Another round of primary elections meant more big wins for women this week, notably in the commonwealth of Virginia where there are no Democratic women in Congress currently.
But Tuesday night may have changed that, come November.
Democratic women won three House primaries in Virginia last night. This is just the latest example of the party’s surging female demographic in the Trump era.
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Democrat Jennifer Wexton, a state senator, now goes up against vulnerable incumbent Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock in VA-10.
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Democrat Abigail Spanberger, formerly of the CIA, will challenge Tea Party sensation Dave Brat, who famously won his VA-7 seat by knocking out former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
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Democrat Elaine Luria’s primary win gives her a shot at unseating GOP Rep. Scott Taylor in a VA-2 general election battle between two Navy veterans. (Another Democratic woman, Leslie Cockburn, previously locked up the VA-5 nomination at the party convention; a book she wrote with her husband years ago on US-Israeli relations has led to questions about whether she is anti-Semitic.)
Also in Virginia, former Hillary Clinton running mate, Tim Kaine, will compete for re-election to the U.S. Senate against controversial GOP nominee Corey Stewart, who’s best known for things like defending Confederate monuments and appearing with Jason Kessler, organizer of the Charlottesville white nationalist rally during which counter protester Heather Heyer was hit by a car and killed.
There’s a sexist narrative brewing in North Dakota:
In another notable win, North Dakota Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp will now go on to face GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer in a bid for another term. Heitkamp is already in a tense situation just based on the numbers, given that Donald Trump won her state by 36 points and she’s trying to keep her job while balancing her relationships with both her president and her party.
But there’s an added layer to the story framed around Heitkamp’s interactions with Trump—and the fact that she’s a woman. Per a Washington Post report, Cramer is upset that the president gave Heitkamp a shout-out and a handshake at the recent banking bill signing. He also accused her of being “insecure” and trying to stand as close to Trump as possible during the event.
“Have you ever watched the video? It’s obscene,” Cramer told the Post.
Taking it a (sexist) step further, he insinuated that the President’s treatment of Heitkamp is based on the fact that she is a woman. “I do think there’s a little difference in that she’s a woman,” Cramer said. “That’s probably part of it — that she’s a, you know, a female. He doesn’t want to be that aggressive, maybe. I don’t know.” Bear in mind, Trump has had no qualms getting politically aggressive with women in the past. Just ask Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand.
Or Claire McCaskill, as Heitkamp herself points out. “Well, that wouldn’t explain Claire. I think she’s a woman, right?” Heitkamp said of the Missouri Democratic Senator, whom Trump has criticized. “That theory falls apart almost immediately.”
Needless to say, this race will be an interesting one to watch over the next few months.
Here are the other primary results you might have missed from around the country:
In South Carolina, Rep. Mark Sanford conceded a close GOP primary in which Trump had endorsed his challenger, Katie Arrington. Trump hate-tweeted against Sanford while the polls were still open, reminding SC-1 voters of the weird scandal in which Sanford (then the married governor of South Carolina) went off the grid and lied about being on a hiking trip when he was really hanging with his girlfriend in Buenos Aires. Arguably, it was an ironic line of attack for a president who has been married three times and repeatedly called to task for infidelities, but the Sanford upset might also highlight the price Republicans can pay in the 2018 midterms for being critical of Trump.
Also in South Carolina, Democrat Archie Parnell won a four-way primary for the chance to go up against GOP Rep. Ralph Norman in November. This is all despite his admission that he abused his ex-wife 45 years ago in an incident she said made her fear for her life and which led to their 1974 divorce. The Democratic Party and Parnell’s campaign staff shunned him after his history came to light, but he says his SC-5 win shows people believe, “You don’t have to be defined by your worst mistake. You don’t have to be cast aside. You are not alone. You can be better. And, together, we can be better.”
In Maine, Janet Mills is currently leading in the Democratic primary for governor. Mills is the first female attorney general of Maine and, if elected governor in November, would be the first woman to hold that office. However, Maine is trying out ranked-choice voting for the first time in this race, and a winner hasn’t been called yet. (Under this setup, also known as the instant runoff system, voters pick a first choice, a second choice, and so on. If no candidate wins an outright 50% of the vote, they distribute the votes of the candidates at the bottom of the list until someone gets a majority and is declared victor.) Elsewhere, the mayor of Waterville, Maine survived a recall vote after having tweeted “Eat it” at Florida student David Hogg while sticking up for Laura Ingraham amid the ad pullouts generated by her post-Parkland remarks about guns.
In Nevada, Democratic philanthropist Susie Lee will go up against GOP businessman and repeat candidate Danny Tarkanian to fill the NV-3 House seat of Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen, who is now her party’s nominee to topple incumbent GOP Senator Dean Heller. That could be a tough race for Heller, who is seeking re-election as a Republican in a state that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
And so, the march to the November mid-terms continues.
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