The presidential primary may be decided, but election season continues.
Voters in several states, including Maryland and West Virginia, chose candidates Tuesday in crucial races that could determine the balance of power on Capitol Hill next year.
Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s primary election:
HOGAN: GAME CHANGER OR SACRIFICIAL LAMB?
Former Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan easily won his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate seat opened by the retirement of Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin. Normally the Senate race in the heavily Democratic state would be a thorn in the side, but Hogan is a candidate like no other Republican.
During his two terms as governor, Hogan won a significant number of Democratic votes and remained popular in much of the left-leaning state. He is a harsh critic of Trump, which endears him to a portion of the Democratic electorate and can blunt attacks from the left. That’s why Senate Republicans campaigned tirelessly for him to run for the newly vacated seat as part of their plan to wrest control of the chamber from Democrats, who currently hold a two-seat majority.
Candidates with bipartisan appeal like Hogan used to be a staple of national politics, but they are quickly disappearing at a time when voters routinely vote for a clear party line rather than individual politicians. In the last two presidential elections, only one senator – Republican Susan Collins of Maine – won a state that also supported a presidential candidate from another party.
There have been recent cautionary tales about governors from popular, moderate minority parties failing to win Senate seats in recent elections. This is evidence that voters are far more willing to choose their party policies for federal office than for state office. In Montana and Tennessee, former Democratic governors Steve Bullock and Phil Bredesen ran for open Senate seats in deep red states in 2020 and 2018, respectively. Both lost badly.
The Maryland version of this is likely to see Democrats, who previously praised Hogan’s anti-Trump stance, portraying him as a threat to abortion rights and entitlements because he has announced he would join forces with Republicans, which could give the Republican Party a majority in the Senate. That could make it challenging for Hogan to win a state that Biden won by 33 percentage points.
Still, Hogan will undoubtedly shake up the Senate map and put Democrats even more on the defensive. They must defend three seats in states won by Donald Trump, including a newly vacated seat in Trump’s top state, West Virginia.
HISTORY IN MARYLAND
Hogan faces Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, who won a comfortable victory in a contentious primary in which she was heavily defeated.
If she wins in November, Alsobrooks would be the first black senator from Maryland, which has one of the largest black populations in the country. The only Black woman currently serving in the U.S. Senate, Laphonza Butler of California, is stepping down after her term ends in December. The chamber has three black male senators.
Alsobrooks defeated Rep. David Trone, who spent more than $61 million of his own money on his Democratic primary bid for Senate. She overcame Trone’s financial advantage by winning the support of the state’s top Democrats, including Gov. Wes Moore, Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Steny Hoyer. She advocated for growing economic opportunity, education and abortion rights and criticized Trone for donating to Republicans across the country, including those who oppose abortion rights.
Trone, 68, who is white, has had his share of stumbles, including a racial slur in front of a black witness during a House committee hearing. Trone said he tried to employ a similar-sounding word.
THE SENATE WILL BE TRUMPIER
The biggest change in the U.S. Senate may have already occurred Tuesday evening when West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice officially won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
Manchin was a centrist Democrat who was a lightning rod for the left and the right, but survived politically as his state moved far to the right. It is likely that he was the only Democrat to win a Senate election in the state and that the Justice will now replace him.
That will tip the Senate even further toward Trump, regardless of whether the GOP flips additional seats to give it 50 or more senators. Trump backed Justice, a wealthy coal magnate turned Democratic politician turned Republican whose folksy demeanor and ubiquitous English bulldog named Babydog endeared him to West Virginia voters.
Like Trump, Justice has been plagued by legal controversies – his companies have been sued for failing to pay their debts and tax authorities have placed liens on his property. And like Trump, Justice has deviated from GOP orthodoxy. He welcomed the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed by Biden and has become a cornerstone of the incumbent president’s campaign. That earned him attacks from his rival, Rep. Alex Mooney, but it wasn’t enough to blunt Justice’s advantages.
Justice will join a Senate Republican caucus that has become increasingly Trumpier as critics of the former president have retired and been replaced by allies who are winning the party’s primaries. It’s impossible to predict how he’ll vote on every issue, but in this respect he fits Trump’s mold.
THE GHOST OF HALEY
It’s been two months since former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ran for the GOP presidential nomination, but she continues to pick up votes from Republicans who don’t want to cast their vote for former President Donald Trump.
After polling an impressive 15 percent in Indiana’s Republican primary last week, Haley received tens of thousands of votes in West Virginia and Maryland on Tuesday night. Maryland, a highly educated state bordering Washington DC, is particularly well suited to Haley’s less ideological, technocratic approach. But even then, Haley’s strength is a real eye-catcher.
The continued votes for Haley could be a warning sign for Trump. Even as the Republican Party coalesces around him, a portion of its voter base still wants to vote against him. However, it is possible that many of these voters are already Biden voters who simply decided to vote in the GOP primaries and find joy in embarrassing Trump. If that’s the case, the protest vote in November won’t mean much.
Biden was the target of his own protest campaign against his handling of the war in Gaza. Disillusioned Democrats have urged primary voters to cast their ballot “no-strings-attached” if the option is available. It was in Maryland, but the percentage of those votes was relatively low.
In West Virginia, Biden won clearly, but about a fifth of the Democratic electorate chose other candidates. That’s not unusual for a sitting Democratic president in a historically Democratic state that leans heavily to the right – Barack Obama won just 59% of the Democratic primary vote there in 2012, when he was running for his second term.
