#democratic-primaries

#democratic-primaries

Bill Cassidy, Louisiana's incumbent Republican senator, has been in Donald Trump's crosshairs since Cassidy voted to convict during the President's impeachment trial in the wake of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump has accused Cassidy, a physician by training, of being "disloyal" for declining to support a MAHA-aligned nominee for Surgeon General. Cassidy has also repeatedly clashed with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., over his attempts to overhaul the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to reduce federal vaccine recommendations.

Primaries are not an inconvenience, they are the foundation of democratic legitimacy. You cannot argue that democracy is on the ballot in November while narrowing democracy in the primaries from now through August. If a candidate is strong, they should be able to earn support in open competition.

It's no longer about them. Can I be honest, Jim? It's not about them? They have shown us time and time again this year that given the chance, they will cower. Given the chance they will capitulate. If they can find plausible deniability, they will give in the regime. At some point, we've got to ask ourselves, do we have self-respect? Are we willing to take no for an answer that they are unwilling to be the leaders that we need them to be?

said her "policy is the same policy we've had since I've been chair." "We have, in a small number of cases, gotten involved," DelBene said, noting that the DCCC endorsed now-Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.) over a more liberal primary opponent last cycle. But in "most of these cases," she added, "the voters are going to have the decision on who the primary candidate is going to be."

Former House Rep. Cori Bush thinks she knows why Democrats lost last year, and how they can win in 2028. Sure, the former Squad member also lost last year-she got primaried by another Democrat in August, after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee threw at least $12 million behind her opponent because she had been an outspoken critic of Israel's actions in Gaza.

Party leaders recruit the best option, in their eyes, and Democratic primary voters-innately terrified of risk and trusting of their leaders' judgment-fall in line. It doesn't always work out. Sometimes, like North Carolina's Cal Cunningham in 2020, the chosen ones have zipper issues. But Democrats' establishment-driven approach, contrasted with Republicans' less top-driven (and more mistake-prone) strategy for candidate selection, did give Democrats four years in the Senate majority from 2021 to 2025,