Tuesday's primary elections: Three key takeaways

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WASHINGTON — With polls closed in eight states across the country, the biggest primary of the 2018 election ended with a surprise in Alabama and fresh signs of a banner year for female candidates. 

The biggest question remained unsettled early Wednesday morning: Would Democrats be able to avert an electoral shutout in key House races in California, where the state’s open primary system could lead to GOP-only general election races in the fall.

But even as the California results trickled in, returns in other states delivered these  messages from the electorate: 

Loyalty to Trump matters

If there was any doubt that the Republican Party was now the party of Donald Trump, Tuesday’s results in a deep-red Alabama congressional race should put it to rest.

Incumbent Republican Rep. Martha Roby came under fierce fire in her GOP primary for withdrawing her endorsement of Trump in the 2016 presidential race, after the after the Access Hollywood tape revealed his boasts about grabbing women by the genitals without their consent.

Those attacks took their toll, and Roby was forced into a runoff on Tuesday after failing to win the GOP nod outright. Her opponent will be Bobby Bright, a one-time Democratic congressman, who ran ads accusing Roby of turning “her back on President Trump when he needed her the most.”

Roby is the second Republican incumbent to stumble so far this election cycle.

In May, North Carolina Rep. Robert Pittenger became the first incumbent of 2018 to lose a primary. He was defeated by a former pastor, Mark Harris, in a race where both men competed to align themselves with Trump.

Democratic women are winners

Democratic women again won in Tuesday’s election, and they stand poised to make history. In New Mexico’s gubernatorial race, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham won a three-way Democratic primary — easily defeating two male rivals: state Sen. Joe Cervantes and former media executive Joe Apodaca.

If Lujan Grisham were to win in November, she would become the first Democratic Latina elected governor.

Another possible female first in New Mexico: Deb Haaland won the Democratic primary for the state’s 1st Congressional District. In a seat that heavily favors Democrats, Haaland could be the first Native American woman elected to Congress.

In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill, an ex-military helicopter pilot, won the Democratic primary in a congressional race that promises to be a key battleground in November. A female Democratic candidate also won in Iowa and another was leading in early returns in Montana.

The results could build on an already apparent trend in 2018, with Democratic women winning surprise primary victories from Kentucky to Nebraska. 

On the GOP side, Rep. Kristi Noem won the Republican primary in South Dakota, where she could become that state’s first female governor if she beats Democratic state Sen. Billie Sutton in November.

California’s open primary system a question mark

In 2010, California voters approved a referendum ending its traditional partisan primary system, where Republican voters take GOP ballots and Democrats select nominees from their party’s slate. Instead, the state adopted an “open primary” system, where voters all get the same ballots and the top two vote-getters advance no matter their party affiliation. “It will free legislators from their ideological straight-jackets, so they can meet in the middle and get things done,” then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a 2010 statement promoting the open primary initiative.

Proponents in California said it would encourage more independent voters to participate in primaries and it would lead to more moderates winning elections, because candidates would not have to woo their liberal or conservative party extremes to win primaries.

But there’s no clear trend in that direction. The open primary system has instead led to super-crowded contests where one party or the other faces the risk of getting shut out of the general election.

In Tuesday’s contests, voters could select two Republicans in several key House races, and they could pick two Democrats to compete in this fall’s gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races.

“This system is called a ‘jungle primary’ for a reason: It is brutal and unpredictable,” Andrew Gumbel, a California-based journalist, wrote in a recent Los Angeles Times opinion column. “In three high-profile House races, there are so many candidates from the two major parties eating into one another’s support that the election results may end up owing more to chance than any discernible will of the people.”

More: From New Jersey to California, voters have their say in hotly contested primaries

More: Sen. Jeff Flake hopes Republicans in Congress start talking back to Trump after primaries

Previous primaries: Blankenship loses, voters want to drain the swamp and more: Takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries

 

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