The presidential races are the top draw for today’s primaries in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island.  But, 2016 also features a full slate of House races and a third of the senate up for reelection.  For serious political junkies, congressional and gubernatorial elections are where the real action is.

Today features two important primaries, one in my former home state of Pennsylvania, where former representative Joe Sestak faces off against Katie McGinty.  Sestak lost a very winnable senate race to Pat Toomey in 2010 and is looking for a rematch. The White House and the Democratic establishment is supporting McGinty.  Media coverage suggests that Sestak is not getting establishment support because he’s an “outsider”, but the reality is, he was a terrible candidate in 2010 and would almost surely lose to Toomey in 2016.  Democratic pols who I know in Pennsylvania are all supporting McGinty.

The other hotly contested Democratic senate primary is in Maryland where two respected members of congress, Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards, vie for the Senate seat of the retiring Barbara Mikulski.  The seat is likely to remain Democratic so this one could decide who is the next Senator from Maryland. The elections to Van Hollen’s and Edward’s House seats feature scrums of Maryland Democrats spending enormous sums of money for a House primary race.