More Key Primaries Ahead

Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/theresasthompson/2999130055/" target="_blank">Theresa Thompson</a> (Creative Commons).

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


While the Senate fields are set in Ohio and Indiana, more big primaries loom in the next week. Incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) could very well lose his seat on Saturday when he faces that state’s GOP nominating convention. If Bennett doesn’t do well enough there, he won’t even get to contest a primary. His crime: working on a bipartisan health care reform proposal with Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden. If the polls of the convention delegates are accurate, Bennett is doomed. He could soon become Utah’s first incumbent senator to lose his party’s nomination in 70 years. The message is clear: Democrats are the enemy, and any work with them—however inchoate—is a grave sin for a true Republican.

There are primary elections for three House seats in Nebraska and three in West Virginia next Tuesday. Of the incumbents, only Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), a 14-termer, faces a real challenge. Both Mollohan and his challenger, state Sen. Mike Oliverio, have released polls showing themselves with high single-digit leads.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this race is the dynamic: Oliverio is running against Mollohan from the right, and has even said he would support someone other than Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House. That’s a weird thing to say. The vote to  elect a speaker at the beginning of each session of congress is basically what separates Democrats from Republicans—it’s one vote when you really have to vote with your party. You can bet Nancy Pelosi will be the Dems’ “candidate” for speaker. And you can bet that she’ll expect Oliverio to vote for her.

Followers of Massey Energy, the coal company associated with the mining disaster last month, will be focusing on the Republican primary in another West Virginia district. In the north of the state, Elliot “Spike” Maynard, a former state supreme court justice, is running for the right to face incumbent Dem Nick Rahall. Maynard is famous for being photographed vacationing with Don Blankenship, the notorious Massey CEO, on the French Riviera while Massey was appealing a $50 million case to his court. 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate