Primary Evidence

Voters go to the polls today for primaries in Ohio, North Carolina, Indiana, and West Virginia, where the race to watch is whether or not Republicans will nominate a convicted felon of a mine owner whose safety practices were so bad they killed 29 miners. 

The last-minute push to scuttle Blankenship’s bid — including Trump’s tweet on Monday — is a good barometer of GOP concern. While there’s been no public polling in the final two weeks of the race, internal surveys indicate Blankenship has bounced back into contention for the Republican nomination after an initial GOP barrage knocked him off his perch in April.

There’s also concern that the two other major candidates — Rep. Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey — will split the anti-Blankenship vote evenly. Trump’s tweet notably did not take sides, instead urging voters to back either alternative.

Blankenship’s baggage is obvious: He was convicted of violating safety standards after the Upper Big Branch mine disaster, which killed 29 miners, and was only released from jail a year ago. After his release, he settled in Nevada, not West Virginia. More recently, he’s referred to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) in television ads as “Cocaine Mitch” and made racially charged comments about McConnell’s family.

Manchin has won five statewide elections in his career: one for secretary of state, two for governor, a special election for Senate and a full term two years later. Seeking reelection in a state Trump carried by a whopping 42 percentage points, Manchin could be in the fight of his political life — unless the GOP nominates the wrong candidate.

In Ohio, there are primaries for Governor and for the special election to replace GOP Rep. Pat Tiberi, who up and quit last year to take a lucrative lobbyist job.

A proxy battle between former House colleagues has stirred up the special election to replace Rep. Pat Tiberi in Ohio, pitting old foes against each other in this Republican primary.

Rep. Jim Jordan, a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, has lined up behind Melanie Leneghan in the Republican primary, while Tiberi is boosting Troy Balderson, a state senator. Multiple outside groups are involved on both sides, and Jordan and Tiberi appeared in dueling TV ads for their endorsed candidates. Tim Kane, a first-time candidate and veteran who’s self-funding his bid, could also win, having avoided the increasingly bitter back-and-forth between Balderson, Leneghan and their allies.

But Balderson backers say that if Leneghan gets the GOP nomination, she’ll put Ohio’s 12th District — a Republican seat for decades — at risk in the Aug. 7 special election, by alienating suburban Columbus voters in a district that President Donald Trump won by 11 points in 2016.

Republicans are closely watching the Democratic primary, where Franklin County Recorder Danny O’Connor led the pack in fundraising. O’Connor told POLITICO in March that he wouldn’t be supporting Nancy Pelosi’s leadership, a move that mirrors Rep. Conor Lamb’s strategy in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Like it or not, Nancy Pelosi isn't too popular here in the Rust Belt.  Conor Lamb showed you can run against her as a Dem and still win, although all that ended up doing for Lamb was to open the door for Republicans calling on him to switch parties.  The real race here is the Democratic primary for Governor though.

The Democratic gubernatorial primary in Ohio has basically come down to two contenders: Richard Cordray, the buttoned-up former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief, and Dennis Kucinich, the left-leaning former congressman. Cordray has support from a broad range of “establishment” Democrats as well as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and he has talked up his time protecting Americans’ wallets at the CFPB, but Kucinich has framed himself as the only candidate who can energize grassroots progressives in the primary — and blue-collar voters in the general. A number of Bernie Sanders backers have jumped behind Kucinich, including the nonprofit group Our Revolution.

Both candidates have hit each other for various progressive apostasies — Cordray’s old “A” rating from the NRA, Kucinich’s words of praise for Trump in the past — but the primary has largely been a contest about which type of populism best fits the political moment in the Democratic Party, and whether the candidates can muster sufficient enthusiasm from general election voters to give Democrats a new foothold in the heart of the Midwest this November.

Cordray has more money, more endorsements, and more support in the sparse public polling that’s been available — but Kucinich has lurked within striking distance.

Kucinich is a freight train full of toxic waste, and the fact that Bernie and Nina Turner and Our Revolution are backing him -- despite the fact that he openly thinks DOnald Trump is right on a number of "economic anxiety" issues -- tells me everything I need to know about how utterly worthless Kucinich, Sanders, and Our Revelution all are.

I hope Cordray wins by 90 points, because there's zero way ol' Dennis the Menace here doesn't hand the state back to the GOP for another four years.  Cordray will probably not win in November, but Kucinich will lose guaranteed.

We'll see.