Yesterday marked the last presidential primary contests (in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands). While some states have a unified primary (presidential and state/congressional), others do not. while a significant number of the spring state/congressional primaries are part of a unified primary, there are some states that have a separate spring state/congressional primary. Ten states are having state or congressional primaries over the next three weeks. After June 25, there will be a month-break with the rest of the primaries taking place in August and September. Additionally, there will be a special election in Ohio. A big theme of these primaries will be what happens to some Republican agents of chaos.
Starting with the elections on June 11, first up is Maine. Both congressional districts are currently held by Democrats. In both districts, there is a Republican primary. The first district leans Democratic and the second district leans Republican. Thus, it is not a surprise that there is a little more money in the Republican primary in the second district. Both of the Republican candidates in the second district are state representatives.
Unlike Maine, things are a little more chaotic in Nevada. The Republicans have ten candidates running for U.S. Senate for the right to challenge Jacky Rosen. The top two fundraiser on the Republican side are Sam Brown (the preferred candidate of the national party) and Jeff Gunter who has gotten significant support from the Freedom Caucus. Depending on which poll you trust, either Sam Brown has a comfortable lead or it is a dead heat. At the house level, all three of the Democratic seats are lean Democratic seats, and you have multiple candidates running for the Republican nomination in all three (three in the fourth district, six in the first district, and seven in the third district).
Turning to North Dakota, the current governor, wannabe President/Vice-President Doug Burgum is not running for reelection. There is a competitive primary between the State’s current U.S. Representative, Kelly Armstrong, and its current Lieutenant Governor, Tammy Miller. In turn, that has created an open primary for the U.S. Representative slot which features five candidates. The two leading candidates, at least in terms of fundraising, are Rick Becker and Julie Fedorchak.
In Ohio, there is the special election for the sixth district. This district is a Republican district and, barring an unexpected upset, this election will bump the Republicans up to 219 seats in the House.
Besides the Senate race in Nevada, the center of attention for July 11 is South Carolina, specifically the first district. The boundaries of the first district were the subject of the recent Supreme Court case. In the last cycle, this district was lean Republican, and the South Carolina legislature opted to move African-American voters out of this district to make it safer. The current representative is Nancy Mace who has managed to offend a large segment of the Republican Party by her chaotic voting in the House (including former Speaker Kevin McCarthy when she supported his ouster). Her main, and well-funded opposition is Cathy Templeton, but there is a third candidate in the race. The big question for Tuesday is whether either candidate can wrap up the nomination or will the race be headed to a runoff election in several weeks. Current polling shows Mace ahead but under the 50% needed to avoid a runoff There is also an open seat in the third district with seven candidates running. More likely than not that race is headed to a runoff.
On June 18, there will be three states having elections with first round primaries in Oklahoma and Virginia and runoffs in Georgia. Starting with Georgia, in the second district, the Republicans have a runoff between Chuck Hand and Wayne Johnson. Neither has raised a significant amount of money. While it’s not a safe Democratic district, Representative Sanford Bishop won by a comfortable margin in 2022. The third district is an open seat but is a safe Republican district. That means that the winner of the runoff between Michael Dugan and Brian Jack is probably the next representative from this district. While anything is possible in the runoff, Brian Jack got 46% of the vote in the primary last month to 24% for Michael Dugan. As such, Brian Jack is the likely nominee. Lastly, Democrats have a runoff in the fourteenth district between Clarence Blalock and Shawn Harris. While it would be nice if the voters in the fourteenth district would come to their senses in November, the more likely result is that the winner in this runoff will lose to Marjorie Taylor Green.
In Oklahoma, the main contest appears to be in the fourth district where Representative Tom Cole is facing a well-funded primary challenger. Whether money is enough to make the primary competitive is unclear, but most of that money has come through in the last quarter. Clearly, somebody is upset with Tom Cole, but are the voters in the fourth district upset with Tom Cole.
Then there is Virginia. Virginia is a weird state. Each party and each district get to decide whether they will nominate by primary or convention. As such, only some of the districts will be having primaries. In the Senate race, the Republicans are having a five-candidate primary. There appears to be three significant candidates — the Trump candidate (Hung Cao), the Paulist candidate (Jonathan Emord), and the establishment candidate (Scott Parkinson). Cao has the most money, but all five of the candidates have raised enough to be able to run some level of a statewide campaign.
At the congressional level, the most interesting primary is the Republican Primary in the Fifth District featuring another agent of chaos, Representative Bob Good. Representative Evil has drawn opposition from state legislator John McGuire. Not too surprisingly, the anti-Freedom Caucus is supporting their leader but the establishment, including Donald Trump, is backing the challenger. The polls in this race are very split but all of the polls are showing a significant undecided vote. How that undecided vote breaks will determine the winner in this race. There are also two open races. In the seventh district, the incumbent Abigal Spanberger will be running for governor in 2025 and decided against seeking reelection to focus on that race. In this toss-up seat, you have seven Democrats and six Republicans running for their respective party’s nomination. While five of the Democrats have received significant endorsements, the leading candidate appears to be Eugene Vindman who gained national attention for disclosing President Trump’s impeachable conduct in a perfect phone call to the President of Ukraine. In terms of money and endorsement, there appears to be two leading candidates — Derrick Anderson (the establishment candidate who lost in 2022) and Cameron Hamilton (the Freedom Caucus candidate). There is another open primary in the tenth district with Representative Jennifer Wexton retiring for health reasons. There are twelve Democrats running and the most recent polls show that none of them are above 20% so literally anybody could win. On the Republican side, there are only four candidates running. It is unclear which if any of the Republican candidates is in the lead.
The elections on June 25 include Colorado and New York. There is enough going on in both states to merit a separate post for June 25.
