Three Senate primaries to watch on Super Tuesday

[RandySF]

Alabama’s Republican primary

More than half a dozen Republicans are vying for their party’s nomination to take on Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) in November, but leading the pack is former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who’s looking to take his seat back after it flipped for Jones in 2017.

Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville and Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) present perhaps the most significant primary challenge to Sessions, who was forced out as attorney general in 2018 amid simmering tensions with President Trump over his decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. And the race was thrown a curveball last summer when Roy Moore, the former state Supreme Court chief justice, jumped into the race.

Moore was the Republican nominee in the 2017 special election to replace Sessions. But his campaign was handed a loss after allegations emerged that he had sexually assaulted and pursued romantic relationships with teenage girls decades ago, when he was in his 30s.


North Carolina’s Democratic primary

The Democratic Senate primary in North Carolina has largely unfolded as a two-way race between former state Sen. Cal Cunningham and state Sen. Erica Smith.

Cunningham has the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and has repeatedly outraised his opponents, raking in more than $1.6 million in the last three months of 2019. Smith, by comparison, raised just under $80,000.

But Cunningham’s fundraising advantage and institutional backing hasn’t translated into an outsize lead in the polls. What little public polling there is in the primary shows a tight race between the two.

One Fox News survey released in November showed Smith leading her top rival 18 percent to 13 percent. Trevor Fuller, a former chairman of the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners, received 10 percent support in that poll.

More recent surveys from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling, however, show Cunningham with a widening lead. One poll from the firm in January put him ahead of Smith by a 10-point margin, and another one released last week showed him ahead by nearly 20 points.

Adding to the intrigue of the race is the involvement of Faith and Power PAC, an outside group with apparent ties to Republicans that is spending upwards of $1 million on advertisements supportive of Smith’s Senate bid.


Texas’s Democratic primary

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) brought Democrats closer than they’ve been in years to picking up a Senate seat in Texas in 2018, when he narrowly lost to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Now, a dozen candidates, encouraged by O’Rourke’s performance, are hoping to seize on the state’s changing political landscape and electoral clout to oust Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

Among the top contenders for the Democratic Senate nomination are MJ Hegar, state Sen. Royce West and Annie Garcia, according to a recent Dallas Morning News–University of Texas at Tyler poll. But no candidate has managed to break away from the rest of the pack, and other candidates, like Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, have stepped up their efforts in recent weeks.

Hegar, perhaps the most high-profile candidate in the race, has run a campaign geared more toward the general election against Cornyn. She has significantly outraised her rivals, bringing in nearly $1.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, and has the endorsement of the DSCC.

But Hegar was snubbed this week by The Dallas Morning News’s editorial board, which threw its recommendation behind West and former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards.



https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/482669-three-senate-primaries-to-watch-on-super-tuesday

[eleny]

1. Thanks for all you do to keep us informed!