As we conclude the August primaries (there are runoffs next week in Oklahoma, but nothing above the state legislative level), the main focus will be on Florida.  Yes there are primaries in Alaska and Wyoming, but they will have little impact on November.

In Alaska, the only statewide or Congressional primary is for the one house seat.  However, Alaska uses  a top four primary.  Barring a major upset, the top three are all but set.  Democratic Representative Mary Peltola might lose in November, but she will get well beyond the 20% needed to be assured of a spot in the top four.  The top two Republicans are two-time third-placed candidate Nick Begich and Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom.  It is possible that whomever of these two gets fewer votes might only end up in the mid to high teens.  If there were five strong candidates, that might be fatal to making the top four.  But there aren’t five strong candidates and a number in the mid-teens will probably be good enough for a top four finish.  Beyond those three, nobody has raised significant funds.  Somebody will do good enough to finish four and make the general, and that somebody might get some funds to run a general election campaign.  But that candidate is unlikely to get enough votes in November to avoid being the first candidate out in ranked-choice voting.

In Wyoming, there will be primaries on the Republican side for both the Senate and the House.  One of the two challengers in the Senate has raised a significant amount of money, but there is no indication that there is significant grassroots opposition to either incumbent.  My expectation is that both incumbents will have comfortable wins on Tuesday.

That leaves Florida.  Both parties have primaries for the U.S. Senate.  In both parties, there is a candidate that everybody is assuming will be the nominee — Republican Senator Rick Scott and Democratic former Representative Debbie Murcasel-Powell.  But there are other candidates who filed in each primary including one candidate in each primary who has raised and spent over $1 million — Republican Keith Gross and Democrat Stanley Campbell.  There has been no polling of the Senate primaries so nobody knows if either primary will be competitive.

Moving to the Congressional races, in any rational universe, Representative Matt Gaetz would never have been elected, much less reelected.  His opponent in the primary has raised some funds, but polling indicates that Representative Gaetz has a significant lead and should win.

The Eighth District is an open seat with three Republican candidates running in the primary.  Given the lean of the district, the winner of the Republican primary will be a heavy favorite to win in November.  All of the candidates have raised significant amounts of money.  Mike Haridopolis used to be a Republican leader in the state legislature, but that was over a decade ago.  He appears to be well ahead in the polls.

The Thirteenth District is a potential swing district and several Democrats have lined up for the chance to take on first term Representative Anna Luna in November.  All of the Democrats have raised in the six figure range with Whitney Fox having raised the most money.  There is no public polling of this race so it really is up in the air as to which candidate has the advantage.

In the Sixteenth District, Representative Vern Buchanan has drawn a well-funded challenger in the Republican primary.  However, that financial support has not made much of a mark in the polls, and it seems like Representative Buchanan will survive on Tuesday.

In the Twenty-first District, Republican Representative Brian Mast has drawn some opposition from the even further right extreme of the party.  His challenger has raised some funds but probably not enough to make this race competitive given the expense of running in the Miami media market.

The Twenty-Second District is a lean Democratic district, and the Republicans are lining up for the opportunity to lose to Representative Lois Frankel in November.  The candidate who lost in 2022, Dan Franzese has raised the most money, but the other two have also raised significant amounts.  In the absence of polling, it is anybody’s guess who will get the Republican nomination.

You have a similar story in the Twenty-third district, a swing seat currently held by Democrat Jared Moskowitz.  Six Republicans have filed, and three of them have raised in the six figure range.  Two of these three candidates are former unsuccessful nominees in the old version of the district which probably gives them some name-recognition advantage.  The third candidate if a former city councilor in one of the cities within the district.  Again, there is no polling of this primary making it unclear which if any of these candidates is the favorite on Tuesday.

In the Twenty-Fifth District, former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has a decently funded primary challenger.  However, this challenger has run against Representative Wasserman-Schultz and lost before.  There is no reason to think that this year will be different.

The Twenty-Seventh District is the flip side of the Twenty-Second District, a lean Republican seat in which you have two well-funded Democratic candidates seeking the difficult task of taking on Representative Maria Salazar in the fall.  On paper, this district should be competitive, but Representative Salazar has outperformed the generic Republican in the past.  There are no polls of the primary, but general election polling with one of the two Democrats shows him narrowly trailing Representative Salazar so if the Democrats do well in Florida in November, this seat could flip.

In short, there are only a handful of races worth watching this week.  There is the contest for the fourth general election slot in Alaska (i.e. the first candidate to be eliminated in ranked choice voting in November) and a handful of Congressional primaries in Florida — the Republican primaries in the Eighth, Twenty-Second, and Twenty-third District and the Democratic primaries in the Thirteenth and Twenty-Seventh District.

After this week, we effectively have next week off followed by four primaries and one special election in September.