(Bloomberg View) -- The big news out of the Illinois primaries Tuesday came from two almost-defeated incumbents: the Republican governor and a Democratic member of the House. Both were excellent examples of how much parties care about policy. But the Democratic case was exactly what a healthy challenge looks like, while the Republican one was more iffy but probably not a particularly bad case, either.
For the Republicans, Governor Bruce Rauner held off state Representative Jeanne Ives by a bit more than 3 percentage points. This was mostly a policy challenge, with Ives running against a governor who had strayed from party orthodoxy on abortion. Rauner is also quite unpopular in Illinois -- he's considered the most vulnerable incumbent running this November -- so no doubt Ives was helped by general dissatisfaction with Rauner. That's a recipe for a reasonable primary challenge, although it's also true that in this very Democratic state, it's probably healthy for Republicans to show some ideological or policy flexibility. Indeed, Democrats ran "attack" ads against Ives designed to boost her fortunes with conservative Republicans, the kind of meddling in the other party's business that paid off for Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill six years ago.
Democrats, meanwhile, barely renominated Dan Lipinski in the 3rd House district over challenger Marie Newman. Lipinski had not only angered organized feminist groups over abortion -- he's one of only three pro-life Democrats remaining in the House -- but he also had opposed Obamacare and refused to endorse Barack Obama for re-election in 2012. It's an exaggeration to say he votes like a Republican; it's been true for a long time that the most conservative Democrat in the House was more liberal than the most moderate Republican, and Lipinski's overall record fits with other moderate Democrats. However, since his district leans fairly strongly Democratic, they were hardly at risk of losing it had mainstream-liberal Newman won.
As it turned out, Newman could not overcome Lipinki's incumbency advantage. But as with the Republicans, this wasn't a sign of party dysfunction or even intolerance. If anything, his win shows party weakness against the strength of an individual politician, although this one could be a sign of conflict between the local and national parties.
Yes, party sorting continues in a few places. And it would be better in some ways if both parties could run more moderate candidates where the opposing party is particularly strong. Consider Alabama Democratic Senator Doug Jones, who isn't a conservative but is among the most moderate Democrats in the Senate, or the very popular Charlie Baker, the moderate Republican governor of Massachusetts.
So far, I'm not really seeing evidence of Democrats having difficulty dealing with the surge of new candidates. Sure, it's possible that in some districts they may not have always chosen the most electable candidate, but party actors will vary the emphasis they put on perceived chances in November when they clash with policy orthodoxy. What parties need to avoid are purists who are consumed with policy and indifferent to electability. It was possible that Democrats, faced with large primary fields, would wind up making random, ineffective nominations. So far, it appears they will be able to reap the benefits from all those candidates without paying much of a price.
Next up: 11 states have primaries in May, plus there's the Texas runoff. It starts May 8 with Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia.
1. Matthew Green at the Monkey Cage on Nancy Pelosi and why House speakers are unpopular.
2. Casey Burgat has the data on the House offices with the highest and lowest staff turnover last year. My experience has been that there have been very effective members who nevertheless had terrible reputations for how they treated their staff, and plenty of ineffective members who were easy to work for. But overall, high staff turnover is definitely a warning sign that there's something wrong with the boss.
3. Gregory Eady, Justin S. Vaughn and Brandon Rottinghaus on Donald Trump, polarization and presidential rankings.
4. Nate Cohn at the Upshot on special elections and the midterms.
5. And Vox's Anna North with survey data showing slender generational differences among women over #MeToo.
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Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg View columnist. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.
To contact the author of this story: Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Brooke Sample at bsample1@bloomberg.net.
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