Morning Digest: Mamdani defeats Cuomo in massive upset

The establishment ganged up to stop the 33-year-old insurgent. He left it smarting.

New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D) (credit: Zohran Mamdani campaign site)

Leading Off

New York, NY Mayor

Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old self-identified democratic socialist, overcame massive opposition by New York City's political establishment to thwart former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's comeback bid and capture the Democratic nomination for mayor.

With Mamdani leading 44-36 among voters' first choices with most ballots tabulated, Cuomo conceded the race on Tuesday night. While election officials won't begin ranked-choice tabulations until next week, there's little chance Cuomo can make up sufficient ground, particularly because the third-place candidate, Comptroller Brad Lander, had cross-endorsed Mamdani.

In addressing supporters after his loss, Cuomo did not rule out the possibility of forging ahead to the general election, when he'll still appear on the ballot under a party line of his own creation, "Fight and Deliver." But as Politico reporter Nick Reisman observed, Cuomo's remarks were "nowhere near a fulsome indication that he would be running in the general."

Even if Cuomo stands down, Mamdani will still have to face off against several other candidates in November, including Mayor Eric Adams, a former Democrat who bolted the party in April to run as an independent, and radio host Curtis Sliwa, who won the Republican nod without opposition.

A late May poll from Emerson College found Mamdani leading Sliwa 35-16, with Adams just behind at 15% and another independent, attorney Jim Walden, taking 6%. In that survey, 27% of voters were undecided, though following his victory on Tuesday, Mamdani's name recognition is certain to soar.

Election Recaps

Buffalo, NY Mayor (D)

State Sen. Sean Ryan defeated acting Buffalo Mayor Christopher Scanlon 47-35 in Tuesday's Democratic primary, but the two may face off yet again in the general election. Scanlon filed paperwork last month to form a new party to ensure he'll have a spot on the November ballot.

Special Elections

Democrat Billie Butler defeated Republican Ken Hilton by a 55-45 margin to hold a seat in the New Hampshire state House on Tuesday night. Butler, a trans woman, endured ugly anti-trans attacks from Republicans but wound up performing on par with Kamala Harris, who carried Strafford County's 12th House District by a 55-44 spread last year.

Separately, in Alabama's 5th Senate District, Republican state Rep. Matt Woods turned back Democrat Ryan Cagle 86-14, a margin almost identical to Donald Trump's 86-13 win in 2024.

Senate

SC-Sen

Former Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, a South Carolina Republican who last won elected office in 2006, seems to be preparing to challenge Sen. Lindsey Graham in next year's primary.

Joseph Bustos reports in The State on the existence of an "Andre Bauer for U.S. Senate" fundraising page on the conservative platform WinRed. The former lieutenant governor has not said anything publicly about his interest in such a campaign, though, and he did not respond to Bustos' inquiries.

Bauer hasn't been on the ballot since he suffered a pair of decisive defeats in the early years of the previous decade. He finished a distant last place in the four-way primary for governor in 2010, and he went on to badly lose the primary runoff for the 7th Congressional District two years later.

Bauer later talked about running for governor in 2014 as an independent, but he didn't make good on the threat. After a stint as a CNN contributor, Donald Trump nominated him to be ambassador to Belize in 2020. Graham and his colleagues in the Senate, however, never confirmed him.

Wealthy businessman Mark Lynch is already trying to deny renomination to Graham, who has Trump's endorsement. A primary runoff would take place if no candidate wins a majority of the vote in the first round of voting.

Governors

FL-Gov

Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones, who didn't rule out a bid for governor earlier this year, now tells the Tampa Bay Times' Kirby Wilson that he won't seek the Democratic nod.

Wilson tried to ask the same question to Rep. Jared Moskowitz, but a spokesperson did not respond. Moskowitz said last year that he planned to seek reelection to the House, but he's still occasionally mentioned as a potential candidate for governor.

Wilson also attempted to feel out Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson if he was still thinking about running for the Republican nomination, but his team likewise didn't respond.

Simpson had looked like an all but certain candidate at the beginning of the year, but his name largely faded from the conversation after Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds. Simpson, who has more than $31 million stockpiled in his campaign coffers, is eligible to seek reelection to his current post.

IL-Gov

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker will announce Thursday that he's running for a third term, multiple sources tell the Chicago Tribune. Pritzker won reelection 55-42 in 2022, and no notable Republicans have stepped forward to challenge him so far.

ME-Gov

State Sen. Rick Bennett announced Tuesday that he was leaving the Republican Party to run for governor of Maine as an independent. Bennett is the first prominent unaffiliated candidate to enter next year's race to succeed Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who is term-limited.

The decision has the potential to create a competitive three-way race in a state where independent candidates have won the governor's office or come close on a number of occasions. Maine requires gubernatorial candidates to win only a simple plurality in the general election, though supporters of ranked choice voting are hoping to change these rules in time for next year.

Bennett, who was first elected to the legislature in 1990 (and served off and on over the following decades), would have once been an unlikely figure to bolt the GOP to run without a party label. After losing a competitive 1994 contest for the 2nd Congressional District in northern Maine, he later served as president of the evenly divided state Senate from 2001 to 2002 as part of a power-sharing agreement.

Bennett placed third in the 2012 primary for U.S. Senate but became state party chair the following year by pitching himself as someone who could unify the GOP's disparate ideological factions after a disappointing election cycle.

Under Bennett, the Republican Party had far more to celebrate in 2014 when it helped far-right Gov. Paul LePage win reelection and aided Bruce Poliquin's successful campaign to flip the 2nd District. Bennett was still in charge two years later when Donald Trump carried the 2nd District and its accompanying electoral vote—which Bennett got to cast as the state's sole GOP elector.

But the longtime politico has, however, become far less patient with accommodating the hard right in recent years. Bennett was the sole Republican in the upper chamber to oppose a pair of bills targeting transgender students earlier this month. He also joined the Democratic majority in supporting a bill to restrict local law enforcement from taking part in federal anti-immigrant crackdowns.

Bennett also hasn't hidden his displeasure with how Trump and his allies have transformed his now-former party.

"There’s an element in the Republican Party and the Republican caucuses that is sort of feeding off the chaos and disruptive energies of Donald Trump, and it’s really not a good thing to see," he told the Maine Morning Star's Emma Davis in March.

Bennett launched his bid weeks after a new law went into effect that allows unaffiliated candidates to raise more money than they'd been permitted to in the past.

Maine now lets donors contribute a maximum of $2,075 to any candidate during both the primary and general election periods, for a total of $4,150. Because independents don't have primaries to compete in, they were previously allowed to raise only $2,075 for the general election.

Bennett's fortunes could also be heavily impacted by a new push to expand the use of ranked-choice voting. Both chambers passed a bill last week to allow ranked-choice voting to be used in the general elections for governor and the legislature, but Mills has yet to say whether she'll sign it.

Mainers approved a ballot measure broadly adopting RCV in 2016, but the state Supreme Court issued a unanimous advisory opinion months later saying that the state constitution forbade its use in general elections for state offices, specifically those for governor and legislature. Conservatives sought to repeal the system in 2018, but voters rejected their ballot measure and kept the status quo in place.

That's left the state using two different systems, with a ranked-choice majority needed to win congressional elections but only a plurality necessary for state elections. (Primaries for all offices are decided by ranked-choice tabulations.)

A partisan divide has made it all but impossible to resolve this discrepancy, since Democrats have typically supported RCV while Republicans have generally opposed it. That puts a potential constitutional amendment out of reach, since referring one to voters requires the support of two-thirds of each chamber of the legislature.

(The 2016 ballot measure, which was placed on the ballot by citizens, was strictly statutory in nature. Maine voters cannot use the initiative process to amend their constitution.)

Instead, Democrats have taken an alternate approach. They recently passed a new bill that would explicitly implement ranked-choice voting for state-level general elections, with the express intent of pushing the state Supreme Court to reconsider its 2017 opinion.

Advocates hope that a 2022 decision by the Alaska Supreme Court in a similar case regarding RCV, which explicitly rejected the reasoning of Maine's top court, will convince Maine's justices to reach a different outcome. The Alaska ruling, however, is not binding on Maine.

Bennett told Davis he supported the bill even though he initially "wasn’t wild about ranked-choice voting." The senator, however, said that because "voters of Maine said twice that they want it," he was "supporting it and trying to make it work."

Bennett kicked off his campaign to replace Mills at a time when both parties are hosting busy primaries. The Democratic field includes Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former state Senate President Troy Jackson, businessman Angus King III, and former state House Speaker Hannah Pingree.

Four notable Republicans are also running: attorney Bobby Charles, businessman David Jones, state Sen. James Libby, and University of Maine Trustee Owen McCarthy. Maine's candidate filing deadline isn't until March 15 of next year, so there's plenty of time for the already packed race for governor to expand further.

SC-Gov

A consultant for Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette tells the South Carolina Daily Gazette they believe she'll decide in the next month whether to enter the Republican primary for governor. Evette won her post in 2018 and again in 2022 as the running mate of Gov. Henry McMaster, who cannot run again because of term limits.

House

MO-01

Former Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, who was ousted in last year's Democratic primary, reportedly isn't ruling out a bid to reclaim her old House seat.

While there's no direct quote from the ex-congresswoman, Gregg Palermo of Spectrum News says that, based on a short interview, "it’s clear that Bush hasn’t closed the door" on seeking a rematch with Rep. Wesley Bell. Palermo adds that Bush "said she wasn’t giving herself a public timeframe for making a decision about a run."

Bell, then the prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County, defeated Bush 51-46 in the primary for the dark-blue 1st District and easily won the general election. The outspoken Bush was targeted by AIPAC, the hawkish pro-Israel group, for her harsh criticisms of the Israeli government. However, attack ads largely focused on her failure to support Democratic priorities, including the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Joe Biden signed into law in 2021.

NH-01

Businessman Chris Bright, who finished fourth in the GOP primary last year, just became the first Republican to join the race for New Hampshire's open 1st District.

In his previous attempt, Bright won the support of just 13% of primary voters, who wound up backing former Executive Councilor Russell Prescott for the nod. Prescott, however, lost to Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas by a 54-46 margin in November. Pappas is now running for the Senate, giving Republicans hope they'll have a better shot at flipping his seat.

Three notable Democrats are already in the race for the swingy 1st District: Marine veteran Maura Sullivan, Hampton Selectwoman Carleigh Beriont, and former Portsmouth City Councilor Stefany Shaheen, who is the daughter of retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

SC-05

State Sen. Wes Climer tells the South Carolina Daily Gazette that he'd be interested in running for the 5th District if Rep. Ralph Norman, a fellow Republican, leaves it behind to run for governor. Norman will announce his plans on July 27.

This constituency in the northeastern part of the state has been in Republican hands ever since longtime Democratic Rep. John Spratt lost reelection during the 2010 red wave. Donald Trump, according to calculations by The Downballot, carried the 5th District 61-38 last year.

VA-08

Democratic Rep. Don Beyer, who turned 75 this month, says he'll run for a seventh term representing Northern Virginia's safely blue 8th Congressional District next year.

Beyer, a car dealer, first entered elective office in 1989, when he won the first of two terms as lieutenant governor. After an unsuccessful bid for governor in 1997, he later became Barack Obama's ambassador to Switzerland.

Beyer then ran for Congress after Democratic Rep. Jim Moran announced his retirement ahead of the 2014 elections, easily winning both the primary and general elections. He's never faced a serious challenge since.

WI-03

State Sen. Brad Pfaff, who had been considering another bid for Congress, has instead endorsed businesswoman Rebecca Cooke as she seeks the Democratic nod to take on Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden.

Pfaff ran for Wisconsin's 3rd District when it was an open seat in 2022, defeating Cooke 39-31 in the primary but losing to Van Orden 52-48 in the general election. Cooke tried again two years later but lost by an even narrower 51-49 margin despite the fact that Donald Trump carried the district by a 53-46 spread.

Morning Digest: This Democrat who nearly flipped a tough seat in 2024 is seeking a rematch

Cooke faces two opponents in the primary, Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge and former Eau Claire City Councilwoman Laura Benjamin, but has earned wide-ranging support for her third campaign.

Ballot Measures

UT Ballot

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Monday that he would not schedule an early election for a referendum to repeal a Republican bill clamping down on collective bargaining rights.

Morning Digest: Organized labor is fighting back in deep-red Utah

The initiative is set to appear on the ballot in November of next year, and the law it's targeting—which prohibits governments from engaging in collective bargaining with public employee unions—is on hold until voters decide its fate.

Cox, however, may not have the final word on the timing of the referendum. The Salt Lake Tribune notes that the GOP-dominated legislature can call an emergency session and use it to schedule an earlier special election.

Senate President Stuart Adams was noncommittal about the idea, however, saying in a brief statement, "We are continuing to have discussions to determine the best path forward for our state."

Attorneys General

MI-AG

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald announced on Tuesday that she would seek the Democratic nomination to become attorney general of Michigan. McDonald was first elected in 2020 to serve as the top prosecutor for the state's second-largest county, and she won reelection last year.

She joins Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit and former U.S. Attorney Mark Totten in seeking the Democratic nomination, which will be decided at a party convention next year rather than through a traditional primary. Attorney Kevin Kijewski is currently the only notable Republican running to succeed Democratic incumbent Dana Nessel, who cannot run again due to term limits.