Cheddar Politics welcomes Natalie Jennings, senior politics editor at Vox, to break down the biggest races and trends from the August 2 primaries. 

Jennings focuses on the two swing states that voted on Tuesday, Michigan and Arizona. Arizona saw a sweep by Trump-endorsed candidates denying the results of the 2020 election -  elections even Trump-appointed election security officials called one of the most free and fairest elections in U.S. history. 

In Michigan, a Trump-endorsed election denier managed to unseat one of the few remaining Republican House members who voted for the former president's impeachment after January 6. Democrats in the Great Lakes State also saw a faceoff between two wings of their party, with progressives falling to moderates. 

Cheddar Politics

Major Takeaways from First August 2022 Primaries

and welcome back everyone to enter politics and become a channel in new york with hundreds of candidates and races across five geographically and politically diverse states. It's kind of hard to make some big conclusions about Tuesday's election. But we're gonna try to do it anyway, distill in the most important takeaways that we saw. So joining us now to help in this endeavor is Natalie Jennings, the senior politics editor over at Fox. Natalie good to see you. Let's start with two very different swing states here that voted Tuesday michigan and Arizona. And let's start with Arizona because it seemed pretty evident there that former president trump still looms incredibly large over the GOP. What stuck out to the races in that state here? What stuck out is just the degree to which 2022 is all about 2020 in Arizona. You know, this is a state where most publicly, I think the election results were challenged with that big recount in the biggest state in the county and immediately jumping off from that candidates got in these race for the Republican nominee. Uh President Trump was more than happy to back candidates who got his back. And most of them, uh, one this week over Republican establishment candidates were still waiting the nominee for governor for the republicans who they are gonna put up against the democrat in that race and it looks like it is uh, well, at least at the moment where vote counting stands, it's gonna be the trump favorite candidate despite a race that tightened at the end. So this gives us in the state that has picked both republicans and democrats statewide in recent years, setting up a real test of trump and trumpism and where the GOP is headed in november, because we're going to see these candidates who are very hardcore Trumpers, who aren't trump himself going up against democrats, who are going to continue to make that an issue in the race. And um, you know, a lot of times, candidates in these swing states will run really closely, um, with trump or run really closely, um, with their base and then pivot in the general election. They're not gonna be able to do that this time. These, these folks, um, Carey Lake, the gubernatorial likely nominee, the secretary of state, They're they're far too close to trump to ever try to back away. So this is, this is, we know that's gonna be a big issue in the race and that'll be something that we really look at. I'm glad you mentioned it, because what sort of happened with Arizona, which always sort of had this libertarian streak dating all the way back to the barry Goldwater days. You know, this was a state that created establishment republicans like McCain and Jeff flake and Doug Ducey, how was this state now creating Kerry Lakes and blake masters now. Right, And there are still a significant number of those, um, I guess you'd say john McCain type republicans in Arizona, they were able to make this, um, again, we we don't have a result in the gubernatorial primary and that one has been competitive, but they have um you know, donald trump really had sort of all along a lot of donald trump moments were in Arizona, he really riled up that base. He really spoke to people who you know maybe aren't doing well economically there. This isn't a state, I'll say where we saw a big swing of latino voters toward trump. That was more over in texas and in florida there is a big hispanic population in Arizona who has largely stayed with democrats. But there are a significant um you know, there's a lot of inequality in Arizona and the phoenix area in particular and trump has capitalized on some of the people who feel disaffected by that and he has spent a lot of time, a lot of money early in that state. His feelings were quite hurt when the race in Arizona got called against him and that seems sort of stuck in his craw and he has been very happy to get behind these candidates and really rile up the base there. Let's stick with the Senate race there because this is sort of interesting the blake masters now versus Mark kelly who's running for reelection still, by most accounts going to be one of the most highly contested races in the country when it comes to the Senate and who's going to control it given the fact that blake masters is tied to peter thiel who also by the way has J. D. Vance as his candidate in Ohio he's likely gonna get tons of money there. He's now trying to tie Mark kelly to joe biden who's pulling incredibly low in Arizona. Mark kelly just coming out with a new ad this morning basically saying that blake Masters too extreme for Arizona. How do you sort of see that race shaking out? And do you still see it staying competitive in november? I see it being very competitive. You know Mark kelly has a little bit of an advantage. He didn't have a challenger. He's the incumbent. He's been fundraising. There's a lot of name recognition in the state. Of course he is the husband of Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman who was shot their former astronaut. So people know him really well but they also know donald trump and donald trump has done a lot to elevate that profile of blake master's blake masters is a full on um election deniers. It's been very um very frank about that. And I think um you know that hold well with Republican voters we don't it's probably not gonna be as big of a popular thing for the general population but the economy is really tough. There's some reasons in Arizona with housing prices um inflation is worse in Arizona where people are you know more worried about those sorts of things. So um you know that there's a high likely that people are voting on that versus on, you know, however they feel about donald trump and Arizona is going to give us a really good look at, you know, whether people discuss with trump or dislike of what happened in Arizona is gonna trump how they feel about the economic situation there. Alright, Natalie, let's move to michigan. The gubernatorial race is gonna be really interesting. Gretchen Whitmer obviously went through a cascade of issues during her time as governor from Covid to bridge collapses to so many other things that happened in that state. She and the GOP race has sort of been interesting because obviously the candidates that the republicans wanted didn't qualify to make it to the ballot. So now the trump endorsed tutor Dixon who is a conservative media personality got that nomination. She, by the way, is being backed by the very powerful DeVos family there. So it seems like there's gonna be a lot of money flowing into that race. So how do you see this tutor Dixon versus Gretchen Whitmer race playing out. I think this is one where abortion is going to play a big role. Um You know, we're gonna see what their voters care enough about that in that state where um you know, the only thing standing as you guys were saying earlier between um a ban on abortion and abortion rights being preserved is a democratic governor right now who will not sign off on that. Um and she will certainly make it an issue that Dixon would um, you know, Dixon also tied pretty closely to trump who I should say, one that state one time. So we know it's possible that a republican can win a statewide race there, uh, witnessed sort of seen some ups and downs in terms of her popularity. It's up from where it was right now, but this is actually the moment where we really put that to the test. So it'll be competitive. Um, but you're also talking about the Dixon got a lucky break in order to be on the ballot. So she doesn't quite have the running start that maybe would have been more ideal for her. So right now it looks pretty positive for Whitmer. She does have that issue of abortion, which we know from public opinion polling is on her side and I expect to hear a lot about that in that race in particular. Yeah, really gonna be a must watch race here. Natalie Jennings, the senior political editor over at Fox, thank you so much Natalie for joining us. And after the break, everyone, we're taking a deeper look at another decision that voters made on Tuesday Kansans choosing to keep protections for abortion care in their state constitution or in that one shooter politics returns