Good analysis of Democratic primaries

By Robertand Zunliang Chu Warden in the FB Hartmann bloggers forum. I'll copy and paste it below:

"According to the primary schedule, 38 states have already had theirs, with 12 more to come in the next few weeks. Thus, although this post ideally should have been done before any of the primaries, I will have to settle for a discussion about 3/4 of the way through the primary season, in part due to summer vacations that I took. But there is an advantage in looking at primaries which have already been concluded, as well. We can assess how they have been going.

"For the dream of progressive governance, ideally there should be a big blue wave of progressives running and winning in primaries. How has this panned out so far? In general, it has actually gone fairly well, despite accusations of the Democratic establishment favoring moderate Democrats or worse. One great thing about the primaries is that they are done democratically, with those getting the most votes being advanced to the general election. Moreover, primaries are crucial in that this is how the actual candidates for the general election are selected. This is progressives voters' chance to get as many good progressive candidates as possible onto the general election ballot.

"Actually, not every state has primaries done by party to select candidates for the general election. In two states, liberal California and liberal Washington State, the top two vote getters are advanced to the general election regardless of party affiliation. Nebraska has a top two system for in-state races, but not for federal races, while Louisiana apparently does not really have a primary, putting everyone on the ballot for the general election, and having a runoff if nobody exceeds 50% of the vote. These alternative systems are more open to allowing candidates with less moderate positions on the issues, including progressives, to win elections, because they often end up being elections between candidates of the same party. In California and Washington State, this translates into 2 Democrats often running against each other, one more progressive than the other, or even a Democrat running against a Green Party candidate.


"The general sense from articles on the 2018 primaries tend to mention three trends. One is that there are far more women running, especially as Democrats, then ever before in the primaries, and about half of them are winning their primaries. While this doesn't necessarily bear directly on the progressive versus moderate issue, it clearly has indirect effects. Women tend to support more progressive positions in politics in general, and thus are more likely to be Democrats than are men, for instance. Women also tend to support womens' issues such as keeping abortion legal, fighting sexual abuse or gender discrimination, equal pay for both genders, etc. Thus, we can look forward to a Congress -- as well as state legislatures around the nation -- which favor these progressive positions more than they have in the past, along with having more women legistaors than ever before.

"The second trend is that more progressives, perhaps inspired by Bernie Sanders' run for the presidency, and perhaps also motivated by the practically daily alarming turns of events that they witness in government currently, are running for office. While the Bernie Sanders wing progressives don't seem to be winning primaries at a rate that is any higher than moderates, they do seem to be winning their share of races, doing about as well as moderates. By the very fact that there are more progressives running than ever before, we are seeing more of them move on to the general election, and thus, probably more progressives winning their elections and expanding the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is at the least, very good news. While certain candidates such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have received the most attention, there have been a steady stream of progressives winning primaries all around the nation, in significant if not great numbers. The following article focuses on Rashida Tlaib, for instance, a Muslim American woman who is a Bernie Sanders style progressive. She just won her primary in Michigan and is likely to be elected to Congress this November (https://pjmedia.com/…/winning-primary-for-conyers-seat-ber…/
).

"Thirdly, even "moderate" Democrats have become more liberal in their stands on the issues. I would argue that this is the most encouraging trend of all for progressives. While we can expect that members of the Progressive Caucus, for instance, will still be a minority of Democrats (or politicians of any party) who are elected, when even "moderates" adopt what used to be (over the past several decades) almost exclusively progressive positions on economic, social and foreign policy issues, we know that we are seeing a massive change in the political zeitgeist in favor of such policies. The following article makes this point as well, using the example of Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan gubernatorial candidate who beat a more progressive opponent and thus represents the "establishment;" however, the "establishment" has shifted its goal posts to the left, so that candidates such as Whitmer endorse much more liberal positions than they had in previous decades. When adopting democratic socialist positions on all manner of policy becomes the norm in the Democratic Party, the fight over the soul of the party will have been won by the left, and that appears to be what is happening, albeit gradually and against opposition by many long time establishment Democratic politicians (https://thinkprogress.org/progressives-won-d365103f8f49/
).

"Overall, I would say that progressive voters, and Democratic voters in general, have been doing their jobs this primary season, in preparation for what is likely to be a successful midterm election -- at least if we define success as Democrats picking up seats in Congress. Of course, hopefully, it will be a huge blue tidal wave, but we need to exercise caution in making predictions. I think that a blue tidal wave is possible, but not very likely. (Unpredictable events between now and the election may still alter its trajectory, most likely in favor of Democrats.) However, Democrats are almost certain to pick up quite a few seats in the House of Representatives -- probably enough to win the majority despite gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. -- and maybe even what they need in the Senate to take the majority there. After that, it's onward to liberalizing at least to some extent the politics in Washington D.C. while repudiating the Republican agenda, and looking toward the 2020 election."