It succeeded in elections for City Council in San Diego, governor in Pennsylvania and U.S. Senate in Latest Hampshire.
Campaigns to raise a preferred opponent — and sometimes trashing a more feared adversary — permeated the 2022 election.
The move often raises ethical questions, together with pragmatic concerns that it could backfire. Regardless, meddling in primary elections to knock out a potentially stronger opponent is a time-honored maneuver in politics. And each time a campaign tactic works — as this one did for a lot of candidates this 12 months — expect to see more of it.
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San Diego City Councilmember Jennifer Campbell could have secured her re-election in June when an independent committee waged a negative campaign against Lori Saldaña, a high-profile San Diego political figure who has served within the Assembly and run for numerous other elected positions.
A Democrat like Campbell, Saldaña is a former chair of the Sierra Club’s local chapter who has a powerful following amongst progressive Democrats, and her criticism of development has appealed to neighborhood groups.
San Diego’s bipartisan political establishment views Saldaña as a disrupter and lined up behind Campbell with an overarching goal of taking down Saldaña within the District 2 council primary. A campaign was launched that each attacked Saldaña and promoted Linda Lukacs, a little-known Republican dentist and political neophyte.
That helped Lukacs finish second in the first and advance to Tuesday’s election with Campbell within the heavily Democratic district. Though vote-counting continues, Campbell held a snug lead as of Friday and, in need of an abrupt change within the tally trend, will probably be elected to a second term.
The opponent-selecting gamble on the national scene was a much greater deal, in fact, and was certainly one of the explanations Democrats had a better-than-expected night on Tuesday.
Republicans are still heading in the right direction to win a House majority — by slightly, not by the big margins once projected — though that’s not a certainty. On Saturday, Democrats held the Senate when it was determined Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto won re-election, so control of the upper house won’t be determined within the Georgia Senate runoff in December.
The Senate picture could have been different if Democrats hadn’t helped retired Army Gen. Don Bolduc win the Republican Senate nomination in Latest Hampshire. Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan was viewed as vulnerable, and Democrats targeted moderate Republican Chuck Morse in the first.
Bolduc had stressed his opposition to abortion and his belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. In the overall election, he tried to downplay the previous and flipped on the latter, but Hassan didn’t let voters forget where he stood and portrayed Bolduc as an extremist. She won by about 10 percentage points.
Bolduc had other problems. Republican leaders were split on whether he should receive major party support.
Within the swing state of Pennsylvania, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro spent considerably within the May primary to be sure Republican Doug Mastriano can be his opponent in November. Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, financed ads geared toward the MAGA crowd that touted Mastriano’s opposition to abortion, mail ballots and his insistence that the 2020 election was stolen
“If Mastriano wins,” certainly one of the ads said, “it’s a win for what Donald Trump stands for.”
Shapiro spent more on the spot than Mastriano’s entire primary TV budget, according Mark Z. Barabak of the Los Angeles Times. Mastriano advanced to November, where he was worn out in a 14-point Shapiro landslide.
In the course of the primaries, The Washington Post said Democrats spent tens of thousands and thousands of dollars assisting Trumpist candidates in no less than 13 races. Seven of those efforts failed, but six succeeded.
Some Democrats questioned whether the cash can be higher spent on behalf of their very own candidates. Others criticized the maneuver as an underhanded deception, even when legal. And still others said it’s not well worth the risk since it could help elect an extreme candidate who advantages from the exposure.
This tactic and debate are familiar in California. In 2002, California Gov. Gray Davis’ re-election was unsure. He faced a possible strong challenge from former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican. In the first, the Davis camp successfully attacked Riordan, which helped the more conservative and campaign-inept Bill Simon advance to the overall election. Davis was re-elected.
In 2018, then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom associated Rancho Santa Fe businessman John Cox with President Donald Trump in TV ads geared toward conservative audiences, Barabak noted. That helped Cox finish ahead of Newsom’s fellow Democrat, Antonio Villaraigosa, within the state’s top-two primary. Newsom easily defeated Cox in the overall election.
This type of thing doesn’t all the time go in response to plan. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sought to spice up Republican challenger Eric Early on this 12 months’s June primary. The incumbent ended up facing the more moderate Republican Nathan Hochman, a former assistant U.S. attorney general, but still won easily.
Then there was the 1966 California gubernatorial election. Gov. Pat Brown figured his hardest opponent can be San Francisco Mayor George Christopher, a Republican. (Yes, it’s hard to imagine there was ever a Republican mayor in San Francisco.)
In response to The Latest York Times, Brown maneuvered to assist a more conservative candidate win the Republican primary. He viewed his opponent as a light-weight and dismissed him as “just an actor.”
That November, Ronald Reagan was elected governor.
Tweet of the Week
Goes to Charlotte Alter (@CharlotteAlter) of Time magazine.
“Chuck Grassley, 89, who was born before the invention of the chocolate chip cookie, will serve one other six (6) years within the Senate.”