What Went Down During The May 24 Primary Elections

We are up to 37 percent of the expected vote in Alabama’s GOP primary for Senate, and Britt still leads with 45 percent to Brooks’s 29 percent, with Durant running in third with 24 percent. Now, Britt seems like a fairly safe bet to make the runoff, but her edge tonight might not be certain to produce a win in the likely runoff. Durant has hinted that he’ll endorse Brooks if it’s a runoff between Britt and Brooks, calling Britt’s campaign “corrupt.” That could help push many of Durant’s voters to Brooks and produce a competitive runoff. Still, with Britt this close to 50 percent, she seems like the odds-on the favorite to win. But there’s still a ways to go, of course.

With 30 percent of the expected vote reporting in the open Republican primary for secretary of state, Wes Allen has a teeny-tiny lead over Jim Zeigler, but neither of them look close to cracking the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Pro-democracy secretaries of state have been doing quite well in Republican primaries so far this year (going 3-0, with Raffensperger also leading tonight), but Alabama looks like one state where a Big Lie believer will soon be administering elections: Both Allen and Zeigler have questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

I should mention that Bourdeaux’s defeat means that possibly four incumbent House members have now met defeat in primaries so far this cycle. Two Republicans have lost: Reps. David McKinley of West Virginia and Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, with McKinley also losing in an incumbent-versus-incumbent contest like Bourdeaux. And while it hasn’t been projected yet, the May 17 Democratic primary in Oregon’s 5th District might see Jamie McLeod-Skinner defeat Rep. Kurt Schrader, as she leads by 18 points. But some delays in the count there have prevented us from knowing the outcome just yet.