Last week, two of the more conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives, Larry Kissell and Heath Shuler, faced surprisingly stiff primary challenges from candidates who raised literally no money:
On Tuesday in North Carolina, two Democratic House incumbents fared surprisingly poorly against left-wing primary challengers. From Public Policy Polling (emphasis mine):
The biggest story out of Tuesday’s election results in North Carolina was not anything related to the US Senate race, but the surprisingly weak performances by Larry Kissell and Heath Shuler in their primaries. Kissell received 63% and Shuler only 62% against candidates who did not have the resources to mount really serious campaigns.
The poor performances by Kissell and Shuler and where they did poorly- the most liberal parts of their districts- are a clear indication that there is significant unhappiness with them on the left. The question now is how that unhappiness will manifest itself this fall.
The candidates Kissell and Shuler faced, Nancy Shakir and Alixa Wilson, had raised a combined total of zero dollars as of March 31. Not even a single dollar.
These results suggest that there is a larger pool Democrats who are disgruntled at the incumbents in their own party than previously imagined. In fact, this pool of disgruntled Democrats might well be larger than the much more publicized tea party.
Over the past week, more evidence has appeared that the Democratic base is digusted with conservative Democratic incumbents. In Utah, conservative Democrat Jim Matheson has been forced into a primary challenge against a challenger who has raised less than 1% of his money:
It was a busy political convention weekend in Utah, with party activists feeling restless. Over on the Democratic side, five-term Rep. Jim Matheson was unable to reach 60% of the delegate vote at his party’s convention, forcing him into a primary for his house seat against retired high school teacher and adjunct college instructor Claudia Wright. And all this in the same weekend that saw Utah GOPers unseat their own incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett.
Matheson took 55% of the vote to Wright’s 45% — a stunning position for a nine-year incumbent. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Democratic activists were put off by the Blue Dog Matheson’s instances of voting against the Democratic legislative agenda, with his vote against the new health care reform law as one example.
“You’re angry about some of my votes,” Matheson told the convention, which responded with what the Tribune described as ironic applause. “But I’m a Democrat and I’m here to tell you I don’t run from that label because it’s in my blood.”
This morning, a poll shows that Blue Dog Tim Holden is receiving a similarly cool reception from the Democratic voters in his district. A new poll shows him leading Shelia Dow Ford, who has all of $6,607 on hand, 54%-27%. It is pretty stunning that Holden can only get 54% support in this district, even though he has been in Congress for 18 years and is running against someone who basically does not have a campaign.
Taken together, these four campaigns show that there is very fertile ground for progressive primary challenges against Blue Dogs. The base is sick of conservative Democrats who vote with Republicans (all four have Progressive Punch scores under 50% on crucial votes in 2009-2010, and all four voted against the health care bill). This is even the case in red districts (all four of these districts have lean-Republican, or strong Republican, Cook Partisan Voting Indexes). All four of these incumbent Democrats are surrendering around 40% of the primary vote to candidates who have raised virtually no money and who are not even able to run real campaigns. Imagine what could have happened if they faced strong primary challenges.
Over at FDL, Jon Walker thinks that Republican Party is now the hotbed of insurgencies against the institutional status quo. Well, I think the House results listed above, combined with the unfolding results in the Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina Senate primaries, shows that there is as much, if not more, fertile ground for progressive primary challenges in the Democratic Party. Progressives are getting 35-40% of the vote for free against Blue Dogs. The key is just that we have to be targeting Democrats who have voted against the party’s agenda from the right, rather than focusing on progressive Democrats for not bringing down the party’s agenda because it wasn’t progressive enough. Enough of the base is with us to win campaigns against the former, but not against the latter.
I am working on getting together some materials to help these primary challengers, and hope to launch a campaign to this effect later today. It is time for us to get into the fight. Stay tuned.
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