Scocca

Your Politico Guide to Tonight’s Primary Election Phantasms

It’s another primary election day! Tell us what is at stake , Politico!

Tuesday’s primaries will essentially settle the remaining major questions about whom Democrats and Republicans will nominate in some of the nation’s most closely watched races.

Major questions meaning, “which candidates will get more votes, and hence be nominated”?  As if! The voters are secretly going to be casting their ballots to decide the fate of ineffable political forces. In Maryland, the question is

whether  [former governor Robert] Ehrlich has his mojo back after being out of politics for four years

Does “mojo” mean “votes”? Maybe! And in New Hampshire?

[Ovide] Lamontagne has closed hard on former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s favored candidate. Does he have enough momentum?

Is it possible that “momentum” also means “votes”? But then how was Lamontagne “closing hard” before the polls opened? Ah, New Hampshire, land of electoral mystery. Here’s another one:

In 2006, Democrats captured both of New Hampshire’s GOP-held House seats, confirming the state’s sharp turn away from the Republican Party. Now, however, the GOP has an opportunity to claw back those districts and stanch the bleeding.

The healing claws of the Republican Party can stop the blood, if only they can reverse the confirmation of a sharp turn away from the GOP toward the Democrats—a turn so sharply confirmed that it might turn out to have lasted for two whole elections. Which party will New Hampshire follow for the next two years? (The one that gets more votes, unless the different seats go to candidates from different parties.)