The ‘Outsiders’ Lost on Tuesday

But, at the end of the night, the “establishment” seemed to have won the battle (note that “establishment”, “outsider”, etc. are vague terms; I’ll describe how the divides played out in each individual race).

In West Virginia, state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (a favorite of ideological conservatives) won the GOP nomination, with Don Blankenship finishing in third place. Blankenship, a mining executive, likely would have been a hugely problematic candidate (he just finished a year behind bars for violating mining safety standards at a mine where 29 men died). He had no experience in elected office, ran against Washington D.C. (he also used terms like “China People” and referred to the Senate Majority Leader as “Cocaine Mitch”) and was thus generally considered to be “outsider.” And as of late Tuesday night, Morrisey had 35 percent of the vote to Blankenship’s 20 percent (Rep. Evan Jenkins also beat Blankenship, earning 29 percent of the vote).

In Ohio, Mike DeWine won the GOP gubernatorial primary against Lieutenant Gov. Mary Taylor. It’s hard to cast DeWine as an outsider – he’s been a state senator, a congressman, a senator the lieutenant governor, a U.S. senator and is currently the state’s attorney general. Mary Taylor, the state’s lieutenant governor, attempted to both run to his right and away from Gov. John Kasich (who had endorsed her). DeWine won that race. Similarly, Jim Renacci, a House member who has Trump’s endorsement, beat businessman Mike Gibbons and will now face Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown for his seat in November.

And on the Democratic side, Richard Cordray, the former Ohio state treasurer and attorney general who ran the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, faced off against Dennis Kucinich. Both men sported endorsements from the party’s left (Sanders’s “Our Revolution” endorsed Kucinich and Elizabeth Warren endorsed Cordray). But Kucinich wasn’t as close to the mainstream. He most recently made headlines for giving a paid speech to a pro-Assad group (he returned the money), but he’s also known for his various presidential runs, his early adoption of more liberal policies, claiming to have seen a UFO and more. Party leaders clearly preferred Cordray to Kucinich, and Cordray won his race by about 40 points.

The Indiana Senate primary was the only marquee race where an “outsider” won. Mike Braun, a businessman who had briefly served in the state legislature, beat two sitting Republican congressmen – Todd Rokita and Luke Messer. Braun made the case that his opponents were basically indistinguishable career politicians (one memorable Braun ad featured him hauling cardboard cutouts off his opponents around and asking Hoosiers if they could tell the difference between them) and (like his opponents) ran toward Trump.

But Braun is, in some ways, unlike a stereotypical outsider candidate. As far as I know, Braun (unlike Blankenship) doesn’t have enormously damaging baggage. So far I haven’t seen evidence that he’s outside the mainstream of the GOP on policy. He may or may not have been the first choice of the GOP leadership, but his nomination isn’t abnormal. Both the pre-Trump version of the GOP and the current iteration of the party have nominated politically inexperienced yet candidates who fit into the GOP mainstream (e.g. Rick Scott in Florida). And so far, Braun fits into that mold.

It’s also worth noting that mainstream figures have won other key statewide primaries during the Trump Era. In Virginia, Ed Gillespie, former RNC Chairman, managed to eke out a win over firebrand Corey Stewart in the GOP gubernatorial primary. On the Democratic side, Ralph Northam (who was more associated with the state-level Democratic elite) beat Tom Perriello (who, though the comparison was imperfect, seemed to try take the Sanders/outsider route). In New Jersey, Republicans nominated their Lieutenant Governor and Democrats got behind Phil Murphy, who appeared to have the backing of the many in the state party. In Illinois, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner managed to fend off a primary challenger (it’s hard not to cast a sitting governor as the establishment) and Democrats nominated J.B. Pritzker (who had support within his party).

Obviously there are exceptions to this pattern. Most notably, Roy Moore won the GOP Senate nomination in Alabama against Luther Strange (Strange had Trump’s endorsement, but he had his own set of problems). Gillespie almost lost to Stewart. And in North Carolina’s 9^th District, a GOP challenger beat a sitting House member. Most importantly, there are a bunch of Senate, House and gubernatorial primaries coming down the pike that might throw the pattern off.

But, on the senatorial and gubernatorial level, neither Trump’s election nor Sanders’s strong showing has caused upheaval in their respective party’s primaries.