Issue 18

CA-32

A correction from my last issue: Jake Rakov, a former aide to Rep. Brad Sherman, ended his challenge to his old boss after California’s redistricting referendum made the ballot back in September.

DC-AL

Two more candidates have piled in to the race to challenge 88-year-old Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton. Brian Ready, a former Capitol Hill ANC commissioner and executive director of the Barracks Row Main Street neighborhood improvement group, filed with the FEC and began fundraising, joining a field that already included DC State Board of Education President Jacque Patterson, DC Councilor At-Large Robert White, and DNC member Kinney Zalesne, as well as the incumbent, despite a multitude of public and private concerns about her age and declining capacity for the job of being the sole voice of the nation’s capital in Congress. But the bigger news is the candidacy of Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto, a centrist, pro-business Democrat who represents affluent neighborhoods including Georgetown and Foggy Bottom. Pinto only launched this morning, but keep your expectations low.

Correction: I mistakenly listed Shadow Rep. Oye Owolewa as a candidate for delegate. Owolewa recently launched a campaign for an at-large seat on the DC Council, not delegate. I apologize for the error.

IL-Sen

EMILY’s List is taking sides in the Illinois Senate primary, backing Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, an ally of Gov. JB Pritzker. EMILY’s List backs pro-choice Democratic women and has at least a soft preference for staying out of primaries between multiple pro-choice women, but evidently they consider the stakes of the Illinois Senate primary to be high enough to back Stratton over Rep. Robin Kelly. Both Stratton and Kelly are underdogs against the frontrunner in this race, suburban centrist Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi; a September poll by the Stratton-supporting Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association found her trailing Krishnamoorthi 33%-18%, with Kelly at 8%. (The polling memo does note that Krishnamoorthi has spent more than $3 million on TV ads since starting his campaign, while Stratton has not aired any TV ads; in other words, this is the kind of lead that could plausibly evaporate.)

IL-05, Chicago Mayor

While Chicago Rep. Mike Quigley has talked about running for mayor before, he’s never taken concrete steps towards a run—until now. The congressman filed with the state of Illinois to begin fundraising for a 2027 mayoral bid; he’s one of many looking at challenging unpopular Mayor Brandon Johnson, along with other notables like retiring state Comptroller Susana Mendoza, state Rep. Kam Buckner, and Ald. Bill Conway. Quigley winning would open up his Chicago-based House seat, which connects some of the city’s more left-leaning neighborhoods on the North Side to swingier suburbs like Barrington, teeing up a special election in mid-to-late 2027.

MD-07

Baltimore Councilman Mark Conway is considering a primary challenge to Baltimore Rep. Kweisi Mfume, and has filed with the FEC to begin raising money. Mfume, a 76-year-old civil rights leader, has been serving since 2020 in his second stint in the House, having previously represented an earlier version of the same Black-majority Baltimore district from 1987 to 1996 before resigning to lead the NAACP.

Mfume is middle of the road for a House Democrat, and Conway, a sometimes-antagonist-sometimes-ally of generally progressive Mayor Brandon Scott, is similarly middle of the road for a Baltimore Democrat; while Conway’s comments about his plans were brief and vague, it’s safe to assume the main focuses of his potential challenge would be generational change and fighting spirit.

ME-02

Maine State Auditor Matt Dunlap launched a primary challenge to conservative Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, arguing that the congressman’s moderation has devolved into support for the Trump administration’s criminal authoritarianism and economic self-ruin. Dunlap previously served as Maine Secretary of State and before that as a state representative for the inland island city of Old Town, located on an island in the Penobscot River. Maine’s 2nd is the reddest House district held by a Democrat and voted for Donald Trump three times in a row, but it’s no longer very clear what Democrats are getting out of Golden beyond maybe a speaker vote.

MO-01

Former Rep. Cori Bush has launched a rematch campaign against Rep. Wesley Bell, who unseated her last year by a five-point margin with the support of moneyed interest groups including (but by no means limited to) AIPAC. Bush, a democratic socialist and sharp critic of the Israeli government, made waves in 2020 by unseating then-Rep. Lacy Clay, a long-serving scion of a St. Louis dynasty, but was sank in 2024 by a perception—reinforced by ample attack ads from super PACs—that Bush was insufficiently loyal to the Democratic Party and insufficiently focused on constituent services. Bell starts out favored, but in an environment far different from 2024, primary voters may be looking for something quite different next year than they were when they initially chose Bell over Bush. It’s not yet clear whether the constellation of left-wing local and national groups that defended Bush against Bell last year will back her again next year.

NH-Sen

State Rep. Jared Sullivan is the second Democrat to officially take on U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas for the right to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, joining scientist and activist Karishma Manzur. Like Manzur, Sullivan frames himself as a progressive, opening his launch video with the line “I’m not running because I’m rich and bored” and including a preemptive disavowal of AIPAC, the Israeli lobbying organization-turned-general-purpose right-wing money cannon.

NH-02

State Rep. Paige Beauchemin will take on first-term U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander in the Democratic primary, promising a more progressive direction. Beauchemin, a nurse from Nashua in her second term as a state representative (a part-time, virtually unpaid job in New Hampshire), cuts a very different profile from Goodlander, an experienced DC policy hand and heir to a real estate fortune who is married to Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, one of the architects of Biden’s disastrous Gaza policy.

NY-Comptroller

Raj Goyle, a former Kansas state representative who returned to his one-time home of New York City after losing a congressional election in 2010, is running for office in New York. Specifically, Goyle is taking on Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the incumbent since 2007. DiNapoli is a centrist Democrat from Long Island who is reluctant to use the powers of his office for, well, anything at all, even something as simple as returning money to New Yorkers who lost track of it (a specific failing that already prompted nonprofit leader Drew Warshaw to launch his own challenge months ago), while Goyle identifies himself as a progressive in a wide-ranging interview with City and State about his run.

NY-10

Candidates are jockeying behind the scenes for the right to take on embattled centrist Rep. Dan Goldman, who represents one of the most left-leaning congressional districts in the country: downtown Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn. A new and more prominent name has joined the list of those thought to be actively interested: City Council Member Alexa Avilés, a democratic socialist who represents the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Sunset Park and Red Hook.

Goldman was already reportedly set to face a rematch with former Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, who he narrowly defeated in 2022 when this seat was last open; his 2024 primary, in which he got less than two-thirds of the vote against protest candidates, confirmed that his 2022 vulnerabilities lingered, and Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 landslide in NY-10 (and Goldman’s subsequent, continuing refusal to back Mamdani as the Democratic nominee) made clear that Goldman’s brand of politics was not right for the district. Goldman’s detractors have cycled through other potential candidates only to learn they’re not interested (see Shahana Hanif and Brad Lander); now, with the campaign against Goldman due to begin in earnest once the November election is over, it’s crunch time for the left to decide on a candidate in order to avoid the kind of multi-candidate pileup that allowed Goldman to win back in 2022. Also considering, according to City and State, is Parkland shooting survivor Cameron Kasky, who briefly considered running in Manhattan’s 12th congressional district but apparently has shifted to thinking about Goldman.

NY-15

Dalourny Nemorin, a Bronx community board member and public defender, has filed to run against Rep. Ritchie Torres, a combative anti-Palestinian, anti-DSA polemicist who occasionally remembers to show up to work as a member of Congress. This district takes in most of the western half of the Bronx, winding its way from Riverdale down to Mott Haven.

PA-03

Whenever a Democratic representative retires, one of the first questions is whether they have a successor in mind already. In the case of Philadelphia Rep. Dwight Evans, the answer turned out to be yes: Dr. Ala Stanford, who gained some prominence during the pandemic by providing free COVID tests and later vaccinations, announced her congressional campaign this week with an endorsement from Evans. Stanford joins a field of candidates that already includes fellow physician Dave Oxman, state Reps. Chris Rabb and Morgan Cephas, and state Sen. Sharif Street; the district, contained entirely within Philadelphia, is the most Democratic House seat in the nation.

RI-Gov

Rhode Island AG Peter Neronha will not run for governor, removing the biggest question mark still looming over the race. (While state House Speaker Joe Shekarchi has a lot of money in the bank and has not made a decision publicly, he is less known than Neronha and would pose less of a threat.) This likely sets up a rematch for the Democratic nomination between conservative Gov. Dan McKee and similarly conservative former CVS executive Helena Foulkes. Bleak shit.

Jersey City Mayor and Council

The Working Families Party has made its first round of endorsements for November’s Jersey City municipal elections. They mostly backed the slate of progressive Downtown Councilman James Solomon, one of the leading candidates and most progressives’ candidate of choice; along with an endorsement of Solomon himself for mayor, WFP backed Solomon-aligned incumbent councilmembers Denise Ridley in Ward A and Frank Gilmore in Ward F, as well as Solomon’s endorsed successor, Ward E candidate Eleana Little. However, they broke with Solomon in three races, staying out of the messy Ward C race altogether and backing DSA’s two city council candidates, neither of whom is running on Solomon’s slate: Joel Brooks in Ward B and Jake Ephros in Ward D. (There’s precedent for this, as progressive Assembly nominee Katie Brennan backed Solomon for mayor but Brooks and Ephros for council.)

1199 SEIU also waded into one of the council races, endorsing Ephros–a union organizer, so not too big of a surprise (though in New Jersey in particular, unions, even somewhat progressive ones like SEIU, are staunchly establishment, so this is a noteworthy get and not just a pro forma endorsement.)