The 2022 Senate Campaign: Updates

Some updates of interest:

• In California, VP Kamala Harris’ (D-CA) appointed successor, Senator Alex Padilla (D), will be facing attorney Mark Meuser (R), as expected, in Padilla’s first elective race for this seat. As this is a jungle primary, with the top two advancing to the general election, the primary also functions as a poll – at least for my purposes, which is to stay informed. The results: Padilla has 53.5% of the vote, while Meuser was well behind him at 14.3% of the vote, but no one else in the field had more than 6.7% of the vote. [Yahoo! Entertainment] Padilla just has to avoid stepping in potholes.
• In Georgia, the ability of a gibberish-spewing candidate to potentially successfully compete against a sitting Senator and pastor of a storied church continues as Senator Warnock (D) is tied with Herschel Walker (R) in a recent poll. Color me gobsmacked. Are Georgians really that lacking in self-respect?
• Something I didn’t know, courtesy a concerned, or maybe panicked, post by Erick Erickson: In Missouri, the primaries do not have a runoff if no one reaches 50% in a given race. One election, the winner moves on to the general without regard to the percentage of ballots won. And that means disgraced former Republican Governor Eric Greitens, currently leading in the GOP primary for the Senate nomination (June 8th on RealClearPolitics) by 6 points with 26% of those polled could win outright. But this Greitens ad may have thrown the Republican Senate primary into doubt, as it could alienate undecideds. Absent a strong Democratic contender, I do not think the Senate seat is in danger of slipping from Republican hands, but this is yet another, expected sign of a political party that, having lost its guardrails against extremism, is proceeding to eat itself, and won’t stop until only its own tail protrudes from between its fangs.
• North Carolina appears to feature a close race between Trump-endorsed Rep Ted Budd (R) and former State Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley (D), as MSN reports from ten days ago: The most recent polling for the Senate contest was conducted by Civitas/Cygnal on behalf of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think-tank. That survey showed Budd ahead by only 2 percent, well within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.95 percent. The Trump-backed Republican was supported by 44 percent of likely North Carolina voters compared to 42 percent that backed Beasley. Carried out from May 21 to 22, the poll included 600 respondents. That and another poll also cited were awfully darn small, though. Wait for bigger polls or bigger gaps before pinning your political identity on the results of this race.
• BayNews9 reports that incumbent North Dakota Senator John Thune Hoeven (R) won his primary easily and will face engineering professor and political newcomer Katrina Christiansen (D). This seems to change little in the political calculus.
• The Utah primaries have not yet been held, but the most likely matchup has been polled, and shows incumbent Senator Mike Lee (R) with a slight lead over Evan McMullin. Let’s wait a month and see if Senator Lee has incurred the wrath of Utahn voters, or merely a frown.
• Like Utah, Vermont primaries have not been held, but in this race for an open seat currently held by the Democrats, Rep Peter Welch (D) reportedly polls at 62%, while the likely Republican candidate, former U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, was favored by only 27%. I hadn’t heard of any Republican expectations of a pickup of the Vermont Senate seat, and that’s probably just as well.

Updates as warranted. No warranties apply.