Four takeaways from a huge primary night

Rep. Thomas Massie’s defeat in Kentucky was the biggest story of Tuesday night’s primaries — but we learned more in other states. Four stories in particular stood out to me:

Progressives rode the gap in Philadelphia. Socialist state Rep. Chris Rabb triumphed in Pennsylvania’s 3rd District and will head to Congress next year; Republicans didn’t file a candidate in the deep-blue seat.

Rabb won with 44% of the vote, surging in the final weeks, as progressive allies like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigned for him. But like Analilia Mejia, who won February’s special election in northern New Jersey, he got help from the errors of centrist Democrats.

Now Philadelphia will send a far-left Israel critic to Congress, one who’s led protests of Gov. Josh Shapiro; he sat the race out, rather than cross the labor unions that stuck with one of Rabb’s centrist opponents.

Shapiro vs. the meddlers. It was a good night for the governor, a clear 2028 presidential contender — outside of Philadelphia. He endorsed four Democrats in swing-seat primaries, all of whom won, despite Republican hopes that anti-establishment anger could beat Janelle Stelson in Harrisburg or Bob Brooks in Allentown.

Brooks, the former leader of the state firefighters union, defied easy categorization. Bernie Sanders supported him, as did Pete Buttigieg, who’s been on a national tour for candidates he thinks can win swing seats with unique profiles. Opponents tried to make Brooks’ party backing a problem; when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee highlighted his race, his challengers and their endorsers accused it of meddling.

But Brooks won in a rout, taking 42% of the vote in a four-way race.

That’s promising for Democrat Johnny Garcia, a South Texas police officer whose opponent in next week’s House runoff has gotten nearly $1 million of help from one of the PACs that tried to take down Brooks. You will hear more about that.

Democrats’ nonpartisan flop in Georgia. Wisconsin Democrats made it look easy to elevate state Supreme Court races. Turns out that it takes work.

In Georgia this week, Democrats and their allies wanted to flip two state court seats with experienced candidates who ran on their best issues and got endorsements from Barack Obama and Kamala Harris.

The party lost both seats, as tens of thousands of Democratic voters opted to retain the GOP justices. One judicial candidate, who’d lost the 2022 race for attorney general by single digits, lost her court race by 19 points.

What happened? It’s clear that many voters simply didn’t know which candidate was backed by which party — only which candidates were incumbents. Did liberals realize that the incumbents were appointed by Republican governors? Maybe they should have; Georgia hasn’t had a Democratic governor since George W. Bush’s first term.

Could outside groups have done more? Possibly, but Georgia has (possibly unconstitutional) limits on what judicial candidates can say when they run for office. Voters heard a lot about the Democratic candidates violating that code of conduct by talking about abortion.

The resulting confusion helped the GOP. Democrats are now even angrier about a new law that will remove party labels from local races in the Atlanta area, but not in the more Republican-leaning parts of Georgia.

GOP boost in Oregon. Christine Drazan, the Republican candidate for governor four years ago, will have a rematch with Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek. On paper, Drazan’s chances look poor. But Republicans picked a well-timed fight over gas taxes this year, putting a measure on the ballot that floated a six-cent gas tax — once supported by Kotek.

But these days no Democrat wants to run on raising the gas tax. The electoral wing of the climate movement is focused on “affordability,” blaming Republicans for higher bills. Democrats did not mount a campaign for the tax hike, and it lost by a landslide; Republicans may benefit.