Three Western states present to the nation microcosms of larger battles within the Republican & Democratic parties–reckonings in each of these parties shall augur new possibilities regarding the tides of the future.
Adam Schiff, frontrunner for democrats in 2024 primaries.
In California, with a Democrat almost guaranteed to win the seat, the state’s top-two open primary pits - 78 year old Barbara Lee, a firebrand progressive with a three decade long tenure who gained notoriety as the lone vote against military action in Afghanistan following 9/11, against two rising Democratic stars: Adam Schiff, a former manager of the first Trump impeachment who previously failed in a bid to be appointed California Attorney General after outcry from a myriad of leader’s on the party’s left, and Katie Porter, a protégé of Elizabeth Warren. Lee represents the old progressive wing of the Democratic Party, those embodied by Bernie Sanders & younger figures such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and seeped in a long tradition of rivalry with party leadership. In contrast with this, Porter stands as a representative of a less populist brand of progressivism. A victory for Adam Schiff, however, would represent a renewed victory for the party establishment that organized the primary victories of Hillary Clinton & Joe Biden, and long held the seat for Dianne Feinstein against progressive challengers such as Kevin De Leon.
Kyrsten Sinema, democratic candidate for Arizona's seat in senate.
December 2022 saw Kyrsten Sinema, long known as a doyen of the Senate’s most conservative Democratic wing announce her switch to service as an independent. Although remaining in the Democratic Senate caucus and thus, for all intents & purposes, a Democrat by Senate standards, Sinema has made clear her intention to pursue re-election as an independent, most likely to avoid a likely primary challenge from Representative Reuben Gallego, who is already the presumptive Democratic nominee for the seat. On the Republican side of the aisle, the handful of Republicans considering a run include Kari Lake and Blake Masters, both of whom lost state-wide elections in 2022 upon hard-line pro-Trump platforms. With millions of dollars flowing into the coffers of the organization NoLabels as it seeks ballot access in an attempt to run a centrist third party ticket that polling indicates could draw a fifth of American voters in 2024, Sinema’s candidacy could transform the Arizona race into a microcosm of the presidential election, and galvanize the dedicated center nationally, as already seen in an endorsement by Republican moderate Lisa Murkowski, who herself fended off a significant intra-party challenge in 2022 with the aid of Democratic voters.
Sinema’s independent candidacy, polling indicates, would have a nearly equal draw upon Republican & Democratic voters, preserving the nature of the race as among the nation’s most competitive for 2024. However, unless a more moderate Republican is able to prevail in the party’s primary, probability seems to favour Gallego, a Marine veteran reminiscent of Porter, as a member of the party’s establishment progressive wing who has successfully united an erstwhile divided party around him. However, it is the Republican primary that shall have wider implications. A victory by either Lake, Masters, or even Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, would reinforce the conversion of the Arizona Republican Party, once heralded as a national bastion for a brand of soft conservatism consistently able to dominate state elections, is transforming into an increasingly irrelevant party subservient to election denial & the cult of Trumpism, pushing Arizona further towards the Democratic column.
Utah's leading senate candidate, Republican hardliner, Trent Staggs
Finally, Utah presents to many a near final bastion of moderate Republicanism, yet the defeat of centrist Republican Becky Edwards in the primary for a special Congressional election this September, despite leading polling by up to twenty points in the lead up to election day, bodes as ominously for the party’s centre as the retirement of Mitt Romney. Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs has emerged as the race’s hardliner MAGA candidate, while the reticent party establishment, which rallied around Ron DeSantis earlier this year, has similarly flocked to the candidacy of Utah Speaker of the House Brad Wilson. Staggs, whose political base lies in the state’s Northern suburbs, may find himself out-Trumped if Tim Ballard, a controversial anti-trafficking activist whose exaggerated claims & allegations of sexual harassment, enters the race, which could secure a victory for Wilson. However, glaringly, none have stepped forth to inherit Romney’s mantle as the leader of genuine anti-Trump Republicans in the state, and more broadly, the nation. Regardless of whether Trump is able to prevail in the 2024 elections, the success of his acolytes in former bastions of resistance testifies to the wider democratic backsliding his movement has ushered in–and raises alarms about the realism of a bipartisan coalition to restore democratic norms.