Issue 9

Results

AZ-07

Former Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva won a commanding majority of the vote in the Democratic primary for the special election to succeed her father in this border district, with Gen Z influencer and Democratic activist Deja Foxx in a distant second and conservative former state Rep. Daniel Hernandez in an even more distant third. Foxx, a 25-year-old first-time candidate, generated a lot of outside attention and interest in the race, enough to propel her past the better-funded and previously better-known Hernandez—but nowhere near enough to overcome the Grijalva name and Grijalva’s strong support from both progressive and establishment sources.

DC Council Ward 8

After DC Councilmember Trayon White was indicted on federal bribery charges, his colleagues made the rare move of expelling him from the council, unanimously agreeing that the charges he faced—federal prosecutors accused White of accepting cash-stuffed envelopes to influence District contracting decisions—were too serious to wait for a trial. That…didn’t quite work out, as White, who faces trial next year, ran in and won the special election to fill the vacancy created by his own expulsion. The council now faces the question of whether to expel White again or wait for his trial—and they may wait, hesitant to override the will of Ward 8’s historically disenfranchised voters. It does seem that White’s time on the council will be coming to an end in the near term either way, as White’s measly 28% plurality was only enough to win thanks to a split field of opposition, and DC is about to shift to ranked-choice voting.

News

CT-01

Rep. John Larson may have a second primary challenger to worry about. Hartford Board of Education Member Ruth Fortune launched a campaign earlier this month, and now, former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin is reportedly looking at a run himself. Bronin has long been ambitious and has eyed statewide office in the past, but he's apparently unwilling to challenge second-term Gov. Ned Lamont in the increasingly likely event Lamont seeks a third term (though state Rep. Josh Elliott is doing just that.)

DC-AL

88-year-old nonvoting Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, DC’s longtime voice in the House of Representatives, is clearly declining, and there have been multiple will-she-or-won’t-she news cycles about her potential 2026 reelection. She now has her first primary challenger in businesswoman and pro-Israel activist Kinney Zalesne, a deputy finance chair of the Democratic National Committee. At 59, Zalesne isn’t young, even by the standards of Congress, but she’s still nearly three decades Norton’s junior. Due to her business connections (she’s been a Microsoft executive and business consultant) she’ll likely be able to raise money, but, candidly, a wealthy white woman with a background in national rather than local politics seems destined to flounder with Black District residents almost regardless of her opponent.

HI-01

State Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole is publicly considering a run against Blue Dog Rep. Ed Case, one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. Case, 72, has represented Honolulu’s urban core since 2019, previously taking a turn representing Hawaiʻi’s other congressional district—which covers rural Oʻahu and the state’s other islands—from 2002 to 2007. Keohokalole says he’ll make a decision “soon,” without giving a specific timeline, but he doesn’t cite any specific disagreements with the congressman (at least, not yet.) Case is full steam ahead on reelection, and argues that voters would be foolish to give up his seniority and relationships in the House; Keohokalole would seem skeptical the seniority is worth it anymore.

IL-Sen

While the Cook County Democratic Party weighed in in some other races—more on that below—they chose to sit out the Senate race between three Cook County politicians: suburban Reps. Robin Kelly and Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, a Chicagoan. Krishnamoorthi, who has been stockpiling cash for a statewide run ever since he succeeded Tammy Duckworth in the House nearly a decade ago, isn’t waiting to put his money to use: he’s already advertising, spending half a million on a statewide introductory TV and digital buy to get his name out and frame himself as an underdog. (This framing is horseshit; Krishnamoorthi has tens of millions in the bank and is the candidate in the race who’s friendliest to the crypto industry, which has more or less bought Washington wholesale over the past four years.)

(Note: in the initial version of this issue I incorrectly characterized Krishnamoorthi as the only crypto-friendly candidate; Robin Kelly also voted for the GENIUS Act, but I looked at the wrong roll call vote. My bad, and a correction will also be included in next week's issue.)

IL-02

While he’s made no announcement, state Sen. Willie Preston, who had previously mentioned looking at a run for Congress, filed with the FEC this week. Fellow state Sen. Robert Peters, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner Yumeka Brown, former DNC delegate Adal Regis, and political staffer Eric France are already in the running, with Peters (who entered the race first) currently holding a large fundraising lead.

IL-07

We have one more hint as to what Rep. Danny Davis will be doing this year. State Rep. La Shawn Ford, an ally of Davis’s, has committed to either running for Congress or retiring—allowing candidates to begin making moves for Ford’s Chicago-area state House seat. While this doesn't guarantee Davis retires (if Davis runs for reelection, Ford says he’ll support him), it’s one more sign that his coming announcement of his plans might finally be a retirement announcement.

Another candidate filed with the FEC this week as well: Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins, who has already begun revamping his website for a congressional run. Hoskins is in his second term as mayor of Forest Park, a small, heavily Democratic suburb just west of Chicago and near the western end of this district. His website is bare-bones and clearly incomplete, so I’m assuming a more formal announcement and launch are in the works.

IL-09

Good God, how do they keep on coming?

Another new candidate entered the race for Illinois’s 9th congressional district this week. Nick Pyati, a former federal prosecutor and Microsoft strategist, announced a campaign with rhetoric focused on channeling voter anger with the Democratic Party’s leadership. Saying he’s been aghast watching the Trump administration burn more and more of the country to the ground, he thinks Democrats lack “a vision or a plan to end this mess.” Pyati only recently moved to Evanston, but he grew up in the Chicago area; this is his first run for office. Pyati joins [deep breath] Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, state Sen. Laura Fine, Skokie school board member Bushra Amiwala, progressive journalist and influencer Kat Abughazaleh, Democratic committeeman Bruce Leon, state Rep. Hoan Huynh, state Sen. Mike Simmons, disability advocate Howard Rosenblum, activist Justin Ford, and activist Miracle Jenkins in the race.

MA-06

Software engineer Beth Andres-Beck launched their campaign against Rep. Seth Moulton this week. Andres-Beck, who is trans and agender, serves on the Housing Trust and Master Plan Committee in their town of Middleton and has been active in local Democratic politics; Moulton, for his part, is creepily fixated on trans kids to the point that some local Democrats have denounced him, and he’s also an all-around centrist annoyance. Andres-Beck’s platform planks include universal healthcare, government modernization (but not in the DOGE way; instead, they want a full investigation of DOGE’s theft of private data), and a renewed focus on fighting corruption. Good stuff! Andres-Beck also rejects Moulton's contention that Democrats lost in 2024 because they went too far left or got too "woke," and argues that instead, Democrats lost because they seemed detached from the people who they ask to vote for them—including trans people.

CO Secretary of State

Suburban state Sen. Jessie Danielson became the first Democrat to announce a campaign for Colorado Secretary of State this week. Danielson, who is term-limited out of the legislature, is running to succeed term-limited Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who is running for Colorado Attorney General.

IL Comptroller, Chicago Mayor

Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza announced she would not seek reelection in 2026 as she considers a run for Chicago mayor in 2027. Mendoza is a centrist Democrat and critic of Mayor Brandon Johnson who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2019; she’s also a mentee of disgraced Southwest Side Ald. Ed Burke, who was indicted on federal corruption charges in 2019 in an incidence of spectacularly poor timing for Mendoza’s political career. (Burke has since been convicted and has served his sentence in federal prison.) That also set up a last-minute scramble for party support for her job—because she announced her decision just in time for the Cook County Democratic Party’s 2026 endorsement meeting, held in the summer before the election. The Cook County Democrats chose Chicago state Rep. Margaret Croke, an ally of Gov. JB Pritzker, over suburban state Sen. Karina Villa, Lake County Treasurer Holly Kim, Champaign County Auditor George Danos, and former state Sen. Rickey Hendon. That decision was contentious, as House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Senate President Don Harmon each backed their respective caucus members; Villa, and thus Harmon, lost out.

Minneapolis Mayor

In a stunning upset, the Minneapolis DFL endorsed democratic socialist state Sen. Omar Fateh for mayor over second-term Mayor Jacob Frey at their Saturday night endorsement convention. Frey’s campaign is not exactly taking the loss well, whining that turnout was supposedly low (it appears Frey’s team may have instructed delegates to leave when it appeared clear he would not win the endorsement) and promising to challenge the results, which were marked by slow tabulation and problems with the party’s online voting system. But for now, Fateh carries the endorsement of the official local Democratic Party affiliate in November’s nonpartisan, ranked-choice mayoral election. Fateh had a strong plurality of delegates on the first round—roughly 44% to Frey’s 31.5%, with fellow progressives DeWayne Davis and Jazz Hampton at 20% and 4%, respectively—and easily won a runoff between himself and Frey by a show of hands, apparently clearing the required 60% threshold to win, though a later tally of paper ballots is potentially forthcoming.

Fateh is the first candidate to win the DFL endorsement for mayor of Minneapolis since incumbent R.T. Rybak in 2009.

NYC Mayor

Well, I guess we’re doing this.

Disgraced former Gov. and Democratic primary loser Andrew Cuomo has decided that losing once wasn’t enough, and he’s proceeding to the general election, relaunching his campaign with a musicless video of the governor talking listlessly to the camera on an eerily quiet New York street. Meanwhile, Republican Curtis Sliwa isn’t letting up—on Cuomo, trashing the former governor for “slapping fannies and killing grannies,” a banger line which is also, well, true. And Mayor Eric Adams rolled out endorsements from more than a dozen police unions, who still have some clout in New York City, especially with Republican and independent voters in the outer boroughs—though getting people to vote for the widely-loathed mayor-turned-punchline may be an even taller order than getting them to pull the lever for Cuomo, especially if a pair of recent polls from Data for Progress and Slingshot Strategies are right. Each show Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani leading Cuomo: 40-24 for Data for Progress, 35-25 for Slingshot—and both polls find Adams and Sliwa mired in the teens with center-right independent Jim Walden at 1%.

As for Mamdani, the socialist assemblyman from Queens who shocked the world by upsetting Cuomo last month? He’s sticking to his happy warrior strategy, announcing his honeymoon to visit family and friends in Uganda with a cheerful video mocking the right-wing New York Post by riffing on their traditionally sensationalist front-page headlines.

Meanwhile, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer—both of whom are not only leaders of the Democratic Party, but also New Yorkers—continue to pointedly refuse to endorse Mamdani. Can we fire these clowns already?

NY-SD-13

In Corona, Jackson Heights, and East Elmhurst, we’re set for a battle of the Jessicas in June of 2026. Progressive Assemblywoman Jessica González-Rojas made it official, forming a campaign committee and launching her campaign to unseat erstwhile progressive state Sen. Jessica Ramos, whose mayoral campaign crashed and burned so hard that Ramos endorsed Andrew Cuomo in a fit of pique, instantly burning every bridge she had remaining to her former allies on New York’s left.

Ramos made it to Albany in 2018 by challenging Democrat-in-name-only José Peralta, which earned her a lot of goodwill with New York progressives. She earned herself some more by butting heads with then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo—but undermined the goodwill she had accumulated by also butting heads with AOC for frankly inscrutable reasons. She was still on good enough terms with the left until she ran for mayor, when progressive organizations either snubbed Ramos or ranked her below other progressive options—enraging her so much she threw her support to Cuomo to spite those who she felt had wronged her by backing eventual winner Zohran Mamdani. The Cuomo endorsement was the final straw for many, and González-Rojas now has some noteworthy supporters on the host committee for a fundraiser tonight, including former Jackson Heights Councilman Danny Dromm. She also received a pre-endorsement from Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, which I noted in a previous issue. González-Rojas can likely expect support from left-wing organizations as well; a successful primary challenger herself (unseating an assemblyman in 2020), she's a member of DSA (though not currently an endorsee) and a Working Families Party stalwart.