Live primary election results: California, New Jersey and Iowa updates

Progressives didn’t make investments a lot within the New Jersey Home primaries, however that didn’t imply they weren’t being attentive to Tuesday evening’s outcomes.

Outcomes from the tenth Congressional District, the place Imani Oakley, the previous New Jersey Working Households legislative director, challenged Rep. Donald Payne Jr., have been of specific curiosity. A robust exhibiting from Oakley might need set the stage for one more, better-funded and arranged effort to oust Payne in two years.

However Payne, a five-term incumbent who took over the seat from his late father, raced out to an early lead and comfortably clinched the nomination.

A brand new PAC, Group Blue, co-chaired by Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Terri Sewell of Alabama and Cheri Bustos of Illinois, was additionally paying shut consideration. Earlier than polls closed on Tuesday, they put out an announcement reiterating their help for Payne – with a jab on the left for good measure.

“Rep. Payne, a confirmed progressive, is going through a major problem from the acute left, mirroring the current, failed effort to take down Rep. Shontel Brown in Ohio,” the co-chairs mentioned.

Oakley, in an announcement, ripped the occasion institution in New Jersey’s over what she described as “soiled tips” and lamented the continued affect of “our state’s corrupt political machine,” however vowed to proceed her combat.

Whether or not nationwide progressives will probably be there to again her is one other query. The bigger native progressive organizations, together with the New Jersey WFP, nearly unanimously backed Payne.

Outcomes from the Backyard State’s eighth Congressional District, the place Rep. Albio Spires retired to make manner for Robert Menendez Jr., son of New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, have been additionally dispiriting for progressives. Menendez Jr. has by no means held workplace, however rapidly secured key endorsements in a district that may have in any other case invited a aggressive contest. 

Menendez Jr. in the end confronted two different candidates, together with progressive David Ocampo Garajales, who appears to be like unlikely to crack 15% of the vote.