Another Tuesday, Another Primary

Today sees another slew of primaries in no fewer than five states, but by far the most watched election today will be Mississippi's Republican primary runoff election, due to its status as pretty much the last chance for the Tea Party to knock off an incumbent Republican, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's stunning loss in VA-7 two weeks ago notwithstanding. As you might have read before, Mississippi's GOP primary was a nailbiter in which state senator Chris McDaniel would have knocked off longtime incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran were it not for Mississippi's runoff law, which states that should no candidate receive 50% + 1 of the vote, a runoff election between the top two finishers must be held to determine the winner, much like in Georgia. 

 

That runoff is today, and from the looks of it McDaniel is favored to win the runoff. My average has him leading Sen. Cochran 49-44, with about an 85% chance of victory for the Tea Party-backed McDaniel. And not only is McDaniel doing at least as well as Sen. Cochran in all polling (the worst he's done is trail Sen. Cochran by one point, well within the margin of error), his performance has been remarkably consistent: barring one poll from NSON Opinion, McDaniel has remained in the high 40s to low 50s ever since the primary. Similarly, Sen. Cochran, barring one poll, has remained in the low-to-mid 40s since the primary. In other words, neither candidate seems to have any momentum: McDaniel isn't going down, and Sen. Cochran isn't going up. And that, of course, is good for McDaniel, who has the lead and looks ready to maintain the lead as the polls open. MCDANIEL VICTORY

Other states:

• Colorado: 1 Senate, 1 governor, 7 House. Nothing big really happening here: incumbent Sen. Mark Udall and his GOP challenger, Rep. Cory Gardner, are unopposed in their primaries. The only real race here is to decide which of four Republicans gets nominated to run against incumbent Gov. John Hickenlooper, who, despite being a liberal governor in a still decidedly purple state, is heavily favored for re-election.
• Maryland: 1 governor, 8 House. Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley is term-limited here (just as well for him, seeing as he has presidential ambitions for 2016). Despite this, both the Democratic and Republican primaries to succeed Gov. O'Malley look pretty much settled, with Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown and 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate Lawrence Hogan favored to win their respective primaries.
• New York: 27 House. New York holds its state and local primaries in September, and because neither Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand nor Sen. Chuck Schumer are up for re-election this year, the only seats with primary elections are the 27 seats New York has in the House of Representatives. Most of these primaries are fairly uninteresting, but one that some New Yorkers have been watching is the Democratic primary. There's a very real chance that 21-term incumbent Rep. Charles Rangel could lose renomination due to various violations of House ethics rules and an official censure from the House Ethics Committee. However, he still leads in polls, and should he lose Democrats can count on the fact that the district, which consists of Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, is the second-most Democratic leaning in the country with a Cook PVI of D+42. RANGEL VICTORY
• Oklahoma: 2 Senate, 1 governor, 4 House. Incumbent Republican Gov. Mary Fallin won election in 2010 with over 60% of the vote and looks set to do just as well this year, if not better. She faces only token opposition as well as a no-name Democratic challenger, state Rep. Joe Dorman, in one of the deepest of red states. In the class 2 Senate election, incumbent Sen. Jim Inhofe is also ready to win renomination for a fourth term. The only relatively unclear election is the Republican primary in the special election to succeed Sen. Tom Coburn, who announced that he would resign by the end of the 113th Congress. Here it appears that Rep. James Lankford has a slight lead over the rest of the Republican pack, albeit one that has diminished since January, when a Harper poll put him 36 points ahead of state Rep. Tahrohon Shannon. But is Rep. Lankford's lead enough to put him over the 50% required to avoid a runoff? He could possibly pull a Joni Ernst and hugely outperform previous polling. But probably not. RUNOFF, LANKFORD LEAD
• Utah: 4 House. Nothing to see here. Move along.