MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to talk about these primary results in more depth now with Kyle Kondik. He is the managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball. That's a newsletter published by the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Kyle Kondik, good morning.
KYLE KONDIK: Good morning.
MARTIN: So let's start in Wisconsin, where the Democratic primary for governor was tight. The state representative, Francesca Hong, had been the polling favorite. She didn't prevail. And this made me think about that Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, where the margin for the eventual winner was smaller than projected. So what happened here in Wisconsin? Was the polling just off again, or did something else shift the dynamics of the race?
KONDIK: I think the polling probably was off to a certain degree, with the sort of progressive candidate being overstated. But this was also a crazy, topsy-turvy race. And, you know, polls, we described them as a, quote-unquote, "snapshot in time." Well, the snapshot in time, you know, things kept changing, and there was a clear consolidation behind David Crowley, the eventual - the person who won the nomination, overnight.
And also, I think Francesca Hong had - she was a weak candidate who had a weak finish to the campaign. There was a lot of focus on some of the, frankly, kind of crazy things she'd said over the years, you know, talking about canceling Thanksgiving. And she tried to do some cleanup on that but wasn't particularly good at doing that. And so I just think a lot of Wisconsin Democrats who were concerned about electability swung toward Crowley. And, you know, that was the candidate endorsed by the sitting governor, Tony Evers, who comes out of this looking pretty good.
MARTIN: And now your - as, like, as a group, your group is now - what? - calling this lean Democrat, or how are you calling the - how are you looking at the general?
KONDIK: Yeah. So the - we'd had the Wisconsin governor's race rated as toss-up, but there are a lot of - basically, there'd been a lot of elections and developments in Wisconsin since Trump got elected again that have been really pretty good for Democrats and bad for Republicans, and it's a Democratic-leaning year. We figured that so long as the Democrats produced a credible gubernatorial nominee, they should be favored. So we actually moved the race from toss-up to leans Democratic overnight because Hong lost, basically.
MARTIN: So a moderate victory in Wisconsin, a progressive one in Michigan last week and also in Minnesota last night, where, as we just heard, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan won the primary for U.S. Senate where she beat Congresswoman Angie Craig. Do you draw any conclusions overall when you're looking at these results in the Midwest?
KONDIK: I think there is probably a battle for the party going on ideologically right now, but it's not one that necessarily you could say that either side is winning. I don't - I think the, quote-unquote, "establishment" in the Democratic Party is weaker than it's been in recent years, certainly. But the fact that Crowley was able to win in Wisconsin in what is really such an important race shows that, I think, the establishment and the sort of electability concerns do still have some juice on the Democratic side.
MARTIN: I'm thinking about the Republican side now where, you know, President Trump endorsed Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder and the Republican primary for governor of Minnesota. He lost. Trump backed Senator Darline Graham in the special South Carolina primary to fill her late brother's seat. She was the top vote-getter, but she still has to go to a runoff 'cause the margin was too thin. Just looking at those data points, not many, but those are two data points, does it say something to you about the state of Trump's influence in the party right now?
KONDIK: Certainly Republicans are still going to feel like they want to have Trump's endorsement if they can get it. But he has taken some losses in some of these endorsement races recently, and we're going to have this runoff in the South Carolina Senate race in a couple weeks. You know, Graham did finish in first, but she's, you know, 33%. You need 50%, you know, to advance without a runoff. So we'll have to see how that goes.
But particularly in some governors races, again, as we saw in Minnesota last night, you know, the president is not necessarily getting what he wants. And the Democrats are still a huge favorite with Amy Klobuchar in the Minnesota governors race, but, you know, Lindell would have been a particularly weak nominee.
MARTIN: So let's go to the Northeast now, and I want to flag this race where the Democratic congressman, John Larson of Connecticut, lost a bid to keep his seat. Now he's been in office for, you know, quite some time, I think, like, 15 terms or something like that. Now the former mayor of Hartford, Luke Bronin, ran on a message that Larson is just too entrenched in the status quo. Don't think there was politically that big of a difference between them. So what does this result tell you?
KONDIK: It does seem like there's a, you know, desire for new blood on the Democratic side, and I think a lot of that is probably based on seeing what happened with Joe Biden and how that that kind of, you know, messed up Democrats in the, you know, 2024 campaign cycle. And so we've also seen just a lot of House incumbents, in general, losing. The number is up to 10 or 11, basically depending on how you count total on both sides, which historically is quite a lot.
And redistricting has a little bit to do with that, but there a lot - also lots of other bigger things going on, including, I think, some desire for generational change on the Democratic side, which is what John Larson losing, I think, represented.
MARTIN: All right. Lots to talk about. You fit a lot in, so thanks for that. That's Kyle Kondik of UVA's Center for Politics. Kyle, thanks.
KONDIK: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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