primaries

Most of the top pick-up congressional districts have half a dozen of so Democratic candidates vying for nominations this cycle. And often there are multiple viable candidates, racing good money and putting together competitive campaigns. So how do you know who to support?

Sara Jacobs, the self-entitled heiress to the Qualcomm fortune, suddenly showed up in southern California a few weeks ago and declared what the race-- and Congress-- needs is another self-finding multimillionaire. And there's already a completely pointless multimillionaire in that race, Paul Kerr, a crony of one of California's worst (and richest) members, Scott Peters, who persuaded him to run. This is a district where the incredible grassroots work by Doug Applegate and his team last year exposed how weak Darrell Issa is-- and nearly beat him.

Chuy Garcia and Carlos Rosa, 2 of Chicago's bestProgressivePunch rates Jan Schakowsky's voting record an "A." This year she scores 100. And career-long she gets a 96.43, the 13th best score in Congress. The only other Illinois member with an "A" is Danny Davis. Robin Kelly has a strong progressive voting record as well. And Luis Gutierrez's isn't bad.

KDL knows exactly who's trying to undermine his campaignIt's no secret here in California that the Democratic establishment has moved ruthlessly to choke off money and support from Kevin de León's challenge to doddering conservative Democrat Dianne Feinstein. But no one's supposed to write about it.

Incumbents always-- always-- circle the wagons around other incumbents of their own party who are challenged in primaries. Even when they know the incumbent being challenged is a corrupt bucket of slime bringing disrepute on the party and on Congress, incumbents will turn their backs on worthy challengers. Have any elected officials given Tim Canova a hand against Wasserman Schultz?

The New DemsIf you've been with Blue America for enough years, you'll remember the excruciating battles we backed for Donna Edwards, Beto O'Rourke and Matt Cartwright when they took on corrupt old conservative Democrats in, respectively, Maryland, Texas and Pennsylvania. All three, running as reformers and progressives, prevailed.

VA-10 is one of the most flippable congressional districts anywhere. The district's PVI last cycle was R+2. This cycle the PVI is D+1. Obama beat McCain 51-48%, Romney beat Obama 50-49% and then Trump lost to Hillary by ten full points-- 52.2% to 42.2%.

Want to know some senators who are really not into the Trump agenda? Just check out the official Trumpanzee adhesion scale. These are the ones who really don't agree with almost anything he's attempting to do:

Once the most feared-- and loathed-- elected Democrat in Florida, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is still loathed but, well as one of the ultimate Florida political journalists put it yesterday at Politico, Florida Democrats are now saying "We wish she would go away and stop being so public by doubling down on negative stories... The chatter about a House leadership post is gone. So is talk of statewide office.

Nancy Pelosi used to be my own member of Congress. She was a lot more progressive-- even forcefully so, back then-- than my current member of Congress, her New Dem ally and former Blue Dog Adam Schiff. I used to vote for her regularly. Except for the first time he ran, I never voted for Adam. I never thought the day would come when I would urge my friends in San Francisco to vote against Pelosi. But this anti-Choice, pro-Blue Dog stand of hers and her puppet Ben Ray Lujan's was the last straw for me. And she happens to have an excellent primary opponent this time in Stephen Jaffe.