Kathleen Matthews, wife of MSNBC host Chris Matthews, was trounced Tuesday evening in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District Democratic primary, but her husband’s employer made no mention this defeat in its election coverage.
Polls closed in Maryland at 8 p.m. Tuesday, and State Sen. Jamie Raskin, 53, was declared the projected winner at around 11 p.m. that evening.
MSNBC’s only mention of Matthews’ role in the Maryland Democratic primary came when Chuck Todd reported Tuesday that she was one of three leading candidates to replace outgoing Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
Todd’s namedrop came before the polls closed, and well before she was declared the loser in the race.
Kathleen Matthews’ husband, who anchors MSNBC’s “Hardball,” took the evening off to be with her on election night.
When explaining Chris Matthews’ absence from the network that evening, MSNBC’s Brian Williams claimed simply that he had taken the night to attend to some “family business.” Williams made no mention of the fact that Matthews’ wife was running in the Maryland Democratic primary.
Raskin won Tuesday despite being outspent 6-to-1 by wine retailer David Trone, whose money this election cycle earned him the title of “biggest self-funding House candidate ever,” according to the Washington Post.
Trone, who spent an estimated $12 million on the race, came in second place, and Matthews came in third.
Raskin will face off against Republican attorney Dan Cox in the November general election for the House seat vacated by Van Hollen, who is running now to replace outgoing Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski.
After Raskin was announced the projected winner Tuesday evening, hosts Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow danced around Matthews’ electoral defeat.
The moment came early Wednesday morning as they discussed the Pennsylvania Democratic primary.
“[W]e saw a huge outpouring of establishment support for [Democratic senatorial candidate] Katie McGinty in that primary race — up to the vice president campaigning for her directly,” said Maddow.
“She was the ultimate connected insider,” Hayes responded. “She’s the chief of staff of the governor, so this is someone, absent those connections, it would have been hard to see her in the position that she is in. But, ultimately, she was able to use those to propel her to a victory among the actual voters, whose say matters in the end.”
“That wasn’t the case in, say, a place like, um, for instance, Maryland’s congressional district, Van Hollen’s vacated seat where it looks like Jamie Raskin, I believe, is in the lead right now, where [Trone], who had spent $12 million, dropped a lot of money and wasn’t able to win the seat, so the voters ultimately get a say on Election Day,” he added.
The MSNBC blackout came even after the House race had drawn national attention for being the “most expensive” of 2016, according to the Post.
MSNBC’s treatment of Kathleen Matthews’ loss also comes after months of questions about how the network would handle her campaign.
Guests featured on “Hardball” were found to have donated approximately $80,000 to her congressional bid, leading to rumors that Chris Matthews had turned his evening program into a pay-for-play operation, the Intercept reported in March.
“This kind of you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-your-back behavior is exactly what is wrong with Washington today,” Republican Aryeh Shudofsky told the Post at the time. “Chris Matthews has failed to be transparent about the relationship between ‘Hardball’ and Kathleen Matthews’s candidacy.”
An example of this questionable behavior included when Matthews twice used his show to promote the new Star Wars movie, “The Force Awakens,” after director J.J. Abrams and his wife each donated $1,000 to his wife’s congressional campaign.
Spokespersons for MSNBC did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
