Dems notch major special election win, 2 incumbents fall in big primary night

Democrat Pat Ryan has won a closely-watched special election in upstate New York, a promising sign for the Democratic Party looking to try to cling to power in Washington in November.

With over 95 percent of the expected vote counted, Ryan beat Republican Marc Molinaro in a swing district that President Joe Biden won by fewer than 2 points in 2020. The election was seen as the best and last temperature check of the national political mood with voters ahead of November, when Democrats will be defending narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate.

Even though the winner will only represent the district for a few months, the short-term result could have broader implications: Both parties competed heavily in the race. Ryan and outside groups backing his campaign centered the race as a referendum on abortion rights, while Molinaro — a highly sought-after GOP recruit — focused on inflation and the broader economy.

No single race months before November will accurately predict who will ultimately hold the House in 2023. But the win is a major boon for Democrats, and will likely further reaffirm Democratic candidates' focus on abortion rights leading up to the fall. It's also the latest in a string of House special elections in which Democrats have equaled or outperformed Biden's 2020 numbers in the district, in a boost to the party's political fortunes after months of sagging numbers.

Most of the other big races on Tuesday night have been called. Florida Democrats picked Rep. Charlie Crist to be their nominee to face off against GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has become a national Republican star and will head into the general election as a favorite — and as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.

And in Manhattan, Rep. Jerry Nadler defeated fellow Rep. Carolyn Maloney in a heated primary, after the two long-serving and powerful Democratic committee chairs were jammed together during redistricting.

Another Democratic member of Congress, Rep. Mondaire Jones, also lost in New York City on a busy primary night. But DCCC chair Sean Patrick Maloney was able to hold off a progressive challenger, as was GOP Rep. Dan Webster, who also faced a closer than expected primary in his Florida seat.

New Yorkers are also nominating candidates in up to a half-dozen November battleground seats, while Republicans are deciding primaries in a slew of open, safe House seats that will remake the Florida congressional delegation. And Oklahoma is holding primary runoffs, with Republicans selecting their nominee to replace the retiring GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe.

Here is the latest on Tuesday’s primaries:

A special election pulse check

Unlike the handful of earlier special elections, this district is hyper-competitive. Biden won the district by less than 2 points after Donald Trump carried it by around 7 points in 2016. The seat is open after Democrat Antonio Delgado, who first won the district in the 2018 blue wave, resigned from office to become New York’s lieutenant governor.

Ryan's victory in the marginal swing district suggests that Democrats have at least a chance of bucking both traditional midterm losses for the party that controls White House, and an economy that many voters say they still believe is headed in the wrong direction.

Democrats here focused heavily on abortion, from Ryan's campaign to the outside group VoteVets, which backed him with a $500,000 advertising buy. "Either you and I get out to vote for someone proven to fight to protect the rights and freedom of women, or we get a Congress that will pass a nationwide ban on abortion first chance they get,” the narrator of the VoteVets ad said.

The victory here, for Ryan personally, will be short-lived. Also on Tuesday night, he won the Democratic primary for a district adjacent, and more blue, than the one that sent him to Congress. Molinaro, too, will be back: He is the Republican nominee in this district, which has been reconfigured after redistricting.

There was also a second special election to replace former GOP Rep. Tom Reed in Western New York, where Republican Joe Sempolinski has been favored to win the red-tinted district over Democrat Max Della Pia. And while Sempolinski narrowly won, Della Pia overperformed Democrats' usual showings in the district.

Squaring off against DeSantis

Crist trounced Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried in Florida’s Democratic primary for governor, successfully brushing off her barrage of attacks that focused on abortion rights and Crist’s record when he was the state’s Republican governor.

This is the third time Crist is running for governor. He was initially elected as a Republican in 2006, and was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2014 before losing to now-Sen. Rick Scott. (In 2010, he also lost an independent Senate run to Republican Marco Rubio.) The affable 66-year-old congressman outflanked Fried on endorsements and was able to continually outraise her.

Crist spent most of his more than year-long campaign directing his ire at DeSantis, the ascendant Republican governor, and continually criticizing the incumbent for focusing on what he called culture wars instead of pocketbook issues, such as the state’s affordable housing crisis or rising insurance rates. But he did go negative against Fried in the closing weeks as well.

Crist, however, heads straight into an uphill battle against incumbent DeSantis, who is sitting on more than $130 million in his campaign account. DeSantis and Republicans have already ramped up their ad buys in anticipation of a sustained on-air presence between now and November, and his every move is watched closely as a potential candidate for president in 2024.

In his victory speech in St. Petersburg, Crist focused squarely on DeSantis and the looming battle ahead.

“So tonight the people of Florida clearly sent a message,” Crist said. “They want a governor who cares about them, to solve real problems, who preserves our freedom. Not a bully who divides us and takes our freedom away.”

Members of Congress in danger in New York

Nadler emerged from a bitter brawl with Maloney in New York’s 12th District, with Maloney lobbing attacks about Nadler’s fitness for office in the closing days of the race. Nadler tried to brush aside the attacks, and won a comfortable victory despite being well outraised.

Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the DCCC emerged victorious in a primary battle with state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who was backed by the progressive wing of the party angry at the DCCC chief for muscling out another member of the delegation during the late scramble over redistricting. Republicans believe they can make a run at Maloney in November.

Maloney’s decision to run in the 17th District displaced Rep. Mondaire Jones, who ran in a seat based in New York City instead of the Hudson Valley. The primary in that blue 10th District was crowded, and former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman ultimately narrowly won the open primary. Jones finished in third, behind Goldman and state Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou.

A Senate seat on the line

Oklahoma Republicans picked Rep. Markwayne Mullin to succeed Inhofe. He beat out former state House Speaker T.W. Shannon in the GOP primary runoff and will face former Democratic Rep. Kendra Horn in November. Mullin is the heavy favorite in the fall.

Setting up more House battlegrounds

New York also features a slew of potentially competitive House seats in November, after the state Supreme Court there threw out a Democratic gerrymander drawn by the state legislature. Now, a handful of seats will be competitive in November — and at the center of that is a trio of open seats on Long Island.

Turnover on the island’s delegation came from Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi and GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin’s gubernatorial runs — Zeldin is the underdog GOP nominee in November, and Suozzi got blown out in a primary against Gov. Kathy Hochul — and Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice’s retirement. Depending on the environment in November, all three could host competitive races.

In the race to replace Suozzi, Democrats picked DNC member Robert Zimmerman, while Republicans have rallied around financier George Santos.

Another New York district to watch is the 22nd, which is open after GOP Rep. John Katko announced his retirement. The district became a bit bluer in the redistricting process, with a crowded field led by Democratic nominee Francis Conole, who bettered his second-place in the Democratic primary in the area in 2020. It is not, however, a slam dunk for Democrats: Republicans landed on Brandon Williams, a millionaire who could put up significant resources for November.

Safe-seat scrambles

Florida has a slate of competitive Republican primaries in safe red seats, after an aggressive Republican gerrymander there put the party on track to pick up several seats. One of the most contentious has been the contest to take over Crist’s seat, where the Trump-endorsed Air Force veteran Anna Paulina Luna won the GOP primary. She's favored in the fall in the newly red district.

And in a surprise, Webster only narrowly beat Laura Loomer, a notorious conspiracy theorist, in a primary in Florida's 11th District. Webster's district includes The Villages, the central Florida retirement community and Republican stronghold that has been a huge presence in GOP politics in the state for decades.

Elsewhere, Democrat Maxwell Frost won a crowded open primary in the blue 10th District. The 25-year-old activist beat out a field that includes former Reps. Alan Grayson and Corrine Brown. Frost will likely replace Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) in the Orlando-based district after Demings easily won the Democratic Senate primary to face Rubio.

Another closely watched race in New York was the Republican primary in a safe red district upstate, where the controversial, bombastic businessman Carl Paladino lost narrowly to state GOP chair Nick Langworthy. Paladino, who had the support of House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, would have be one of the most abrasive members of Congress, and he has already begun to spread unfounded innuendo of "irregularities" in the race.

Gary Fineout contributed to this report.