New York primary results challenge 2018 narrative
WASHINGTON >> New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo bested actress Cynthia Nixon by an almost two-to-one margin Thursday to win the Democratic primary for a third term. Remarkably, he finished four points higher — with 66 percent of the vote — than he did four years ago against Zephyr Teachout, a then-obscure law professor who raised almost no money and received a tiny fraction of the attention that has been bestowed on the former “Sex and the City” star.
Cuomo’s handpicked candidate, Tish James, also beat Teachout in the four-way primary for attorney general by 10 points. And his running mate, the moderate former congresswoman Kathy Hochul, beat back a strong challenge from New York City councilman Jumaane Williams.
This week’s final batch of 2018 primaries ought to temper, at least somewhat, the over-torqued conventional wisdom that a liberal insurgency is taking over the Democratic Party.
On Wednesday in Rhode Island, Gov. Gina Raimondo defeated Matt Brown, a former secretary of state who wholeheartedly embraced Bernie Sanders’s platform, by 24 points.
On Tuesday in New Hampshire, former state senator Molly Kelly easily defeated former Portsmouth mayor Steve Marchand to win the Democratic nomination for governor. Kelly was the establishment favorite, and Marchand called her insufficiently progressive.
Like Kelly, congressional candidate Chris Pappas also had the endorsements of the top elected Democrats in the state, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan. Pappas, a member of the state’s executive council, handily won the Democratic primary Tuesday to replace retiring Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, beating Obama administration alumna Maura Sullivan — who outraised him and had the support of national progressive groups.
Yes, 10-term Democratic congressmen Mike Capuano and Joe Crowley lost their primaries.But Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, the women who slayed them, are more exceptions than the rule.