Hello everyone, my name is Frank Driscoll and welcome to Driscoll's Election Dissection, your election analysis for Across the Circus. I hope you're all doing well today wherever you are. So today we're taking a look at two elections set to take place on Tuesday September the 5th. Mark your calendars because there's not one but two special election primaries for two open congressional seats. Yes, both in different parts of the country and these two seats are in very heavily partisan areas.
One is a very heavy democratic area, the other is a very heavy republican area. So the winners of these primaries are very likely going to win their general elections in November. We are going to take a look at them both. We're going to start by heading off to New England to the ocean state, the state of Rhode Island. Yes, Rhode Island, our nation's smallest state, but not the smallest in population.
They have two congressional districts and the first congressional district is the one we're talking about today. Former incumbent David Cicilline stepped down from Congress back in May as he was named the new CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, the state's biggest nonprofit organization. So due to that, a special election was called. Now Rhode Island actually has not had a special election in any capacity in nearly 50 years for Congress. So this is kind of a big deal.
Again, this is a very heavily democratic state for that matter. Rhode Island is as many states in the New England area are according to the Cook Voting Index. This is favored by Democrats by 14 points and heavily voted for Joe Biden back in 2020. So any Democrat who is a Democrat decided to enter the race. And when the filing deadline ended, there were 12 Democratic candidates on the primary ballot. You heard that right. Twelve.
And if you thought that was a lot, well, at one point there were 23 candidates on that same ballot. Many of them were disqualified due to lack of signatures. Many withdrew before the filing deadline, which brings us down to the final 12, which I guess makes for a much less chaotic race, if you want to call it that. That's the only example you're probably going to get where a 12 candidate race is quote unquote less chaotic.
So out of the 12 candidates, there are four quote unquote major ones being ones that have received the most media attention, highest in fundraising, notable endorsements, things like that. And those four are Gabe Amow, who is a former White House aide for both Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Sandra Cano, a state senator, Sabina Matos, Rhode Island's lieutenant governor and former state representative, Aaron Regenberg.
There was a fifth major candidate, a lawyer by the name of Don Carlson, who had many ads on TV and good fundraising numbers. However, he decided to drop out of the race due to the stress it's brought amongst him, which you know, it can be very stressful running for office. I'm sure many people know that. So he dropped out of the race and endorsed Sandra Cano for the race. However, his name does still appear on the ballot. So we take a look at these four for a bit.
Now Gabe Amow is using his White House experience to his aid when many commercials that shows him alongside both President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama working with them both and then might help him. Sandra Cano using her legislative experience in the state Senate as a theme in many of her ads.
Sabina Matos, who is really the only statewide elected official in this race, has been using her name recognition and Aaron Regenberg has also been using a community based model in many of his ads as well. Now if you look at endorsements, you'll notice some notable names here. Many state representatives and state senators have endorsed Sandra Cano.
Many organizations have endorsed Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos, Emily's List being one of them, along with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Bold pack as well. And speaking of caucuses, Gabe Amow received an endorsement from the Congressional Black Caucus pack. And then Aaron Regenberg has received a notable endorsement, US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont as well as the Our Revolution organization, which Bernie Sanders helped create, which could help him with the progressive vote.
And you notice some notable names not endorsing, including David Cicilline himself, along with the Rhode Island Democratic Party as a whole, who have, I guess, both decided to lay low in the race and probably wait until the general election happens. And again, whoever wins will likely have the advantage come November 7th. So we move from the ocean state to the beehive state. Now we head to Utah. Utah has four congressional districts.
The one we'll be talking about today is the second congressional district currently being held by Representative Chris Stewart. Chris Stewart has decided to step down from Congress. His wife is very ill and he has decided to spend most of his time not traveling to and from Washington, but spending more time with her and helping her nurse her back to health, which is a very nice thing to do. So due to that, the seat is open. And this isn't the most recent special election in Utah.
There was one back in 2017 for the third congressional district. Now in the state of Utah, they do primary elections a tad bit different than most states. Most notably, it starts at a convention level. All the party elite come together, in this case, all the ones in this said district, and they decide on a candidate to be endorsed by the party and to be their official nominee.
Now many other parties throughout the area did that, including the Democratic Party, which has endorsed state Senator Kathleen Reeb, and the United Utah Party, a toward-the-middle third party endorsed January Walker, who's a software development manager, who also has the endorsement from Andrew Yang.
But the one we'll be talking about today is the Republican primary, which according to the Cook PVI has a 12-point advantage in this district, which of course means they'll have the edge come not November 7th, but November 21st. Yes, Governor of Utah Spencer Cox moved the election two weeks after the election day on the calendar. Not sure why, but who are we to judge?
So at this convention, as I mentioned previously earlier, party comes together and they vote in a few rounds to decide the nominee. And then when it was all said and done, the nominee they chose was Celeste Malloy, who is an attorney as well as one of Chris Stewart's congressional aides. So she got the most votes at the convention. After a few rounds of voting, she is the official party endorsed candidate. So that means we're done, right? Wrong.
If you're not happy with how you did at the convention, you can achieve a certain number of signatures and once you reach that threshold, you'll be put on the ballot against the party nominee and face against the voters. And whoever wins that vote on September 5th will be the party nominee. And two candidates from that convention vote achieved the magic number of signatures and are now on the ballot.
Those being former state representative Becky Edwards, who also ran for Senate last year, and Republican national committeeman Bruce Huff. Now if you look at the convention vote, both Becky Edwards and Bruce Huff were eliminated fairly early, but that didn't stop them. And both Becky Edwards and Bruce Huff have actually raised a lot more than Celeste Malloy to help get them on television and radio ads and other ways around.
But when you look at endorsements, it seems to be kind of a one-sided race here because Celeste Malloy seems to have received the most important endorsement of all from Chris Stewart, the representative whose seat they're aiming for. So Chris Stewart has basically chosen Celeste Malloy as his hand-picked successor. That on top of other notable endorsements, including the Utah State Fraternal Order of Police and an endorsement from former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt.
Meanwhile, Bruce Huff and Becky Edwards have not received any notable endorsements, which might not help them in the election. But you know, it's a three-way race. You really don't know how it's going to go until it's done. So that's all for now. If you didn't know anything about these primaries coming up, well, now you do. And to any of our listeners who happen to be in Rhode Island's First District or Utah's Second District, I really do not 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'd 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 forum you'd like. Thank you all for listening, and I will see you all very soon. Thank you for tuning in to this episode proudly presented by the AP&M Group, a subsidiary of Algid Productions LLC.
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