The Briefing, Vol. XIV, Issue 22
This week:
- California primary features Spencer Pratt, social media sensation
- Iowa GOP governor race could go to convention
- Democrat buyer’s remorse over perverted Platner
Governor 2026
California: Although voting is already well underway and results will not come quickly tomorrow night, tomorrow is technically Election Day in California. The late polls — and there have been six released in just the last week — offer divergent results, but all show the same three candidates at the top of the jungle primary field, whose top two finishers will advance regardless of party. Most polls do not point to Republicans being locked out of the general election, but one of the most recent does hold it forth, at least as a possibility.
Either way, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra (D) must be favored to move on to a runoff against Steve Hilton (R), in which Becerra must be favored. Becerra has recently taken steps to distinguish himself in the Democratic field — especially against his strongest Democratic competitor, environmentalist billionaire Tom Steyer (D) — by suggesting he will abandon the state’s planned 2035 ban on selling new gas-powered cars.
Note that the high-interest primary election for mayor of Los Angeles might help drive a bit of extra turnout for the statewide contest. By nature, this should help Democrats, since the city is very Democratic, but it could also come disproportionately to Hilton’s benefit, since newbie candidate and social media sensation Spencer Pratt appears very likely to make the runoff in his race. In fact, he might even finish first over incumbent Mayor Karen Bass (D) and Democratic Socialist Councilwoman Nithya Raman (D), although he would definitely face an uphill battle in the November 3 runoff election.
Iowa: The working assumption in this race — a quiet one for people outside the state — had been that Rep. Randy Feenstra (R), who represents the heavily Republican northwest corner of the Hawkeye State, would win it going away. But multiple local news sources suggest that perhaps none of the candidates will reach the 35 percent threshold, in which case the race goes to a state convention. A late poll has Zach Lahn (R) — the Turning Point USA-endorsed candidate and transplant from Kansas — narrowly leading a pack that is bunched up around the 20 percent mark.
Michigan: Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan (D) dropped his independent candidacy for governor, which scrambles the dynamics of the upcoming general election. On the Republican side, Rep. John James (R) has a convincing but not insurmountable low double-digit lead over former Attorney General Mike Cox (R) and businessman Perry Johnson (R).
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) is perceived as a lock for the Democratic nomination, even though there is a paucity of reliable polling in the Democratic primary.
Senate 2026
Iowa: Whereas Ashley Hinson (R) is a lock as the Republican nominee, the Democratic primary is more competitive. State Rep. Josh Turek (D) trailed for a time, but the race seemed to break in his direction in April, when he took his first lead over state Sen. Zach Wahls (D). Turek is expected to prevail in tomorrow’s primary.
Maine: For Democrats, there is good news, and there’s bad news.
The good news for them is that a new poll from the University of New Hampshire has Graham Platner (D) leading incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R) by nine points, 51 to 42.
The bad news — well, for almost any negative story you can imagine about Platner, there seems to be a well-documented and accurate story about him that is much worse.
Platner’s sexting with “several” women behind his wife’s back is just one more needle that opposition researchers have found in what appears to be a veritable haystack of needles.
Add that to Platner’s Nazi tattoo, his shirtless photos in his account on Kik (a platform known for a young clientele and problems with predatory adults), his online boasts about masturbating in porta-potties, his firearms training of Antifa fanatics, and his disparagement of decorated soldiers, blacks and rural Mainers.
Platner, a wealthy son of privilege who attended elite schools and whose mother buys the lion’s share of the oysters he farms as a hobby, has enjoyed something of a media-fueled Kamala Harris-style ecstasy recently. But the real stories about this man will likely bring opinions of him down to earth — and then perhaps much farther down than that. After all, if we’re hearing about all of this now in May and June, there is likely much more being saved up for October. To think, not long ago, while seeking the Democratic nomination against Maine’s sitting governor, Platner had been telling everyone he had nothing to hide.
Leftists seem to have fallen in love with this man mostly because he has an extremely raspy voice that makes him sound manly. Although Platner leads in the polls for now, eventually his problems will catch up with him. And the worst part for them is that his polling lead over Collins almost guarantees they are stuck with him.
Michigan: With his only primary opponent disqualified for handing in a fraction of the required signatures, former House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R) is now the presumptive nominee. That gives him a leg up as Democrats in a three-way primary spend the next two months destroying each other. The most recent poll, released by TIPP on Sunday, has Rogers trailing all three Democrats (two of them very narrowly), but its results are a bit odd, as it gives Haley Stevens (D) an unusually large lead in the Democratic primary (10 points) and in the general election over Rogers (7 points).
In most other surveys, Rogers leads Abdul El-Sayed (D) and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D), and he has led Stevens in two of the last three polls released since May 1. He will definitely be competitive.
Texas: Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) decisive victory over John Cornyn (R) could be viewed as a challenge for the state Republican Party to win a race with a flawed candidate. But the truth is, in the current political environment, either Paxton or Cornyn would have struggled against state Rep. James Talarico (D). And as we had been arguing all along, Cornyn really had no path to the 50 percent mark. One President Trump actually endorsed Paxton, it became a fait accompli.
In the lower-turnout runoff, with Trump’s backing, Paxton was impressively able to hang on to almost the same 900,000 of votes as he had received in round one back in March.
Still, the news in that comparison is not all good. Although Talarico has many weaknesses as a candidate that are already being exploited — his vegan campaign to save the planet, his belief that God is nonbinary — there is one more thing to say in his favor that should worry Republicans: Looking back to the March 3 primary, which was hotly contested on both sides, Democrats managed to turn out more voters at just over 2.3 million (a record) than Republicans did at just under 2.2 million.
Although Talarico leads in the first post-primary poll, Paxton should still be favored to win this race. Even so, it will not be cheap for Republicans to hold on to this seat, which is a must-win for them if they are to maintain their Senate majority.
House 2026
Alabama: Despite the Supreme Court’s recent ruling against racial gerrymandering, a federal apeals court ruling has blocked the state from using its old Congressional map, which had just one Democratic district. The state has taken the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving the final result in doubt for the moment.
South Carolina: Plans to redistrict the Palmetto State and carve up the racially gerrymandered sixth district were scrapped last week until the next election cycle. Georgia is likewise delaying until next year its reckoning for racially-drawn districts that fall afoul of the new Supreme Court precedent in the Callais v. Louisiana decision.
