Kansas Upheld Abortion Rights And Other Key Updates From The Aug. 2 Elections

[Editor’s Note: The following has been updated as of 11:41 a.m. Eastern with the latest results.]

Tuesday marked the first vote on abortion in a post-Roe landscape. Kansans decided by a double-digit margin that the state constitution does, in fact, protect the right to abortion. With 99 percent of the expected vote reporting, 59 percent of voters voted “no,” on the amendment, or to clarify that the constitution does protect the right to abortion, while 41 percent voted “yes,” or to clarify that the constitution doesn’t protect the right to abortion. It’s notable that the yeses won by 18 points in a state that former President Donald Trump won by roughly 15 points in 2020.

It’s possible, too, that what we saw tonight in Kansas signals that abortion might be an energizing issue for Democrats headed into the 2022 midterms — turnout was staggeringly high in some corners of the state, like Johnson County, the state’s most populous county. Though as we talked about on the live blog, there are still a lot of questions about whether this will translate to electoral success for Democrats in November.

Meanwhile in Arizona, we weren’t sure when we hit the hay last night, but it does seem as if in all four of its statewide races — governor, U.S. Senate, attorney general and secretary of state — an election-denying candidate could win. (The caveat here is the governor’s race, where we don’t expect a call anytime soon.) Moreover, they all had Trump’s backing:

• With 80 percent of the vote now counted, Trump-backed former TV anchor Kari Lake has pulled ahead of former Arizona Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson, currently leading, 46 to 44 percent. ABC News hasn’t yet projected this race for Lake and likely won’t for awhile. It will all come down to what type of vote is still outstanding: Robson led in the mail-vote while Lake led in election day vote. A reminder that Lake has fully embraced Trump’s false election claims while Robson has refrained from taking a stance.
• Meanwhile in the Senate primary, former Thiel Foundation President Blake Masters has won, and with 78 percent of the vote counted, he has a roughly 10 point lead over solar power businessman Jim Lamon. (Remember, though, on the election-denying front, it didn’t actually matter whether it was Masters, Lamon or Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich who won, as all three have denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election.)
• For secretary of state — an important post considering that it oversees elections — election-denying state Rep. Mark Finchem won with 74 percent of the vote counted, defeating businessman Beau Lane, the one candidate who unreservedly acknowledge Biden’s win in this race.
• And finally, Trump-backed Abraham Hamadeh won the attorney general race with 32 percent of the vote. Both Hamadeh and Rodney Glassman said Trump was the rightful 2020 winner.

One other big thread we were tracking this evening was how the three House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol fared. And at least one lost. Republican Rep. Peter Meijer lost to Trump-endorsed challenger John Gibbs by about 4 points in the GOP primary for Michigan’s 3rd District, with around 99 percent of the expected vote. Meijer joins South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice as the two pro-impeachment Republicans who have lost their primaries so far.

Meanwhile, the two other House Republicans who backed impeachment appear to be in a better position, although there are a lot of votes left to still be counted in Washington. In Washington’s 3rd District, Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has advanced, per ABC News, with 32 percent of the vote and about half of the expected vote in. It’s not clear yet whether Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler, who voted to impeach Trump, will prevail, but she is in second with 24 percent — good enough to advance if results hold. In Washington’s 4th District, Rep. Dan Newhouse holds a narrow lead over the field with 27 percent, followed by Doug White, the lone Democrat in the race. It’s possible, though, that Loren Culp, Trump’s endorsee, catches up with him, as only about half the expected vote has been reported.

Should Herrera Beutler and Newhouse both manage to pull out first- or second-place finishes, they’d join California Rep. David Valadao as the three pro-impeachment Republicans who have survived their primaries. Perhaps not coincidentally, Valadao also hails from a top-two primary state, which may give a slight boost to more moderate candidates than a traditional party primary.

Finally, here are updates on the other races that weren’t called when we put the live blog to bed.

• In the Republican primary for Arizona’s 4th District, Kelly Cooper leads Tanya Wheeless 30 percent to 25 percent. The winner will take on Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton in this swing seat in the fall.
• The GOP primary in Arizona’s 1st District has now been called for Republican Rep. David Schweikert. He will face Democrat Jevin Hodge in this red-leaning Phoenix-area seat.
• The GOP primary in Arizona’s 2nd District has also been called for Eli Crane. Crane will now face Democratic Rep. Tom O’Halleran in a seat that became much redder in redistricting. The Republican will likely be favored in the fall.
• The Democratic primary in Michigan’s 13th District, a safely blue open seat around Detroit, has been called for Shri Thanedar. With Thanedar’s victory, it will now be the first time voters haven’t elected a Black representative since 1954, which is likely in part thanks to redistricting and the fact that a number of high-profile Black candidates ran in this race.
• In Washington’s 8th District (likely the state’s only competitive seat this fall), Democratic Rep. Kim Schrier leads the all-party primary with 49 percent, ensuring she’ll have a spot in the general election. But the top three GOP contenders are all bunched up behind her: 2020 state attorney general nominee Matt Larkin has 16 percent, while King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn and 2020 8th District nominee Jesse Jensen both have 15 percent.

And now ABC News has projected Kobach as the winner as well.

The Associated Press has called the Republican primary for Kansas attorney general for Kris Kobach. With 90 percent of the expected vote in, he is defeating state Sen. Kellie Warren 42 percent to 38 percent. Warren had argued that Kobach, who lost bids for governor in 2018 and Senate in 2020, would be unelectable, but he’s probably the favorite this fall given how red Kansas is. And if he is elected attorney general, you can expect him to be a major thorn in the Biden administration’s side, especially on issues of voting and immigration, which have been career-long focuses for Kobach.