Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) became the second member of “The Squad” (explained here) bounced from Congress in this year’s primaries (see story here). Earlier, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) lost his primary in New York. Both were victims of backlash against their criticism of Israel.
In Kansas, an election-denying “constitutionalist” sheriff was defeated in the Republican primary by one of his undersheriffs. Voters apparently were fed up with the sheriff “playing politics” and his three-year-long investigation of the 2020 election that went nowhere (see story here).
The last two Republican congressmen who voted to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6 insurrection, Dan Newhouse of Washington, and David Valadao of California, both survived their primaries, and both will face rematches in November with 2022 opponents.
If there are lessons to be learned, it’s not clear what they are. The Palestinian cause doesn’t have much traction in U.S. politics despite Israeli brutality, election deniers haven’t fared well at the ballot box, and Newhouse and Valadao benefit from unique (and different) voting characteristics of their districts. If anything, these election results reinforce previous status quos.