The most important race of the Democratic primary season is June 14!
No really. I mean it. Not in terms of whether or not D.C. has any impact on the Presidential race, but there’s some stuff brewing in Nevada that Democrats should be watching — a key indicator of just how much power Sanders and his supporters will have in the Democratic Party going forward. On June 14, Democrats in Congressional District 4 have some pretty interesting choices in a race that pits an establishment choice against a Bernie Sanders choice against a philanthropic wild card who might just get through.
When Sanders had finally had enough of being ridiculed for how little he had promoted down ballot candidates, he mentioned three, one of whom is Lucy Flores. She is a self-labeled progressive — lord, I’m beginning to hate that word — whose main focus is education. But mostly she is her story. Latina. Her mother abandoned her. She turned to gangs. Stole a car. Went through parole. Impressively turned her life around to get degrees and become an assemblywoman. Her story got her pegged as a rising star by no less than Harry Reid and she was his hand-picked candidate to run for Lieutenant Governor in 2014. If you don’t know, the 2014 mid-term elections in Nevada were disastrous for Democrats. Republicans won across the board — Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Treasurer, Secretary of State and both State houses. Still, her loss was particularly brutal — 60% to 34% — and many felt that her lack of substance behind the story was the reason.
Actually, my respect for Flores grew after her appearance at the NV State Democratic Convention and her statement directly afterwards was a model of what Sanders statement should have been. Although it received much appreciation, it also caused more than a few, um, rebukes, from some of Sanders’ more colorful supporters.
The next candidate on the list, Ruben Kihuen, is Harry Reid’s current golden boy. He’s young. He’s a good speaker. He has the endorsement of the pretty powerful Culinary Union, perhaps in part to his mother’s long time membership, and he also has a story that echoes parts of Flores’ story. He is Latino and through the work of his parents plus the promise of the American Dream, he has found his way to being a true rising political star. His primary focus appears to be economy and wages with a strong union bent. He is also a super delegate who has pledged for Clinton. He has all the right ingredients for a politician but there is also something overly polished about him that personally turns me off a bit.
Both of these candidates have already won elections and have probably been as effective as possible within the quirks of local politics. In Nevada, the state legislature meets once every 2 years. Both are promising, although Flores’ loss in 2014 is probably the major reason why the Democratic establishment threw their support to Kihuen in this race. And according to many, she was destined to lose this race until Sanders threw her weight behind her. After that, “Flores reported raising more than $428,000 in the first few weeks of April, which dwarfs the amount that she and her two main primary opponents each raised in the first three months of the year.”, according to this article.
The philanthropic wild card is Susie Lee. She has an interesting background — she was one of eight children from a working class background who worked from an early age and, with the help of scholarships, paid her own way to earning a masters degree is public management. Her fortunes changed significantly when she married her husband Dan, a casino CEO. She has a lot of support from the Nevada community for her work in education, particularly from the success of a program she started that drastically reduced high school drop-out rates. Significantly, she is the one who received the endorsement from Emily’s List even though this organization backed Flores in the Lt. Governor race. This is huge but she remains outside of the two main Democratic forces at play and has used much of her own money to stay competitive.
Early voting concluded on Friday, June 10 and the final day of voting is Tuesday, June 14. Even as late as Thursday, June 9, Jon Ralston of Ralston Reports said that he would not be surprised if any of these three candidates won. All three have run a pretty strong campaign, with Flores coming on strong after the Sanders endorsement. All three did fairly well in their debates on Ralston’s show.
So what does all this mean? Well, Nevada is a really purple state and District 4, while Democratic leaning, also encompasses some very rural parts of Nevada. Cresent Hardy is the current Congressional Representative but no one expects him to keep the seat in the general election. So this race really does provide a clue about the direction of the Democratic Party. Will Kihuen win? Proving the strength of Harry Reid and the establishment? Will Flores win? Proving that Sanders followers are willing to show up and vote for a race that doesn’t actually have Sanders name on the ballot? Or will Lee, my personal choice, win? Proving that someone with enough money and a good track record can upend both major power players.
Of course this one race is just a small picture on a large screen. Both Kihuen and Flores are Hispanic, which is particularly significant in Nevada. Both Flores and Lee are women, although it’s more unclear whether or not that that will factor into the voting. I’ve now seen all three speak and they are all pretty effective. More than who wins, it might be interesting just to see the margins — particularly for Flores. If Sanders coattails are too short, it will prove to many in the establishment that they were right to be distrustful of the staying power of the movement. It’s a lot to put on one race and it’s not necessarily fair but Sanders created this situation by targeting just a handful of people as being worthy of his endorsement. In fact, it may be the perfect race to watch since it doesn’t have someone who raises the ire of the Sanders’ coalition (i.e. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz).
Any major change in the profile in either of the two main political parties is usually a slow-moving process but every four years, there’s a chance to take a step in a definitive direction. It was much expected that the identity of the Democratic Party would remain an extension of Obama’s pragmatic leftism. Given the fact that Hillary Clinton is, by a distinct margin, the choice of the majority of the Democratic Party, one can certainly make the argument that the identity hasn’t changed much. But there are some threatening that the Party needs to embrace their ideals more fully to get them on board with Clinton. Whether or not the left wing has the power to reach the West Wing will depend a lot on how well they do in races just like this.