Bill Cassidy

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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, Slate’s politics newsletter that encourages you to get some rest this August. It’s going to be a long fall campaign season talking about the only issue that matters in America: Hasan Piker.

Today we review some results from a big week of primaries and explore what could have possibly compelled Jeanine Pirro to tell the truth in a legal filing. Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination came down to one famous Senate pushover. Is it possible he could get pushed over?

Let’s begin, though, with a look toward next week’s most-watched primary, and Fox News’ next big celebrity-in-waiting.

1.

Francesca Hong

This year, we’re thankful that the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary is almost over.

The national spotlight is now fully thrust on Francesca Hong, the democratic socialist and front-runner for Tuesday’s Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary. The topic of the week was Thanksgiving, after a 2020 tweet of Hong’s calling to “cancel Thanksgiving” resurfaced. In a CNN interview this week, then, she was asked whether she still believed that the holiday should be canceled. She did not give a firm answer. Another day or so later, she told Politico that Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday, that “I don’t want to cancel it,” and that “I actually love it.”

Hong rose in the polls by consolidating left-wing primary voters behind a populist economic platform of expanding social services, taxing the rich, and crushing data centers—all against a splintered opposition. But now that she’s at the top, everything she has ever said or posted will be under national examination.

We don’t have any advice for Hong on how she should answer these sorts of questions about past tweets sent from deep inside the bubble. We would point out, though, that governor’s races are not like Senate or presidential elections, in which pure partisanship ensures that each candidate in a swing state like Wisconsin starts at 47 percent. General election voters are more flexible in state-level races, which don’t have any effect on whether Donald Trump can continue getting judges confirmed. And we’re hard-pressed to think of anyone who’s won a governor’s race after struggling to answer a question about whether Thanksgiving should be canceled.

2.

Abdul El-Sayed

The party unites as the real match begins.

Some great news: This will be our last entry about the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, because guess what? It actually happened this week, after what felt like 47 years of campaigning. As the polls predicted, progressive Abdul El-Sayed defeated moderate Rep. Haley Stevens. But as the polls did not predict, it was a squeaker: El-Sayed won by only a point.

Our first reaction was that the lack of a lopsided verdict meant that El-Sayed would have to work that much harder to bring the party together. But then we saw that as a potential positive. El-Sayed admits he can be cocky, and the result called for an immediate conciliatory tone to welcome skeptical Stevens voters. Among the principals, everyone—El-Sayed, Stevens, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee—quickly got on the same team. Republicans, lining up behind former Rep. Mike Rogers, immediately revealed that their campaign strategy would rely on scaring voters out of electing a Muslim. Shocker. Do you think we’ll be able to skip this race in next week’s edition? If only we could promise such luxuries …

3.

Bill Cassidy

A capstone to a week of senators caving over Todd Blanche’s nomination.

By the time you read this, it’s entirely possible that the Senate will have voted to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general. Because, by midday Friday, Trump’s pick appeared to have the votes.

Early in the week, the two senators who were holding up Blanche in committee—Thom Tillis and John Cornyn—signed off on his nomination after Blanche formally rescinded the order establishing Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund. Once out of committee, the administration had to secure the support of either Bill Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski, or Susan Collins. Collins quickly said she wouldn’t support him. (We should’ve known, then and there, that Blanche would be fine.) Then, early Friday morning, Murkowski said she wouldn’t either. So Cassidy had a free shot on an open goal. With one vote, he could stick it to the president who had cost him his reelection bid. He could salvage his reputation following his infamous vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He could, in short, live a little bit.

Cassidy announced, in a Senate floor speech late Friday morning, that he would support Blanche after all. It came down to something we mentioned a few weeks ago: fear of the alternative. “The choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said. “It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump, and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche.” A normal administration might be grateful for Cassidy’s support, under the circumstances—he’s going to get an earful for flinching, once again—and proceed cautiously. But we’d soon expect this Justice Department to find a way to rub it in his eye as a parting gift.

4.

Max Miller

The calls to withdraw are getting louder.

One House Republican—North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards—dropped his reelection bid this week under a growing cloud of scandal. Here’s the problem for House Republican leaders: They needed two members to pack it up, and Ohio Rep. Max Miller has not budged. Details of his messy divorce and child custody battle, which include allegations (which Miller denies) of mental and physical abuse, have reached a breaking point for the party. Miller’s former father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno, broke his long silence over the matter. “As he has admitted privately,” Moreno posted on X, “Max Miller needs serious psychological help. He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.” He called on him to quit and injected further tales of alleged cruelty into the discussion. Numerous other colleagues of Moreno’s have as well.

Miller has blown through one deadline to withdraw from reelection, missing the Wednesday cutoff that would trigger a special primary election to replace him on the November ballot. If he withdraws by Monday, though, local Republican officials in his district could approve a new nominee. Miller has shown no indication that he’s willing to do that. As he explained in a deeply uncomfortable CNN interview this week, “My daughter is going to grow up one day, and she’s going to see all of this, and she’s not going to see that her father caved to political and social media pressures for something that he never did.” But that Monday deadline—and more pressure from Trump, who has waffled about this publicly but would not like to lose the House—could focus his otherwise scattered mind.

5.

Jeanine Pirro

A strategy for deflecting Trump’s wrath.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro crossed a bright red line late last Friday when she did the unthinkable: She told the truth in court (!) about what had happened with the Reflecting Pool renovation. In seeking to dismiss a felony charge against David Hearn, the former Olympian charged with ripping off a piece of new pool liner, Pirro explained in a filing that the pool’s “damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.”

This shocked us at first, as Pirro would have known better than anyone ahead of time that Trump would take this poorly. And he sure did, fuming at her publicly and privately for several days in a row. But Pirro had a plan to keep her job. She loaded boxes of evidence into a White House meeting with Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to prove to the president that it was Burgum who had caused this problem for the president. The plan worked well enough that Pirro—for now, at least—still has a job. Apologizing to Trump will not work. It’s weak, after all. Anger redirection, though, has some potential.

6.

Thomas Smith

The stealth Republican electoral powerhouse can’t figure out how to file a campaign finance report.

One of the more bewildering primary results of the year came this week in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, a swing seat currently represented by Democratic freshman Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet. Amir Hassan, the Navy veteran backed by Trump and GOP congressional leaders, was flattened in his primary by a certain Thomas Smith, a rando who had suspended his campaign (and endorsed a third candidate, Al Lemmo). To give you a sense of the credibility of Smith’s candidacy, his only campaign finance filing to the Federal Election Commission was a handwritten note stating that he had raised $1,850 and that he couldn’t file it electronically “because I have had no success logging in and have not been able to get a response from the helpdesk.”

Our first reaction to this story was that it was extremely funny. After further thought, though, it nets out to merely above-average funny. There’s only one reason a credible, Trump-backed candidate named Amir Hassan would have lost this Republican primary, and it’s not pretty.

7.

Andy Ogles

One more Trump-endorsed incumbent to lose.

Tennessee held its primaries on Thursday, because Thursday primaries are just how Tennessee rolls. The main news of the evening was that Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles, a Freedom Caucus member and shit-stirrer, lost his primary to former state Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher. Ogles had Trump’s endorsement; Hatcher had the endorsement of Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.