(CNN) Republicans They have their candidate in KentuckyDemocrats hold a majority in Pennsylvania and the 2024 GOP presidential primary is another showdown between the former president. Donald Trump and the State of Florida. Ron DeSantis In books.
Voters threw a pair of brushbacks to DeSantis on Tuesday, particularly in Kentucky, where the Florida governor’s eleventh-hour endorsement failed in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Back home in Jacksonville, Democrats tapped another DeSantis ally and elected the city’s first female mayor.
Philadelphia is now poised to do the same. Former City Council Member Cheryl Parker He defeated a pair of leading liberals in the process — to claim the party’s mayoralty from a deep field of Democratic candidates. Progressives did well in western Pennsylvania, but the entire party was able to celebrate a strong election result, with Heather Boyd’s victory preserving Democrats’ narrow control of the state legislature.
Here are 7 takeaways from the elections in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Florida.
Kentucky voters set the stage for the biggest gubernatorial race of 2023
Cameron’s victory It sets up one of the most important elections of 2023 and one with implications for 2024.
Beshear’s bid for a second term could be an important bellwether for next year, when his party defends Senate seats in other red states — Montana, Ohio and West Virginia.
Her father, a two-term governor, defeated Republican Gov. Matt Bevin in 2019. Republicans, however, argue that despite Beshear’s popularity, the November general election will be contested in the deeply red state.
Cameron on Tuesday said the Republican-controlled legislature deserves much of the credit for Beshear’s achievements.
“The governor can’t pretend he hit a triple when everyone knows he was born on the third floor,” Cameron said.
He previewed Beshere’s lines of attack in the upcoming election, citing crime, low labor force participation rates, fentanyl and schools “on the verge of becoming a breeding ground for liberal and progressive ideals,” he said. ”
Trump wins proxy battle with DeSantis
Former President Donald Trump endorsed Cameron early last June, throwing his support behind the 37-year-old attorney general.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, poised to take Trump to the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, entered the Kentucky race at the eleventh hour, endorsing Kraft.
Trump won the day and demonstrated his lasting influence with Republican primary voters — something Cameron acknowledged when he gave Trump a “huge thank you” at his election dinner.
“I’m saying the culture of Trump winning is alive and well in Kentucky,” Cameron said.
Cameroon can make history
If he defeats Beshear in November, Cameron could make history in two ways: the first black governor of Kentucky and the first black Republican elected governor in the United States.
He nodded to that potential history-making position on stage Tuesday night.
“For anyone who looks like me, know that you can accomplish anything. Know that your values are what matter in this country and in Kentucky,” Cameron said.
The attorney general’s national stardom came in a speech at the 2020 GOP convention. But Cameron, a onetime aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, proved his mettle in the 2019 attorney general race by defeating former state attorney general and House Speaker Greg Stumbaugh, a Democrat.
Democrats win Jacksonville mayor’s office
Florida may have swung right in recent elections — but a Democrat won Tuesday’s mayoral race in Jacksonville, the largest U.S. city with a Republican mayor.
Democratic ex-journalist Donna Deegan was defeated Former Republican state Rep. Danielle Davis is in Tuesday’s runoff, CNN predicts. She will become the city’s first female mayor after campaigning on a promise to increase transparency at City Hall.
Republicans have held the Jacksonville mayor’s office since term-limited Mayor Lenny Curry defeated Democratic Mayor Alvin Brown in 2015.
Jacksonville is consolidated with Duval County, Florida — meaning the county’s rural areas and red-leaning suburbs also vote in the mayoral race. Brown’s four-year term has been the only exception to how Republicans have held the mayor’s office since former Mayor Ed Austin switched parties in 1993.
The outcome in Jacksonville is another loss for DeSantis, who in March endorsed Davis, calling him a “proven law-and-order conservative who will tackle the city’s greatest challenges and capitalize on its greatest opportunities.”
Progressives make split decision in Pennsylvania
Progressive Democrats suffered a setback in Philadelphia on Tuesday, when the party’s mayoral race champion Helen Zimm failed to capture the party’s mayoral nomination in a landslide. CNN projects Former City Council member Cherelle Parker will win.
Weeks after Brandon Johnson’s victory in Chicago, progressives hoped to continue the Philadelphia rivalry in big-city races that began last year with the elections of Michael Wu in Boston and Karen Bass in Los Angeles.
Parker, a moderate Democrat now on track to become the first black woman to lead Philadelphia, had the support of the city’s black establishment and several influential unions. Jim and former City Comptroller Rebecca Rinehart seem to have benefited from splitting the more liberal vote.
But it’s not all bad news for the left in the Commonwealth.
Democrats in western Pennsylvania are poised to nominate state Rep. Sarah Innamorato as the next Allegheny County executive. His victory follows the election last year of longtime ally U.S. Rep. Summer Lee to Congress after Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey fired then-Mayor Bill Peduto a year ago.
Pennsylvania Republicans are going with a pro-establishment candidate in the Supreme Court race
Republican voters in Pennsylvania chose a candidate backed by the GOP establishment. An open state Supreme Court seatRejecting another Republican contender more closely aligned with a faction of former President Donald Trump’s party.
CNN is predicting a victory for Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas Judge Carolyn Carluccio in Tuesday’s primary, signaling a resurgence of the GOP’s more traditional elements in this presidential battleground state. He will defeat Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough, who briefly blocked certification of the state’s election results in 2020, and has the support of Republican Sen. Doug Mastriano, a key Trump ally who lost last year’s gubernatorial race. , in this election.
Carluccio now faces Democrat Superior Court Judge Daniel McCaffery, who won his primary on Tuesday.
Candidates are vying for an open seat on Pennsylvania’s highest court following the death of former Democratic Chief Justice Max Baer last year.
Denial loses Secretary of State race
Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams of Kentucky — who worked with Beshear and the GOP-led Legislature to expand mail and early voting and has won bipartisan praise during his four years in office — easily fended off a challenge to deny the election on Tuesday. .
Adams defeated Stephen Nipper, an information technology project manager, and former state lawmaker Alan Maricle, who made false claims of fraud in the Bluegrass State’s elections.
It will not be enough to stop the proliferation of false claims about how elections are conducted. Kari Lake, the Republican who lost Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial race, tweeted Tuesday that she was “hearing reports of problems from Kentucky during today’s elections,” without providing any evidence.
Adams will be the favorite as she faces former state Rep. Patti Wheatley, an unopposed Democrat for her party’s nomination in November.
