Zach Montellaro, state politics reporter at Politico, joins Cheddar News to discuss this week's primaries.

Between Bells

Breaking Down This Week's Primaries

back on shadow News, everyone baker machado in new york. And voters in maine Nevada, North Dakota and south Carolina nominated candidates this week to run for the House in Senate in november. Some key takeaways from the primaries this week include President Donald, former President Donald trump's influence being tested and proven as one of his most vocal opponents. Representative Tom Rice of south Carolina ended up losing his seat. So joining us now to discuss is Zach Montilla row state politics reporter over at politico zack, always good to have you here. Well, before we jump into some individual races here at the moment, clearly, the former president hovered over all of these races. What were some of your initial takeaways from yesterday? Yeah, So the former president was kind of hovering over all of these races and once again was kind of a split bag for him. He his candidate has endorsed candidate, beat Tom Rice Tom Rice. Congressman Rice was one of the members of Congress who voted to impeach president trump one of those 10 republicans, but trump the trump candidate also lost against nancy Mace. Also in south Carolina, of course, very different regions in the state. You know, the voter profile isn't exactly the same across the two districts, but, you know, Trump endorsement is a big deal and the Mace race was close, but it isn't, it isn't 100% guarantee. But nevertheless, it's still a big deal. The former United States is primary, individual members who he disagrees with and and it's picked one of them off now for the first time. Yeah, So let's let's start with nancy Mace because I think that's sort of interesting because nancy Mace unlike Tom Rice, she did not vote to impeach the former president. She even if you go to her twitter bio, I think her background still has the former president hovering. Her background somewhere. She ended up prevailing against Katie Arrington who was backed by the former president is because her district sort of hovers around the charleston area that she was able to sort of court moderate voters here and that's maybe how she was able to sort of prevail what was sort of the winning formula for her. It's a little bit of everything. I also think congressman Mace, you know, not having that actual impeachment vote is I think certainly a big deal. And uh Congresswoman Mace didn't really lean into criticizing trump as congressman Rice did. I think the most notable example of this was the day after performing President trump endorsed Katie Arrington. Uh Nancy Mace was outside of trump tower shooting a video that she posted to her social media kind of praising the former president. It was a little strange to say the least. Um but you know, she wasn't like tom Rice who called especially in the run up to the election called the former president a dictator or words to that effect. Um So there's that and also a big difference was nancy Mace had the support of Nikki Haley, the former U. N. Ambassador under former president trump and of course former governor of south Carolina. So nancy Mace had a big support from a big in state player and that certainly can't go missed and why she won that. There was ads, there was fundraising, there was everything you would want from a former governor of the state Governor Haley former Governor Haley did for Nancy Mace. Okay, so how would you sort of assess then the value of the Trump endorsement thus far? Because look, there have been times where it's clearly prevailed for certain candidates and then you have in situations like Georgia, we had a few weeks ago where David Perdue got zero traction against Brian Kemp, he ended up losing by 50 points, you know, in percentage points in that. So at this particular point in the mid in the midterm cycle here, how do you sort of value a trump endorsement here? Yeah. Not only in Georgia, not only was it governor kemp who is also secretary of state, brad raffensperger who trump also backed his opponent and also won outright, which I think was a big surprise, but I think the trump endorsement now it certainly carries some weight, you know, especially in open races, especially in congressional races, whether you know, your member of congress is not as high violation governor who is not as high profile as a senator. So the trump endorsement is a big deal. It you know, every Republican candidate probably would like to have it still, you know, that's still uh indistinguishable e or still very much trump's party, but it's not a guarantee. We saw that with brian kemp, we saw that with brad raffensperger, brad little in Idaho, another republican governor who the former president endorsed against one and now with nancy mace, that, you know, having his endorsement especially against an incumbent is not a silver bullet, but in an open race and an open race down the ballot, especially where there's less distinguishing factors between, you know, a statewide governor versus just one member of the house. You know, that seems more helpful, at least in this situation, let's move to Nevada zack because for all intensive purposes, republicans feel very confident that they'll be able to take the House of Representatives in the midterms. And most people look at Nevada as sort of the ground that if republicans are going to have a very big red wave come november. If they can flip areas in seats and places like Nevada which are heavily controlled by democrats as a democratic governor. Both Senate seats are held by democrats. That will sort of be a testament to how big this red wave will be. What were your sort of reaction to what happened yesterday in Nevada. Yeah, Nevada is one of those states like Minnesota that looks blue and has looked blue for some time, but when you look under the hood, even just a little bit, it's dangerous for democrats, even in the best of years. You know, the governor race. Governor steve Sisolak is going to go up against Clark county sheriff joe. Uh, it's going to go up against the trump endorsed candidate there. Uh, and in the Senate race, former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, the republican nominee, all of these races will be competitive joe Lombardo and the government race. And the house races to the house race is going to be the big test for democrats this year because all three of those Democratic health districts of the four in the state biden, one of president biden won by single digits. So in a good year for democrats, those are easy holds, you know, mid, mid to high single digits within a challenging year in a challenging environment, all of those seats are in place. So if republicans start picking away at those seats, that's where they start getting to the majority. It's winning seats that joe biden carried by 4567 points. You know, I still don't think even even as tough as the political environment is republicans largely on going to stretch into those double digit seats as of right now, come back in a couple of months. But the seats in Nevada, they're, they're the prime targets that when you can take a seat that, that the sitting president won by a few points and flip that, that's how they know there and feel good about flipping it. That's how they know they're kind of on track to having a majority. You know, there's still a lot of time to go of course, but republicans just being heavily involved in those seats, there's been so much money booked in and around las Vegas on tv is a good sign that republicans are pretty confident going into the midterm. Yeah. Which by the way, just 146 days away from those midterm Zack Montilla row state political reporter over political good to have you here, as always.