Tuesday’s primary elections were defined by historic super PAC spending attempting to quash a number of progressive candidates and an attempted hostile takeover of the Democratic primary process like we’ve never seen. At last count, just a handful of super PACs had dumped $18 million to influence the outcome in favor of moderates.
The expectation in politics is that the person with the most money wins. And that played out in several races Tuesday night. In numerous races, massive super PAC money backed moderate candidates with institutional endorsements and little enthusiasm. But surprisingly, progressives largely won the argument that voters want to see their representatives fighting for an agenda rather than fighting to stop it. The candidates most tied to trying to slam the brakes on progress were defeated. The candidates who organized their communities in favor of getting things done for the people were successful. And in one incredible instance, voters saw through the hollowness of millions of outside dollars.
The night’s early returns were headlined by the triumph of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman over moderate House Rep. Conor Lamb for the state’s Democratic Senate nomination. Fetterman was expected to win, but did so resoundingly, winning every single county while holed up in a hospital bed recovering from pacemaker surgery.
Fetterman is a bit of an unorthodox progressive candidate. He’s championed a $15 minimum wage, weed legalization, Medicare for All, and higher taxes on the rich. He’s also embraced Title 42, the immigration policy that the Trump administration enacted to turn away asylum seekers using COVID as a pretense, and pledged to support Israel.
The latter decision likely kept some of the massive super PAC spending from AIPAC’s United Democracy Project PAC and Democratic Majority for Israel PAC out of the race. Still, Lamb benefited from millions of dollars in super PAC spending thanks to Penn Progress, a super PAC composed primarily of financial titans and set up specifically to buoy his candidacy, despite the fact that Lamb has previously condemned corporate money in elections.
|
|
|
