The New Jersey Democratic Party establishment successfully imposed its choice in contested congressional nominations, brushing aside several candidates backed by Bernie Sanders and his Our Revolution group. Nearly every Sanders-backed candidate in other states -- for governor of Iowa and congressional seats in Iowa, Montana New Mexico and California -- suffered a similar fate.
The New Jersey Democratic machine also pushed through the renomination of Senator Menendez, one of the most corrupt and right-wing figures in either major capitalist party, a longtime warmonger against Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and other countries targeted by American imperialism. A liberal challenger with almost no money, Lisa McCormick, won nearly 40 percent of the vote against the two-term incumbent senator.
Menendez only narrowly escaped imprisonment in a bribery scandal involving his longtime multi-millionaire crony Dr. Salvador Melgen, for whom he lobbied strenuously for increased reimbursements from Medicare. Melgen was convicted on multiple charges of fraud and corruption and sentenced to 17 years in prison, but lawyers for Menendez were able to obtain a hung jury on the bribery charges against the senator, which were eventually dropped by the Trump Justice Department.
The other major focus of attention in terms of the congressional races was California, where there are seven Republican-held seats carried by Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, and three other Republican-held seats considered competitive. In two of those seats, long-serving Republican incumbents Ed Royce and Darrell Issa retired rather than seek reelection.
The main concern of Democratic strategists Tuesday was that so many Democratic candidates were running in some of these districts that they might split the vote, allowing Republicans to run first and second under the state's unusual "jungle primary" format, in which all candidates of all parties appear on a single ballot. This was considered a particular risk in the districts left vacant by Royce and Issa, which had multiple, well-financed candidates in both parties.
With many late votes still to be counted, it appears that all 10 districts will have a Democratic and a Republican candidate in the November election. One of the Democrats, Jessica Morse in the Fourth District, has a military-intelligence background, having worked for years as a consultant for the Agency for International Development, a notorious CIA front, including a tour of duty in Iraq.
Two other military-intelligence Democrats -- Sara Jacobs in the 49th District, a former State Department official, and Josh Butner in the 50th District, a former Navy SEAL -- appear to have fallen just short of placing into the general election, finishing third and fourth, respectively.
Morse and the four in New Jersey bring to at least 17 the number of congressional candidates with military-intelligence backgrounds chosen by the Democratic Party this year in closely contested seats, with nearly half the primary season still remaining. In the event the Democratic Party wins control of the House of Representatives, it will be depending on a group of two dozen or more former CIA and military intelligence officers, combat commanders and State Department and National Security Council officials to sustain it in power.
The other nine Democratic candidates in competitive seats in California --potential members of Congress if the Democrats win control in November -- include a multimillionaire lottery winner, three millionaire lawyers, an IT venture capitalist, a businessman, a county prosecutor, a former Obama White House aide, and the executive of a charity for the homeless.
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