I’m still processing yesterday’s shooting and am not quite ready to write about it. For now I just want to address the state of the primaries.

This is looking like a weak election year for Blue Dog Democrats. Last year a group of House Democrats called the “unbreakable nine,” or sometimes just The Nine, worked their butts off to water down if not kill the original Build Back Better bill. Note that The Nine are also all members of the Blue Dog Coalition. From the archives, see “Moderate” Troublemakers Still Threaten to Derail Biden Agenda, August 2021; and The House Dem Centrists Hit a Wall, October 2021.

The Nine were known to be working for No Labels, the same group of hedge fund/capital management/equity fund guys that owns Joe Manchin. The original Build Back Better bill proposed to raise taxes on the wealthy and on some corporations and stock buybacks. Obviously, for No Labels, that could not stand.

The original Nine were Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05); Carolyn Bourdeaux (GA-07; Filemon Vela (TX-34); Jared Golden (ME-02); Henry Cuellar (TX-28); Vicente Gonzalez (TX-15); Ed Case (HI-01); Jim Costa (CA-16); and Kurt Schrader (OR-05). Vela resigned from the House earlier this year and is now working for a Washington lobbying firm. Gottheimer has no primary opponent, I understand. In Texas, Gonzalez won his primary and, if he wins the general election, will be representing redistricted district 34 in the next Congress. But not all of them will be returning.

It’s not yet official, but several news outlets are saying that Kurt Schrader was defeated by his progressive challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner. For example, yesterday Dave Seminara wrote How Oregon’s Joe Manchin Lost His Primary in the Wall Streeet Journal. Seminara sniffs disapprovingly about “leftist orthodoxy” but admits McLeod-Skinner won.

Yesterday in Georgia, Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux lost to Rep. Lucy McBath, both House members who ended up redistricted into the same district. I understand McBath is a Third Way type who got a lot of money from AIPAC, so I’m not sure it will matter. McBath is a staunch supporter of gun control, however, so that’s something.

The Cuellar-Cisneros contest in Texas is still too close to call. With 94 percent of the vote counted, Cuellar is only 177 votes ahead. Even if he eventually prevails, that ought to make him think. But it probably won’t. Cuellar is the AIPAC candidate in this race, btw.

Golden and Costa face primaries in June, and Case’s primary is in August.

Elsewhere — the biggest surprise of yesterday’s primaries, for me, was that Brad Raffensperger won his primary over MAGA Creature Jody Hice by such a large margin. It was supposed to be closer, I thought.

Also, Trump had endorsed some guy named John Gordon for Georgia attorney general. Gordon lost to the incumbent, Chris Carr. Carr won by 73.7 to 26.3 percent of the vote, with 95 percent of the vote counted. Trump’s choice for insurance commissioner (insurance commissioner?), Patrick Witt, got only 17 percent of the vote yesterday and is out. Trump endorsed one House candidate, Vernon Jones for the 10th Congressional District, who came in second. There will be a runoff.

Bottom line, though, Trump’s endorsements didn’t mean squat in Georgia.

There are no primaries next Tuesday, which is the day after Memorial Day. States holding primaries on June 7 are California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota.