Hello everyone, my name is Frank Driscoll and welcome to Driscoll's Election Dissection,
your election analysis for Across the Circus.
I hope you all are doing okay wherever you are.
So today we are discussing primary elections set to take place on Tuesday, June 4th.
And on that day, five states, that's correct, five, will be holding statewide primaries.
Those five states holding primaries are Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South
Dakota.
However, a large amount of these primaries are uncompetitive, so we are only talking
about three elections today altogether.
And coincidentally, they all come from the same state.
So let's pack our bags and head over to the Garden State, the state of New Jersey.
So the Senate election in New Jersey is getting a lot of news, particularly due to its incumbent
Senator, Senator Bob Menendez.
He's been in the news a lot and he is currently indicted on a number of cases and as a result
is not running in the Democratic primary, although he has not ruled out an independent
bid.
We'll have to wait and see on that.
And the front runner for that race is Congressman from New Jersey's third congressional district,
Andy Kim.
And since he's running for that, he is not running for reelection for his congressional
seat.
And as a result, that seat is open.
Now, this is a heavily Democratic seat.
Actually, all three seats here in New Jersey are heavily Democratic and we're only discussing
Democratic primaries today.
So the winner of the Democratic primary will have an edge come November.
And in the District 3 Democratic primary, there are two major candidates, those being
State Assembly Deputy Speaker, Herb Conaway and State Assembly Majority Whip, Carol Murphy.
Now, both candidates are in the New Jersey General Assembly and both of them are very
high up in Democratic leadership, which should make a very harsh fight between the two, harsh
politically speaking.
In terms of receipts, Herb Conaway seems to have an edge in fundraising, fundraising a
bit more than Carol Murphy has.
And there has been polling in this race, but the most recent poll was from April 26th,
a poll sponsored by the Super PAC, the Principled Veterans Fund, and it shows Conaway leading
Murphy 25% to 11%.
Although a poll from just a month prior, sponsored by the Murphy campaign, showed Conaway also
having a lead, but a very small one compared to the most recent poll, a lead of four points.
But as we know, polls can mean anything.
And the real poll that matters is the one on election day.
And judging by how Andy Kim will do in the Senate race, this could be a very good seat
for the Democrats and Democratic leadership.
Whoever holds this seat could very likely stay there a while in the House or maybe jump up
to higher office, kind of like what current representative from said district Andy Kim
is trying to do.
However, it's a different story in the other two districts we're talking about.
Both of them actually have an incumbent running against a primary challenger, and both are
pretty competitive.
So we'll head to New Jersey's eighth congressional district now.
The current representative from that district is Robert Menendez Jr.
Yes, he is the son of Senator Bob Menendez.
He was first elected to Congress just last election cycle, 2022, and he has wholeheartedly
stood by his father despite his legal troubles.
Well, his main challenger is trying to capitalize on that.
His main challenger is mayor of the city of Hoboken, Ravinder Bala.
And this race looks very competitive.
Both Menendez and Bala seem to be pretty 50-50 in terms of fundraising.
And not only that, polls show the race very close.
A poll from February, a sponsored by the Bala campaign, showed Menendez having a three-point
lead.
However, a poll from April, sponsored by Super PAC America's Promise, showed Bala with the
lead, this time by five points.
So this ought to be a very competitive race.
And finally, we go not that far down the road to New Jersey's ninth congressional district.
Now unlike the eighth congressional district, the incumbent representative has been in Congress
a while now.
Now, the current representative for New Jersey's ninth congressional district is Congressman
Bill Pascrell.
Now, Congressman Pascrell was first elected to Congress way back in 1996 and is actually
one of the oldest current incumbent representatives to be running for re-election.
Now, he is facing off against mayor of Prospect Park, Mohamed Kirola.
Now, Mayor Kirola has criticized Congressman Pascrell's stance on the war in Gaza.
And this district is mostly in the city of Paterson.
And Paterson actually has a very large Arab-American population.
And as we know, the war in Gaza has become a very big topic in our nation's politics
over the last few months.
And that seems to be the basis for this primary election.
Now, there are no polls in this race and there isn't much fundraising numbers.
There haven't been any released by the Kirola campaign, or at least none brought on by the
Federal Elections Commission.
However, this is an important election to look at because it does show how much the
war in Gaza has an effect on our nation's politics and our nation's elections for that
matter.
So those three primaries are races to watch on Tuesday, June 4th.
And I want to thank the great folks at politicsone.com for providing the occupations of these candidates
as well as ballotpedia.com for providing fundraising numbers and other tidbits about elections.
If you're wondering about an election in your community, check out those two websites.
And also, thank you to 538.com for supplying poll data.
And I ask you all out there, if you are a registered voter, not just in New Jersey,
but in Iowa, Montana, New Mexico, or South Dakota, and you have a primary on June 4th,
I don't care who you vote for, but I do care that you vote.
So please do.
Thank you for listening to Driscoll's Election Dissection.
If you would like to learn more about the show, go online to algidproductions.com slash
across the circus and be sure to listen to us on any podcasting form you like.
Thank you all for listening, and I will see you all very soon.
This podcast was brought to you by Algid Productions LLC. Thank you for listening!