POLITICO NIGHTLY: The primary battles of Dems’ uncivil war

View in browser   BY DAVID SIDERS Democratic U.S. congressional candidate Jessica Cisneros concludes a speech alongside her family in Laredo, Texas. | Brandon Bell/Getty Images LEFT IN THE LURCH — The left has been gushing all week after progressive candidates defeated more moderate Democrats — and a crush of super PAC money — in several Senate and House primaries on Tuesday. “The rebellion succeeds,” is how Jeff Weaver, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ former presidential campaign manager, put it to Nightly in an interview. For the moment, at least, he was right. It’s still early in the primary calendar. The civil war between the Democratic Party’s left and center is only now about to fully re-erupt. There’s a primary runoff in Texas next week, where Jessica Cisneros, a progressive, is vying to unseat Rep. Henry Cuellar, the only anti-abortion rights Democrat in the House. After that, there are competitive, intra-party House races in Illinois and Michigan, among other places. In Michigan, it’s two sitting House members running against each other because of redistricting: Rep. Andy Levin, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus against Rep. Haley Stevens, a beneficiary of more moderate support. Yet Weaver is right that the progressives have already won a big chunk of the war. Given their victories in Pennsylvania and Oregon on Tuesday, it almost doesn’t matter how well progressives do from here on out. They will likely expand their influence in the party in November, due to the likelihood that Democrats will lose the House, shrinking the party’s ranks. Those general election losses will have to come from somewhere, and it’s the moderate Democrats representing swing districts — not the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes and Rashida Tlaibs of the party — who are most at risk. That’s partly why moderate Democrats justify intervening in this cycle’s primaries in even the most safely Democratic — and progressive — districts. They say they want to guard against Republicans weaponizing what lawmakers in those districts say and do to paint the Democratic Party more broadly as out of the mainstream. This intra-party conflict, said Matt Bennett of the center-left group Third Way, is likely to become “a little more sharp in its relief as we move toward November, because the theory of the case is really different.” Bennett went on: “Their theory that there’s a magic potion to mobilize low-propensity voters is, well, let’s just say unproven, insofar as it has never worked, and their notion that all of their ideas will appeal to low-propensity voters, particularly voters of color, is also not at all clear that it’s true,” he said. “Our view is that you’ve got to be mainstream, you can’t look like a radical.” To progressives — especially to progressives this year — that sounds like what Weaver called “a fascinating and disgusting … double cross.” It was about two years ago that Sanders withdrew from the presidential primary. Since then, the progressive wing of the party has been almost historically well-behaved. It lined up behind Joe Biden in 2020 and supported his legislative agenda once he took office. In return, progressives are getting hit with millions of dollars in outside spending. Theleadership-aligned House Majority PAC went in for the moderate Democrat in Oregon, who was defeated by progressive Andrea Salinas on Tuesday. A super PAC called Mainstream Democrats is helping Cuellar ahead of his runoff next week. The repercussions are likely to be long-lasting, both in November and in the next presidential race, in 2024. “Temperatures [could] be cooled substantially” between the center and the left, Weaver said, “by the corporatist wing standing down, and understanding if they want to win the White House again for Democrats, they can’t go spending untold millions against loyal progressive Democrats.” But if not, he said, progressives have other options. One possibility, Weaver said, is that the left will become “much less thoughtful in the future about which incumbents get challenged.” Or in some places, progressives could even forgo primaries, altogether, running general-election candidates as independents in swing districts. They might not win, but they could split the vote just enough to prevent a centrist Democrat from coming out ahead of the Republican. “Can they get 5 to 10 percent of the vote in some swing districts?” Weaver asked. “I think they can … That is certainly an option.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at dsiders@politico.com, or on Twitter at @davidsiders.   DON'T MISS DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED:  Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today.     WHAT'D I MISS? — Senate clears $40B Ukraine aid package: The Senate passed a $40 billion emergency aid package today to buttress Ukraine with weapons and other military help as the Eastern European country fends off the Russian invasion. The chamber’s 86-11 vote clears the legislation for Biden’s signature, just in time to keep the Pentagon from exhausting its power to send weapons to Ukraine from U.S. stockpiles. Top lawmakers in both parties insist the multibillion-dollar injection is just what Ukraine needs to bolster its defenses as Russia approaches its fourth month of conflict. — In White House visit, Finland and Sweden’s leaders talk Turkey: The leaders of Finland and Sweden today committed to help assuage Turkey’s resistance to the two Nordic nations’ NATO applications , pledging from the White House that they would continue discussions with Ankara as they work to become full-fledged members of the Western military alliance. The remarks from Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson came during a Rose Garden event with Biden, who conveyed the United States’ unequivocal support for Finland and Sweden’s potential NATO membership and described the bloc as “more needed now than ever.” — FDA refuses to tell Congress why infant formula response took months: FDA Commissioner Robert Califf refused to answer questions from lawmakers today about why it took the agency months to respond to reports of infant illnesses and a whistleblower complaint regarding the infant formula plant at the heart of the current formula shortage. “We have an ongoing investigation about the details of exactly what happened, from point A to point B along the way, and since it is ongoing, I can’t give extensively more details on that part of it,” Califf said during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. — CDC advisers recommend Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 booster for kids 5-11: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent vaccine advisory panel voted today to recommend a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in children ages 5-11. The vote — 11-1, with one abstention — came two days after the Food and Drug Administration expanded the company’s emergency use authorization for its pediatric product to include a booster shot at least five months after a patient’s second dose is administered. — Ocasio-Cortez calls on Maloney to resign DCCC chairmanship if he primaries colleague: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez today became the first member of Congress to publicly call for Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney to step down as House Democrats’ campaign chair if he ends up in a primary with a Democratic colleague. In an interview today, Ocasio-Cortez called Maloney’s decision to run in the newly drawn district that includes most of Rep. Mondaire Jones’ (D-N.Y.) current constituents “terrible” and “hypocritical” — and she said “it absolutely further imperils our majority.” — Select committee says GOP lawmaker led tour through Capitol complex day before Jan. 6 attack: The Jan. 6 select committee says it has reviewed evidence that reveals a Republican lawmaker, Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, gave a tour through the Capitol complex the day before a pro-Trump mob attacked. “We believe you have information regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021,” Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) wrote to Loudermilk. AROUND THE WORLD MENDING FENCES — Canada’s Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly says she’s focused on rebuilding Ottawa’s damaged relations with Beijing, an effort underway eight months after the close of a U.S. extradition case that ignited bilateral tensions, Andy Blatchford writes. “We want to make sure that we have a relationship with China,” Joly told POLITICO in an interview this week, referencing the two Canadians jailed in China for nearly three years in retaliation for the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. “It is a difficult one — there were arbitrary detentions of the two Michaels: Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. I’m glad that this issue is now over and we’re moving on … My goal is to make sure that we reestablish ties.” In conversation with POLITICO’s David M. Herszenhorn for an episode of the EU Confidential podcast,Canada’s foreign minister discussed trade deals, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and Trudeau government foreign policy.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     NIGHTLY NUMBER 11 The number of GOP senators who voted against the $40 billion Ukraine aid package. Most of the Republicans who opposed the new military aid are unlikely to block Finland’s and Sweden’s bids to join NATO — further easing the bipartisan push amid concerns that some Republicans were growing uneasy with the U.S. commitment to Europe’s security. PARTING WORDS Sean Gallup/Getty Images OVERHEATED (SEARCH) ENGINE — Republican senators laid into a Google executive at the Capitol Wednesday over allegations that the company’s filters target GOP emails as spam. It quickly turned confrontational, Emily Birnbaum and Marianne LeVine write. The Senate Republican Steering Committee, the policy arm of the Senate GOP, had invited Google’s chief legal officer, Kent Walker, to discuss a recent study that found the company has disproportionately filtered Republican lawmakers’ emails into hidden spam folders compared to emails from Democratic lawmakers. Walker said there is no bias in how Google deals with spam. The group lunch grew unusually tense, according to three people familiar with the meeting, granted anonymity to discuss private matters. “The lunch was spirited,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), one of the more vocal attendees. “Google deflected, refused to provide any data, repeatedly refused to answer direct questions.” The senators’ furor is part of the broader conservative crusade against the major tech companies, who they claim routinely stifle right-wing speech. The companies, including Facebook and Google, have denied these allegations, while researchers have found that there is no evidence that the social media platforms disproportionately take action against content from conservatives. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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