Welcome to the Monday, August 22, Brew.
By: David Luchs
Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- Less than one month left until the start of early voting
- Looking ahead to Florida’s primaries
- Previewing tomorrow’s primaries in New York’s 10th and 12th congressional districts
Less than one month left until the start of early voting
Primary season hasn’t quite finished – but let’s take a look ahead to when early voting begins.
Voters in Pennsylvania are first up – they will be able to head to the polls and vote early in the 2022 election starting Monday, Sept. 19—four weeks from today. By the end of September, early voting will have started in eight other states.
Thirty-two more states will allow early voting starting in October, and another three will allow a period of early voting during the first week of November. Five states do not allow early voting. As of this writing, information was not available on the start of early voting in Maine. Maine statute requires that early voting begin as soon as ballots are printed, which must take place between 30 and 45 days before the election. This year early voting in Maine will begin between Sept. 24 and Oct. 9 and will run through Nov. 3.
Of the states that do allow early voting, the average early voting period lasts 21 days, or three weeks. The three states with the longest early voting period are Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wyoming, each of which allows early voting between Friday, Sept. 23, and Monday, Nov. 7. This 46-day early voting period is more than double the national average.
Nine states have an early voting period shorter than 10 days, including three with early voting periods less than one week long. Of the states that are holding early voting, none has a shorter timeframe than Kentucky. Voters there can vote early starting Thursday, Nov. 3, through Saturday, Nov. 5.
The most common day of the week for early voting to start this year is Monday; nine states will open early voting periods on Monday. Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday follow, with eight states opening early voting on each. The only day of the week that no states open early voting periods on is Sunday.
No state has a longer delay between the primary date and the beginning of early voting this year than Texas, with 237 days between the state’s first-in-the-nation primaries on March 1 and the start of its early voting period on Oct. 24. The shortest delay will be in Rhode Island, where just 36 days separate the Sept. 13 primaries from the beginning of early voting on Oct. 19. The average delay between the primaries and the beginning of early voting is 107 days, or roughly three and a half months.
Looking ahead to Florida’s primaries
Florida’s statewide primaries are tomorrow, Aug. 23, the 16th primary date so far this year. Let’s break down the races that will be on the primary ballot:
Congressional elections
All 28 of Florida’s U.S. House seats and one of its two U.S. Senate seats will be up for election this year. Incumbent U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R) advanced directly to the general election ballot because no Republicans filed to challenge him. Four candidates are running for the Democratic nomination, which political observers expect U.S. Rep. Val Demings (D) will win.
Florida was one of six states to gain U.S. House seats in the round of apportionment following the 2020 census, going from 27 seats up to 28. All 28 of those seats will be up for election this year. There are six districts—the 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 15th, and 22nd—where no incumbent is running. There is also one district, the 2nd, where two incumbents will face one another in the general election. There are 38 contested U.S. House primaries in Florida this year out of 56 potential primaries, a decade high.
State-level elections
At the state level, Florida voters will elect candidates to five state executive offices, including the governorship, and all 160 state legislative seats—40 in the state Senate and 120 in the state House.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is unopposed in the Republican primary, but we’ll be watching the Democratic primary. The four candidates on the ballot include former Gov. Charlie Crist (D) and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D). The other contested state executive primaries include the Democratic primary to challenge incumbent Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) and the Democratic and Republican primaries for the agriculture commissioner office Fried is vacating.
Florida will hold 81 contested state legislative primaries this year, representing 25% of the possible number. Forty-nine are Republican primaries, and 32 are Democratic. The 376 candidates who filed for state legislature this year include 114 incumbents, 32 of whom (28%) will face contested primaries. This is the highest rate at which state legislative incumbents have faced contested primaries in Florida since at least 2012. The contested primaries involving incumbents include 19 Republican and 13 Democratic primaries.
Republicans currently control majorities in both state legislative chambers, with a 23-16 majority in the state Senate with one vacancy and a 76-42 majority in the state House with two vacancies. Florida has had a Republican trifecta since Rick Scott (R) won the gubernatorial election in 2010.
Previewing tomorrow’s primaries in New York’s 10th and 12th congressional districts
Florida won’t be the only state on tomorrow’s election calendar. Voters in New York will also head to the polls to nominate candidates for state Senate and U.S. House (candidates for other offices were selected in an earlier round of primaries on June 28). On Friday, we previewed the Republican primary in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. Now, let’s take a look at the Democratic contests in the 10th and 12th congressional districts.
New York’s 10th: Twelve candidates compete for newly-drawn seat
Twelve candidates are running in New York’s 10th Congressional District Democratic primary on Aug. 23, 2022. Candidates receiving significant media attention are U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones, who was elected in 2020 to represent the 17th District and is running in the 10th after redistricting; prosecutor Daniel Goldman; former U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman; state Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou; New York City Council Member Carlina Rivera; and state Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon. Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio withdrew from the race on July 19.
The New York Times wrote that the redrawn 10th District includes “some of New York’s most politically engaged and diverse neighborhoods: Greenwich Village, Wall Street, Chinatown, Park Slope, Sunset Park and even parts of Borough Park, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish stronghold.” The Times called the primary “a contest not so much of ideas — almost every major candidate has condemned threats to abortion rights and bemoaned the lack of strict limits on guns — as of brute force, blunt ambition and identity politics.”
Axios called the district “a potential venue for Democrats to expose various internal rifts as candidates fight for a simple plurality of the vote, where the winner can advance with far less than 50%.”
The 17th District Jones was elected to does not overlap with the redrawn 10th. Jones’ campaign spokesman Bill Neidhardt said that Jones “refused to primary fellow Black progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman when his residence was drawn into Bowman’s district. … He also wanted to avoid a member-on-member primary with Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney.” Maloney was elected to represent the 18th District starting in 2013 and is running in the redrawn 17th.
Former President Donald Trump (R) endorsed Goldman on Aug. 17.
New York’s 12th: 2022’s final incumbent vs. incumbent primary
U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, Suraj Patel, and Ashmi Sheth are running in the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th Congressional District on Aug. 23. Maloney, Nadler, and Patel lead in endorsements, funding, and media attention.
This race is the last of six primaries featuring two U.S. House incumbents in 2022.
Maloney currently represents the 12th District as it was drawn before redistricting, and Nadler represents the old 10th District. Heading into the election, Maloney represents 61% of the redrawn 12th District’s population, and Nadler represents 39%, according to Daily Kos data.
Both representatives were first elected in 1992. Maloney chairs the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Nadler chairs the Judiciary Committee. Maloney and Nadler are both members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and are campaigning as progressives.
Patel, an attorney, was a campaign staffer for Barack Obama’s (D) presidential campaigns. Patel challenged Maloney in 2018 and 2020, receiving 40% of the vote to Maloney’s 60% in 2018 and 39% to Maloney’s 43% in 2020.
Former President Donald Trump (R) endorsed Maloney on Aug. 17.