. GOP voters punished Bowers by electing his rival over him in his own district’s primary. But speaking lies did seem to help Trump loyalist Mark Finchem, who won his primary and the right to run in November to become AZ Secretary of State and oversee crucial elections in 2024. (This is a big race to watch and get behind the Democratic candidate, the votes for which race are still being counted. Finchem is an election denier who attended the January 6 rally, tried to get the AZ legislature to overturn the 2020 results, and wants to make major changes to the state’s election rules.)

The AZ governor’s race is close, but should Keri Lake narrowly beat out her more moderate GOP rival, there will be a radical extremist in the running who is in many ways similar to Doug Mastriano of PA in her full-throated support of Trump, her belief in the Big Lie, and her promise to enact “pro-life” legislation. Like Mastriano, however, Lake is vulnerable because she is so very far to the right and is likely to alienate moderate voters while galvanizing progressives against her. And as with senate candidate Dr. Oz in PA, Lake’s critics charge she is a flip-flopping hypocrite, having once been supportive of the LGBTQ community and even transgender youth but is now targeting that same community to score political points. If she wins the primary, Lake will face off against current AZ Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.

In Michigan, a Trump-backed candidate named John Gibbs defeated incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI), who was one of 10 Republican House members to vote to impeach the former president for incitement of the insurrection on January 6. The race gained prominence not only because of Meijer’s impeachment vote, which he admitted was likely “political suicide,” but because of the controversial decision by the DCCC to help extreme candidates like Gibbs out. For example in Gibbs’s case, Democrats ran a full page ad buy that claimed Gibbs was too close to Trump and too conservative, which are traits that they knew likely would endear him to GOP primary voters. Democratic strategists believe they have a better chance of defeating Gibbs than Meijer in the general election because, once again, Gibbs is an extreme MAGA candidate who has called the 2020 election results “mathematically impossible” and was reported to have floated a number of outlandish conspiracy theories while defending an anti-Semitic twitter account. The strategy might be working even if inherently dangerous and divisive; the race has now been moved from “toss-up” to “lean Dem” by the Cook Political Report. (Another impeachment vote from a Republican came from Rep. Herrera Beulter (R-WA), who appears to have survived a primary challenge and is favored to win the general.)

Trump also backed the Michigan GOP governor’s race primary winner, Tudor Dixon, who is best known as a right-wing cable news personality. Dixon was supported by the DeVos family, including former Secretary Betsy DeVos, with whom she shares beliefs on greater right to private schooling for children. Because of Dixon’s and her primary opponents’ universally extremist views, however, the race also was moved from a “toss-up” to a “lean Democrat” by the Cook Political Report. Indeed, Democrats have a massive opportunity to push back on abortion extremism in the state using the governor’s race as a proxy. Dixon is on record for saying that a 14-year old incestual rape victim was a “perfect example” of someone who should not be eligible for abortion care, saying “a life is a life for me. That’s how it is.”

In deeply red Missouri, the most extreme candidate, former disgraced governor Eric Greitens, failed to ultra-MAGA himself to victor, losing to the “other” Eric in the race, Eric Schmitt. Not willing to be seen as having his endorsed candidate lose, Trump released a statement Monday evening in which he absurdly endorsed “ERIC” without specifying which one. Both Greitens and Schmitt predictably and somewhat comically claimed it was them and proceeded to trumpet the “endorsement” by Trump. (You really can’t make this stuff up.) Schmitt, the more moderate Republican, is likely to sail to victory, putting a pick-up of a senate seat by Democrats in Missouri effectively out of reach.

It seems clear that in November, and especially in the all-important swing states, the GOP has created a number of self-inflicted wounds and opened some opportunities for Democrats by nominating far-right extremists, especially those who have doubled down on turnout-inducing issues such as complete abortion bans, without exception. The polling around abortion appears to have underestimated voter anger and resolve, particularly among new young voters, and the fallout from Tuesday’s elections is likely to cause more analysis and a shifting in assumptions and predictions.

The key question remains whether the Democratic Party can effectively capitalize and organize around the overturning of Roe v. Wade in a manner sufficient to overcome a generally bad economic outlook, historically high inflation, and the traditional handicap that the party in power faces going into the midterms. Before yesterday, the general consensus answer around that question was “no,” but given what just happened in Kansas, the math likely just changed significantly.