Five things to watch for in the Florida and New York primaries

Democrats choose who will face down Ron DeSantis in November, a special election tests Republican momentum and a whole lot of intensely personal primaries dominate Tuesday’s election landscape

Florida and New York are not known for having the most functional politics, to say nothing about the fact during the Covid-19 pandemic many are left the Empire State to the more Republican Sunshine State.

In Florida, two Democrats are competing for the chance to compete against Republican incumbent Governor Ron DeSantis, whom Democrats hope to knock off or at least weaken as he weighs a 2024 White House run.

New York’s primaries are far more chaotic. Earlier this year, Democrats in the state legislature tried to draw a more gerrymandered map, but the state Supreme Court rejected the map.

That, in turn, caused a veritable game of musical chairs, with Democratic members scrambling to find seats that were the safest for them. It also has led to some contentious primaries. Here are five things to watch in Tuesday’s primaries in New York and Florida.

Who gets to face off against Ron DeSantis? And do they have a chance?

Four years ago, Ron DeSantis narrowly beat Andrew Gillum in a highly watched race in which many expected the former Tea Party congressman to lose. Four years later, Mr DeSantis has become a conservative hero for keeping the state open during the Covid-19 pandemic, passing legislation to restrict teaching about racism in schools – though a judge blocked the law – and picking a fight with Disney over the Republican legislature’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law.

Charlie Crist (Getty Images)

Plenty of conservatives hope he seeks the presidency in 2024, even if it means directly confronting his former political patron Donald Trump. But Florida has also become decidedly more Republican in recent years.

That simultaneously raises and lowers the stakes in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. US Representative Charlie Crist previously was a Republican governor of the state, but later switched parties. In 2014, he narrowly lost to then-Governor Rick Scott (now a US senator) and ran for Congress in 2016.

Also running for the Democratic nomination is Nikki Fried, the only statewide elected Democrat who serves as agriculture commissioner. Ms Fried, who is 44, has made her slogan “Something New,” as a reference to Mr Crist, who is 66 and has served in politics government for decades. Most polls show Mr Crist leading Ms Fried by a wide margin, which sets him up for another general election, this time against the conservative golden boy.

A New York special election tests how big Republicans’ November victory will be

When Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul selected Representative Antonio Delgado to be her lieutenant governor, that opened up New York’s 19th District, which Mr Delgado flipped back in 2018 and won again in 2020. Currently, Republican Mark Molinaro is running against Democratic candidate Pat Ryan for the seat.

Democrats have made inroads in more decidedly Republican districts in multiple special elections in Nebraska and Minnesota, after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v Jackson decision that overturned Roe v Wade.

For their part, Republicans hope to win back the seat to show momentum ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, when they are largely expected to win back the House majority. An internal Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee poll shared with NBC News showed Mr Molinaro narrowly beating Mr Ryan. If Democrats win the seat, it shows they might not have as calamitous of a November. But a Republican victory would give the GOP momentum going into the fall.

An all-out blood feud between two veteran Democrats – and one newcomer

The redistricting process in New York has led to Representatives Jerry Nadler, who represents the Upper West Side, and Carolyn Maloney, of the Upper East Side, running in a member-on-member primary. Mr Nadler is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and led former president Donald Trump’s impeachment proceedings, while Ms Maloney is chairwoman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, which was also in charge of holding the former president accountable.

Rep Jerry Nadler. (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Ms Maloney has also emphasised protecting abortion rights, leading a protest in front of the Supreme Court with many progressive Democrats such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She’s also criticised Mr Nadler as being too old and senile, referencing a New York Post editorial. Conversely, Mr Nadler and up-and-coming primary challenger Suraj Patel have flagged her previous anti-vaccine legislation and history of outlandish statements.

Rep Carolyn Maloney. (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

A Democratic leader faces a progressive insurgent

After the New York congressional maps were announced, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, announced he would run in New York’s new 17th District. That angered some Democrats because they felt the move pushed out progressive Representative Mondaire Jones. In turn, state Senator Alessandra Biaggi, who beat a moderate Democrat in 2018, challenged Mr Maloney, a moderate Democrat.

Many progressives have boosted Ms Biaggi’s campaign. But, as The Daily Beast reported, she also angered some Democrats in the area when she tweeted, “At the risk of sounding ageist, it’s still important to ask: when a majority of Congress is past child-bearing age, how fierce can we expect their fight to be?” That infuriated some Democratic leaders in the state and could compromise her ability to lead the conference.

A split progressive field creates an opening for a moderate

Mr Maloney’s decision to run in the 17th District led to Mr Jones running in New York’s 10th District. But the primary is incredibly crowded with progressive candidates, including former Representative Elizabeth Holtzman, City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera and Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, who, if she wins, would be the first openly autistic member of Congress.

That has in turn created an opening for Daniel Goldman, the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune who is self-funded. But many also criticised Mr Goldman after he said he would not object to a state law that bans abortion after fetal viability, Spectrum News reported.