Catalina Lauf’s bid to be youngest elected to Congress in jeopardy if TX-28 challenger wins
Today is Super Tuesday, when 14 states will cast their primary/caucus ballots in the now 5-person race for the Democratic presidential nomination. With three candidates dropping out since Saturday, the race for the White House is down to Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Mike Bloomberg and Tulsi Gabbard.
Remembering the first “Super Tuesday” back in 1988, and one of the consequences of front-loading the primary schedule was down-ballot primaries, and today is the first set of congressional primaries in nearly all of the 14 states, there’s more to watch today than the Democratic presidential race.
This POLITICO article is a good guide to the congressional races, but one that has more than one indirect impact to Illinois is the Texas 28th district Democratic primary pitting long-time incumbent Congressman Henry Cuellar against the potential new AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) seeking to duplicate AOC’s upset of a longtime conservative Democrat.
Meet Jessica Cisneros, and if she prevails today and wins in November, she will be the youngest ever elected to Congress, even should 14th district candidate Catalina Lauf prevail here in Illinois. Both women were born in May of 1993, but Cisneros was born a few days after Lauf.
But the bigger Illinois indirect influence is the Cisneros challenge to Cuellar is very similar to the Marie Newman challenge to Congressman Dan Lipinski in the 3rd district here in Illinois. Progressives are trying to oust centrist, pro-life Democrats, and like the Cuellar-Cisneros challenge, AOC is openly backing the progressive.
Unlike the head-to-head matchup in TX-28, IL-03 Democratic primary is a 4-way primary which helps Lipinski, and unlike many southern states, Illinois is winner-take-all.
Given several southern states (Texas, Alabama, etc.) are casting congressional primary ballots, there are strong possibilities congressional primary runoff elections may be needed to settle the nomination.
Those who may not be familiar since Illinois primaries are winner-take-all, in many southern states in down-ballot races, the party’s nominee must win a majority of the primary vote today. If not, a primary runoff, will take place, in most states balloting today who require a majority nominee on March 31.
And many times, the person who forces the runoff after the primary is the one who wins the election, like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz in 2012 and Congressman Dan Crenshaw (TX-02) in 2018. Both came in 2nd in the initial primary ballot, both won their respective runoffs.
Given the open 22nd district of Texas has 15 Republicans running for the safe Republican seat, there will be a few runoffs across the south as a result of today’s voting.
And today, three members of the “Conservative Squad” of Republican women face the voters in contested races: Mischelle Fishbach (MN-07), Jessica Taylor (AL-02) and Beth Van Duyne (TX-24).
Speaking of the 24th district of Texas, commenter D J, frequent contributor to McHenry County Blog is in the middle of the open seat primary in the TX-24 since he lives in the Dallas area, so hopefully, we will hear from D J and others in the thread about Super Tuesday.
Feel free to comment at any time, D J, and if you go to your precinct caucus after the polls close tonight, please let us know how that goes, too.
External POLITICO link:
And speaking of Catalina Lauf, she sent out this tweet on the similar topic of today’s congressional primary:
I don’t know how many times I’ve sung the praises of Beth Van Duyne for Kenny’s TX-24 seat.
I yell at the TV a lot, so I kinda lost track.
Identity Politics is what gave us the failing policies of Barack Obama.
WHO CARES ABOUT “YOUNGEST” “First Black, Hispanic, Woman, Gay, Transgender, Alien, one eyed purple people eater, etc etc. Wow!
The thing THINKING PEOPLE care about is whether you are intelligent, seasoned, mature and experienced enough to do the damn job!
Leave the identity politics to the idiots who voted for AOC and Underwood.
The ones that were upset when either of them won are hypocrites for voting for someone much like that in order to win the seat away.
It doesn’t work that way.
They think they’re ‘fighting like a Democrat against Democrats’.
Laughable.
Just give me the one I can call Trustworthy, Constant, with a plan and a platform!
Who does not Lie, pander or plagiarize !
And one who is successful in their own right.
The only one that passes all the smell tests is MARTER for the 14th!!
The day I start considering the [first/youngest/oldest/highest/__st] for my vote is the day I should have my voter registration card revoked.
D J, please keep us posted throughout the day and tonight. Does Texas still conduct the “precinct caucus” where the precinct chair (what we call “committeeperson”) conducts a meeting on platform positions to take to the county convention, in your case Dallas County? Are you the precinct chair in your Dallas County precinct?
I remember back in the early 90s, the precinct caucus wanted to at first, continue to fund the fighters against the Ortega regime of the Sandinsta government in Nicaragua. Problem was, the Endara government was legitimately in place, recognized by the Bush Administration, and support needed to be to the Endara government. The precinct chair had to cast a tie breaking vote to adopt my motion to support the new legitimate government of Nicaragua whom the USA helped put in place.
Russellville and eminclake, I would agree, but on many of the interviews Catalina Lauf did last fall, including FOX News, the interviewers chose to talk about the novelty Lauf would be if nominated and elected this year.
If Cisneros wins, Lauf would not have the novelty, and frankly, I do not think she would mind losing it.
Russellville, I would agree with the qualities you want to “call” in a candidate, but I have disagreements that person is James Marter, concerning the 14th district race.
I saw the comparison piece in his mailing from over the weekend, and given some of the whoppers he said in that mailing about some of his opponents…
let’s just say you and I have different interpretations of honesty and integrity.
That article is on my to do for this week, so you’ll see what I mean.
Sad.
D J, I guess congratulations are in order for you and the Republican primary voters of the TX-24.
Beth Van Duyne won the 5-way Republican primary in your district with 64% of the Republican vote, thus avoiding a primary runoff.
I know the Democratic side has two women in a runoff in the district, but Van Duyne won her primary with an exclamation point.
One thing is certain, the replacement for Congressman Marchant will be a Congresswoman, and with your help, the TX-24 will be red.
I saw Genevieve Collins won the TX-32 primary, which includes the eastern Dallas area in a seat to challenge freshman Democrat Congressman Collin Allred.
Hopefully, Collins can flip the seat.
And a little to the south of you, but a grandson of George H.W. Bush, Pierce Bush, lost his bid to be in a runoff in the open Republican seat there in the TX-22.
Looks like there will not be a Next Next generation of Bushs after all in public office in DC, as the great grandson of Prescott Bush has lost.
Will be doing an update of this article, and possible indications of what may happen in Illinois’ 14th district primary on March 17, given the results from around the country in down ballot congressional races.
Please give us any first-hand information from the front lines in TX-24, like how did your precinct’s convention/caucus last night go?
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/03/establishment-edge-out-aoc-candidates20/
This sounds like something you might be interested in.
Correcting, if you follow me in Twitter you’ll know I’ve been tweeting about TX-28 and Henry Cuellar defeating Jessica Cisneros but the margin was close, 52-48.
Definitely AOC’s first high-level/congressional test. The next one will be Dan Lipinski vs. Marie Newman in Illinois on March 17.
But what also may be of interest is how conservative “movement” candidates like Catalina Lauf fared on Tuesday, and while the Stop the Squad candidates, that include Lauf, has not yet had their primary, and Lauf will be the first in that group to be tested, the Conservative Squad did have two of their four members in contested primaries yesterday.
Beth Van Duyne won her race as previously commented above.
But Conservative Squad leader Jessica Taylor of AL-02 lost her bid to be in the runoff.
She is the most Lauf-like candidate as she was an outsider and lost to a current state representative and a former state representative.
If the AL-02 Republican primary is a barometer/predictor for IL-14, then the conventional wisdom will hold and Jim Oberweis or Sue Rezin will win the primary.
Geneva political consultant Jeff Ward published his predictions for key area races today, and for the 14th, he is still predicting an Oberweis victory in the primary, though for the first time, he mentioned Sue Rezin with the word “notwithstanding”, so he’s seeing Rezin as Oberweis’ only real threat to winning the nomination.
He showed it again at the forum Monday night, and Rezin shot back about Oberweis’ wife’s Florida residency.
I’m guessing Ward has seen the mailers from Ted Gradel, but Gradel didn’t even get a mention.
Thank you for the link.
I think I’ll use it in my follow-up article on this topic.
Fortunately for Lipinski, there are 3 other Democrats running. Darwish, Newman, Hughes.
Newman is his major opponent but the three of them should split the anti-Lipinski vote and he should be able to hang on again.
That seat is going Democratic regardless of who wins the D or R primary though.
Warren just got out.
We’ll see if she endorses Biden, Sanders, or nobody.
Correcting, thank you for relaying.
Got pretty busy with the campaign finance stories, including Sue Rezin’s press release, and background for them.
Reached a break, as none of the other candidates have filed their pre-primary reports yet.
Knowing Tulsi Gabbard is not even on the radar, though she hasn’t dropped out yet, we’re down to Biden and Bernie.
One wonders, do you think the two men will announce their VP/running mates early?
If Warren goes to Sanders, will it be unveiled as “Sanders-Warren” and motivate young progressive voters even though both are in their 70s?
As for Joe Biden, given it was black voters who turned his campaign around in South Carolina, he is being seen as needing to have a black woman on his ticket.
I firmly believe Stacey Abrams is the leading choice, though Senator Kamala Harris and Ohio State Senator Nina Turner are being talked about now as potential Biden running mates.
A few others are being floated too, but to insure the core/base of Democrats turns out in November, I agree Biden would be best served to have a younger black woman as his running mate.
Don’t know anything about Turner.
Harris, former prosecutors can be seen as vulnerable, and that “snatch their patent” quip against pharmaceutical companies in Iowa late last year could come back to haunt her.
That leaves Abrams, who is the youngest of the three black women at age 46.
Given Biden’s age, he really needs to have a young running mate, and while Turner is 52 and Harris is 55, the younger the better.
Also, a deep south black woman, who had the near miss to be governor of Georgia in 2018, and she may be the Democrats’ best chance to break into the south.
What does this have to do with IL-14?
If Biden does select a black woman running mate, and since Lauren Underwood has the novelty of being the youngest black woman ever elected to Congress, Illinoisians may want to help make 2020 the year of the black woman?
I know Underwood said she would run separate from the presidential nominee, but that was said primarily if Sanders was the nominee, not Biden.
And Biden did campaign for Underwood in 2018, and a black woman running mate and the two women come to McHenry County to campaign together?
I think that would be possible, especially to show a Biden-? ticket will save and expand the House marjority in Congress.
Maybe Mr. Lopez should move to Kentucky or deep woods Alabama where his views are more acceptable.
No UnderwoodNow, God wants me here in Illinois to advance His agenda and His choice for President in Donald Trump.
I can understand why many of my fellow Hispanics have flocked to Sanders’ campaign, which is sad.
Will pray all people will see the Light from above and support President Trump in the fall.