Issue 13

IL-02

The Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC has endorsed state Sen. Robert Peters, as the Chicagoan and democratic socialist continues to amass a formidable campaign to succeed outgoing Rep. Robin Kelly. (Peters is already backed by Bernie Sanders, Cook County Board chair and powerful South Side boss Toni Preckwinkle, and several influential labor unions.) He won’t win without a fight, though, as state Sen. Willie Preston, a fellow Chicagoan, officially jumped into the race this week, joining a field that also includes Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller and Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner Yumeka Brown, with the potential entry of disgraced ex-Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. also looming over the field.

IL-09

Another IL-09 candidate? This is just preposterous. I've fully lost count at this point.

Army veteran Sam Polan, a native of the affluent suburb of Wilmette, left the Pentagon shortly after Pete Hegseth started his relentless campaign to transform it into an ideologically compliant organ of the Trump administration, and he’s promising to “run toward the fire, not away.” Meanwhile, as Texas Democrats sheltered for a time in Illinois, one of their leaders has weighed in: Houston state Rep. Gene Wu, a camera-happy spokesperson for the Texas Democrats, has endorsed state Rep. Hoan Huynh for this open seat, and this race is officially crowded enough that Texas state representatives might help a candidate stand out.

MA-01

It seems as if local teacher Jeromie Whalen had hoped for a later launch to his campaign against Rep. Richard Neal, a perennial target of progressive primary challenges. However, news got out this week, and Whalen and his team rolled with it and went on a media tour. Though a more formal launch is planned for September in Whalen’s childhood home of Belchertown, Whalen is already fundraising and has been making the rounds in local Democratic circles since May. Whalen, who teaches journalism and technology classes at Northampton High School, frames his campaign as being about generational change (Neal is 76, Whalen 38) and corporate money (Neal is a major recipient, owing to his powerful perch as the top Democrat on the House Ways & Means Committee.) This district is based around the historic industrial city of Springfield, where Neal was once mayor, but also takes in the liberal Berkshires and other bits and pieces of rural western Massachusetts.

NH-Sen

For a while, it looked as if Rep. Chris Pappas, a centrist, pro-Israel Democrat, would be functionally or literally uncontested for the Democratic nomination to succeed retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. Scientist Karishma Manzur, a medical researcher from Exeter who has served in roles in various New Hampshire nonprofits as well as a stint on the Rules Committee of the state Democratic Party, is the first candidate to change that. Without criticizing Pappas by name, Manzur differentiates herself by noting her support for restrictions on aid to Israel (Pappas is opposed) and by attacking the very fact of his congressional tenure, arguing the country needs new voices in charge and saying “it's New Hampshire versus the billionaires.”

State Rep. Jared Sullivan is also considering a campaign and has indicated he’ll only run if he gets a certain amount in pledged donations.

NY-Gov

For a long time, Rep. Ritchie Torres was mulling a primary challenge to Gov. Kathy Hochul, for whom the Bronx congressman had some very harsh words. (A “feckless” and “embarrassing” “down-ballot disaster” and “electoral train wreck”, just to give some examples.) Zohran Mamdani’s primary win seemingly convinced Torres that the conditions weren’t ripe for his planned challenge to Hochul from the right and got him to bow out of the gubernatorial race—but now Torres is taking it a step further and doing a 180 on Hochul. Saying he “underestimated” Hochul, Torres has now endorsed the reelection of the governor he once planned to oppose.

Not coincidentally, Hochul’s main remaining opponent (albeit a very long-shot one), Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, is running to Hochul’s left.

PA-03

State Sen. Sharif Street, a conservative, pro-charter school Democrat, has stepped down from his role as the chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party to focus full-time on his congressional campaign. Street, who once conspired with Republicans to pass a gerrymander of the state’s congressional map, probably shouldn’t have been the state party chair in the first place, but at least he's gone now. In this Philadelphia congressional district, the bluest in the country, Street faces a field of opponents including state Rep. Chris Rabb and physician Dave Oxman.

TX-37

While he’s not happy about it, 78-year-old Rep. Lloyd Doggett is reluctantly bowing out after more than thirty years in Congress. Texas Republicans’ new gerrymander forces Doggett and fellow Austinite Rep. Greg Casar into the same district, and Austin Democrats evidently made clear to Doggett that while they respected his service, there was no way in hell they’d back him over the 36-year-old Congressional Progressive Caucus chair, who served on the Austin City Council prior to his election to Congress in the neighboring TX-35 in 2022. (Texas Republicans’ gerrymander turns the 35th into a rural and exurban district east of San Antonio which voted for Donald Trump by double digits. Doggett had previously tried to pressure Casar into running in the 35th, which will no longer include Casar's longtime home of Austin.)

Jersey City Mayor, Council

Another internal poll of the Jersey City mayoral race casts the contest in a different light than the one released by progressive Ward E Councilman James Solomon last week. That poll found Solomon trailing the Hudson County Democratic machine pick, disgraced former Gov. Jim McGreevey, 27%-26%. This poll, from the campaign of Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea, finds McGreevey in first with 30% and O’Dea in second with 18% to Solomon’s 15%. Former Jersey City School Board member Mussab Ali and current Council President Joyce Watterman round out the field at 7% and 3%, respectively.

Also in Jersey City politics, a new power player is making a name for herself before she even takes office. First-time candidate Katie Brennan shocked the world of Hudson County politics when she ran a progressive, independent, anti-machine Democratic primary campaign for a seat representing Hoboken and most of Jersey City in the state Assembly—and won comfortably, outpacing a field of experienced politicians and machine favorites. Now she’s weighing in on Jersey City’s municipal races, backing Solomon, the progressive frontrunner—but also demonstrating her independence (and her own ideological leanings) by backing both of DSA’s Jersey City Council candidates, Joel Brooks in the West Side’s Ward B and Jake Ephros in the Heights’s Ward D, rather than Solomon’s slated candidates in Wards B and D.

Minneapolis Mayor

In a deeply controversial move, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has vacated the Minneapolis DFL’s endorsement of state Sen. Omar Fateh for mayor, which Fateh initially won over incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey at the Minneapolis DFL’s citywide convention. The move was seen as a factional power play, as moderates led by Frey and Gov. Tim Walz fought to beat back progressives represented by figures including (but not limited to) Fateh and Rep. Ilhan Omar.

While the ostensible reasoning for voiding the endorsement was errors in the voting process (severe ones, to be clear, including the wrongful elimination of candidate DeWayne Davis from an early ranked-choice round) and insufficient turnout in the final round (which was conducted by show of hands after the balloting system succumbed to technical delays) which produced the Fateh endorsement, that aforementioned low turnout was the product of the Frey campaign—which seems to have told its supporters to go home after realizing Frey did not have the votes to win the endorsement. And the entire process for the state party challenge rankled many on Team Fateh—not least because Minnesota DFL chair Richard Carlbom’s old consulting firm works for Frey.