Primaries highlights Nadler defeats Maloney in battle of N.Y. Democrats

A very good primary night for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) continued in the Democratic race for attorney general. Daniel Uhlfelder, a Santa Rosa attorney who dressed as the Grim Reaper and walked on Florida beaches in 2020, gained national attention for mocking DeSantis’s resistance to pandemic restrictions. He capitalized on that fame to run for office, saying in his campaign launch video that “when I was watching thousands of people dying from this deadly pandemic, I put on a costume to encourage people to stay home.” But Uhlfelder lost handily to Aramis Ayala, a former state attorney who in 2017 clashed with Gov. Rick Scott (R) when she refused to pursue the death penalty.

Republican Joe Sempolinski is projected to win a special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, according to the Associated Press. Sempolinski will finish the term of Rep. Tom Reed (R), who resigned in May after being accused of sexual misconduct.

Sempolinski, who is Reed’s former district director, defeated Democrat Max Della Pia, a former Air Force wing commander.

Sempolinski was not a candidate in the Republican primary election for New York’s 23rd, which also took place Tuesday. And because of a redistricting process that caused major upheaval in New York, the winner of the primary election in New York’s 23rd will be running in a district with different boundaries in November’s general election.

A campaign to replace liberal school board members piled up wins in Florida on Tuesday, validating a strategy by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and social conservatives to target traditionally low-turnout races.

In Miami-Dade County, DeSantis-backed candidates Roberto J. Alonso and Monica Colucci prevailed in their nonpartisan races; each campaigned against “critical race theory” and to “protect female athletes and female sports.” In Jacksonville’s Duval County, which has trended left in presidential elections, female conservatives swept the open school board seats. In Tampa’s Hillsborough County, conservative candidates were leading in two of the three school board seats up for election.

Most of the headlines from Tuesday’s primaries are about wins for the Democratic mainstream. But Florida likes to be different, and the Sunshine State’s Democratic voters bucked the evening’s trend by giving a nod to Maxwell Frost.

Frost is 25 years old. He is a community organizer and drives for Uber for extra cash. He also won the Democratic primary for Florida’s heavily Democratic 10th Congressional District, giving him a good shot at becoming a member of the House of Representatives.

“I knew going into this thing that we’d be counted out because of my age,” Frost told The Post in an interview Tuesday. “And I’ve been counted out a lot of my life because of my age. But I knew that if we stuck to our message, and if we kept doing the work, and we built the movement, we would win.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) praised two longtime Democratic lawmakers who squared off in one of the most closely watched primaries in New York.

In a statement, Pelosi praised Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), who lost to her crosstown rival, saying she will be “missed in the Congress and by her constituents and the country.”

Maloney, who was first elected to Congress in 1992 and chairs the House Oversight Committee, was defeated by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who was elected to the Congress in the same year and chairs the House Judiciary Committee. The Democrats had represented neighboring districts until a chaotic redistricting process combined them into a newly drawn 10th Congressional District.

The hard-fought Democratic primary in New York’s 12th Congressional District resulted in a win for Rep. Jerrold Nadler and some relief in the White House.

That’s because Nadler’s main rival, Rep. Caroline B. Maloney, made not-so-supportive comments about President Biden over the past few weeks. The two lawmakers, who were pitted against one another due to redistricting, had largely similar views on the issues, which made Maloney’s less-than-full embrace of Biden stand out as a difference.

During a primary debate, the Democratic candidates were asked if Biden should seek reelection. “I don’t believe he’s running for reelection,” Maloney said.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) is projected to win the Democratic nomination for New York’s newly redrawn 17th Congressional District, according to the Associated Press, a post-redistricting payoff for the moderate Democrat after he gambled on switching from a competitive district to a safer one.

Maloney, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, defeated Alessandra Biaggi, a state lawmaker who had promised she would back a more liberal agenda.

Biaggi accused Maloney of putting his personal interests over that of the Democratic Party after he said he would run in the newly redrawn 17th District, which prompted Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) to seek reelection in a different district.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler is projected to win the Democratic nomination for New York’s newly redrawn 12th Congressional District, defeating longtime colleague Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, according to the Associated Press.

Nadler also defeated 38-year-old attorney Suraj Patel, who had campaigned on a message of generational change in the hopes of upsetting both powerful Democratic lawmakers. Patel challenged Maloney in 2020 and came within four percentage points of defeating her then.

Nadler, 75, and Maloney, 76, previously represented separate districts on the Upper West Side and Upper East Side, respectively, but a chaotic redistricting process unexpectedly pit them against each other under new boundaries that cover Manhattan from Harlem through Midtown. The ordeal ensured the end of at least one Democrat’s decades-long congressional career: Nadler and Maloney were both elected to Congress in 1992 and head powerful committees — Nadler the House Judiciary Committee, and Maloney the House Oversight Committee.