What Went Down During The May 24 Primary Elections

All right readers, we’re calling it a night. There are some key races still outstanding, which we’ll write about in greater detail below, but as we prepare to shutter the live blog there are a few key takeaways from the evening as well.

The biggest takeaway might be that even though tonight was not a good one for Trump’s endorsement track record, especially in Georgia, don’t write off his influence in the party just yet. Yes, Kemp handily won renomination in Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial primary, but as Alex wrote on the live blog earlier, even if Trump’s preferred candidates don’t win, it’s not “necessarily good news for the anti-Trump wing of the GOP. That’s because, at least in several of Georgia’s races, the non-Trump backed incumbent is still embracing Trumpian politics!”

Indeed, that’s a refrain you can expect to hear throughout the primary season. Here’s a rundown of the important races we were tracking without an official winner. That said, we can see where most of them are headed:

• Perhaps the most important uncalled race is the Republican primary for Georgia secretary of state. Pro-democracy incumbent Brad Raffensperger has done better than expected, with 51 percent of the vote vs. 34 percent for Trump’s endorsee, Rep. Jody Hice with 77 percent of the vote reported. It’s uncertain whether Raffensperger will be forced into a runoff, though, as he’s just barely above the 50 percent threshold. [Editor’s Note: Early Wednesday, ABC News projected that Raffensperger will win his election, and with 95 percent of the total vote expected, he does seem to have narrowly avoided a runoff against Hice, having earned 52 percent of the vote to Hice’s 33 percent.]
• And in the race for lieutenant governor there, state Sen. Butch Jones has just over 50 percent with 86 percent of the expected vote in, ahead of state Sen. Butch Miller. Jones, endorsed by Trump, might be able to just squeak out a victory and avoid a runoff.
• Meanwhile, three Republican primaries in the House appear headed for runoffs in Georgia, although none have been projected yet by ABC News. In the 6th District, physician Rich McCormick is at about 45 percent, so if he doesn’t reach 50 percent, he’ll face Trump-endorsed former state ethics commission chair Jake Evans in a June 21 runoff. In the 10th District, a runoff is certain, probably between businessman Mike Collins and Trump-endorsed former state Rep. Vernon Jones. And in the 2nd District, which could be competitive in the fall, former Army officer Jeremy Hunt and Air National Guard officer Chris West look likely to meet in a second round.
• The Republican primary in Alabama for senator is also still up in the air. Former Business Council of Alabama President Katie Britt has a solid lead with 44 percent, but that’s not enough to avoid a runoff. Rep. Mo Brooks leads former Army helicopter pilot Mike Durant for second place, 29 percent to 24 percent.
• In the GOP primary for governor in Alabama, incumbent Kay Ivey is hovering just above the 50 percent threshold she needs to avoid a runoff against either former Ambassador to Slovenia Lindy Blanchard (in second with 19 percent) or businessman Tim James (the son of former Gov. Fob James, in third with 16 percent). [Editor’s Note: ABC News projected that Ivey will win her election. As of 8:40 a.m. ET, Wednesday, she had 54 percent of the vote, well above her other challengers with 94 percent of the expected vote in.]
• In Texas, three races are still outstanding: the Democratic primary runoffs in the 15th District and 28th District and the Democratic primary runoff for attorney general. In the 15th District, lawyer and Army veteran Ruben Ramirez and activist and small business owner Michelle Vallejo are essentially tied at 50 percent. We might not have a winner in the other border-area congressional seat — the 28th District — tonight either, as Rep. Henry Cuellar and progressive immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros are similarly neck-and-neck. According to ABC News’s most recent vote projections, the incumbent is leading by roughly 1,130 votes, with about 82 percent of the expected vote in. The biggest wild card here will be Election Day votes cast in Duval and Zapata counties — where Cuellar is expected to have a strong showing. [Editor’s Note: The race has since narrowed, and less than 1,000 votes separate Cuellar and Cisneros.] The Democratic primary race for attorney general, meanwhile, is much less of a nail-biter. According to The New York Times, Rochelle Garza, a former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer from Brownsville, leads Joe Jaworski, the former mayor of Galveston, 62 percent to 38 percent, with roughly 60 percent of the vote reported. The winner of this race will face Republican incumbent Ken Paxton this fall, but it’ll be an uphill climb. Despite Paxton’s many legal and personal woes, he handily defeated his GOP challenger, Land Commissioner George P. Bush, 68 percent to 32 percent. And remember: No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas since 1994.
• In the GOP primary for Alabama’s 5th District, Madison County Commissioner Dale Strong has, erm, a strong lead with 47 percent, but as of now he’d be forced into a runoff with former Assistant Secretary of the Army Casey Wardynski, who sits at 22 percent.
• In the Republican primary for Alabama secretary of state, state Auditor Jim Zeigler (43 percent) and state Rep. Wes Allen (39 percent) seem like they’re headed for a runoff. Notably, both have questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
• Finally, in Minnesota’s 1st District, which is holding a special election for the remainder of the late Rep. Jim Hagedorn’s term, the Republican primary is a close contest between former U.S. Department of Agriculture official Brad Finstad and state Rep. Jeremy Munson. With a little under half of the vote counted, Munson leads Finstad by 6 points, 38-32 percent. Either one would be favored in a general election, but Munson might be a riskier option given that he’s fairly unpopular among Minnesota Republican party leaders for his antics in the state legislature, and his campaign’s general consultant was recently arrested on rape charges.

In Republican primaries tonight, the non-incumbent women who received support from either Maggie’s List, VIEW PAC, or Winning for Women, are winning a little more than half of their races. Cassy Garcia, who received support from these groups when she advanced to the runoff, should win in Texas’s 28th District. And Katie Britt is leading the Alabama Senate race, while Sarah Huckabee Sanders won the Arkansas governor’s race. Jennifer Strahan (who was only endorsed by VIEW PAC) lost in Georgia’s 14th District to incumbent Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Suzi Voyles (who was only endorsed by Maggie’s List) is trailing in Georgia’s 6th District. Voyles was up against a Trump endorsed candidate, Jake Evans. It remains to be seen if the GOP will match the (small) gains women made in 2020, but we will be watching.

Like last week’s big state run, Trump’s endorsement record looks pretty mixed tonight. Of course, there are races where his chosen candidate won or is leading by nearly insurmountable margins (like the lieutenant governor and Senate races in Georgia tonight). But his chosen challengers to incumbent candidates fell short. His picks in open primaries (Jake Evans and Vernon Jones) are trailing, but the leading candidate is still under 50 percent, meaning they’ll get another shot.

Trump endorsed two of his preferred candidates — Herschel Walker for Senate in Georgia, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders for governor in Arkansas — all the way back in 2021. That could’ve contributed to their front-runner status during their campaigns and their easy victories tonight. That might suggest Trump’s endorsement power is waning with actual voters.

And in the land of Big Lie candidates — of which there were a disconcerting number tonight — the vast majority of wins came from incumbent members of Congress who voted not to certify the election results, but who were expected to win their races tonight. As we move forward, the secretary of state race is worth watching. Right now, Brad Raffensperger is up with 51.2 percent of the votes, and if he will avoid a runoff if he keeps that lead. Otherwise, I’ll be watching closely on June 21 to see if Jody Hice, a truly vehement denier of the results of a democratically executed election, becomes the Republican nominee for Georgia’s chief election official.

I’m signing off for tonight. Only about 14 percent of the vote is in for the Democratic primary in Minnesota’s 1st District, but it has basically been Jeff Ettinger’s race to lose all night: He’s currently got 62.3 percent of the vote. If he wins tonight, though, he’ll have a harder time in the general election. Republicans are favored to win this district.

Before I sign off for the evening, let’s check back in on a few races I was keeping an eye on. First up: the GOP race for Alabama governor. As of right now, it looks like Kay Ivey will avoid a run-off in her bid for a second term. She’s got 55.4 percent of the vote with a little over half of votes returned.

Let’s turn back to the Republican primary in Georgia’s 10th District. As I mentioned earlier, Mike Collins (who has questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election) is in the lead, but with 25.2 percent of the vote and 65 percent of votes reporting, it will likely go to a run-off. He’ll be facing off against Vernon Jones, a lapsed Democrat who crossed the aisle after supporting Trump’s reelection bid. Originally, Jones was running for the GOP nomination for governor, but Trump had already thrown his support behind Perdue in that race.

If Jones agreed to switch to a congressional race instead, the former president promised him an endorsement, and Jones took him up on the offer. But unlike most Trump endorsees, who quickly get the backing of Trump’s base, many MAGA types were not too fond of Jones and questioned the endorsement. Aside from his sullied past as a former Democrat, I found far-right Republicans online were troubled by allegations of rape that had been made against Jones (which Jones denies, and charges for which were dropped). But because Trump can do no wrong, many justified the endorsement as Trump’s attempt to bring attention to Jones and “expose” him.

In MN-01, things have tightened a bit between Finstad and Munson but they’re still looking like the candidates to beat, with about 21 percent of the vote counted so far. Finstad has 33 percent, Munson has 28 percent, and state Rep. Nels Pierson is in a distant third place with 7 percent.

ABC News has projected the Democratic primary for the Arkansas governor’s race for Chris Jones. Jones is a Pine Bluff native who returned to Arkansas in 2018 after earning his bachelor’s degree at Morehouse College in Atlanta and dual master’s degrees and a doctorate at MIT and working in Boston and Maryland nonprofits. He launched his campaign for governor with a well-produced introductory video that traveled quickly across social media and gained national attention. If he were to win, he would be the state’s first Black governor.

The Democratic primary in Texas’s 15th District is currently tied. In the first round of voting in March, Vallejo barely forced a runoff by finishing just a little over 300 votes above third place.

As Galen mentioned, Texas’s 28th District will be competitive in November. That said, Republicans didn’t seem to invest much in their own primary. But the competitiveness of the district might help explain why Cisneros’s progressive supporters, like Sen. Sanders and Sen. Warren, emphasized that she would be on the side of working people. They understand Cuellar’s appeal there and are hoping Cisneros will have broad appeal.

Well, even though abortion seemingly opened an avenue of attack for Cisneros against Cuellar, who is anti-abortion rights, it hard to say yet if it mattered much. Currently, Cisneros leads by about 1 point, 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent, but two counties Cuellar carried easily haven’t reported anything yet, according to ABC News. Still, Cisneros could benefit from the outstanding votes left to be reported in Bexar County (San Antonio), so this race is very much up in the air. But that’s sort of what we expected after Cuellar led 49 percent to 47 percent in the primary. I guess it’ll be easy to say that abortion mattered if Cisneros wins, but it will be harder to parse whether that’s true.

Sarah, I think all the focus on the Cuellar/Cisneros, moderate/progressive feud has distracted from how competitive this race could be this fall. Whoever pulls this out (and maybe even more so if it’s Cisneros) will be facing strong headwinds in the Rio Grande Valley. The movement towards Trump from 2016 to 2020 in the region was basically unmatched anywhere else in the country. The counties along the U.S.-Mexico border saw an average shift of 16 points towards the president.

Going into tonight, Sarah, I was under the impression that Cuellar has a slight edge. He’s a conservative Democrat, yes, but there’s a reason why he’s been in office since 2005. He’s a conservative because it works down there! And it’s unclear whether South Texas — which swung red in 2020 — is ready to have a progressive representative like Cisneros. That said, Cisneros, and other groups aligned with her candidacy, attempted to paint this race as a referendum on how much voters care about abortion access. Cuellar has quite the reputation as an anti-abortion Democrat, but it’s not immediately clear how much that turned off voters in the district.

Additionally, what does it say about Texas’s 28th District that two candidates who are so different from each other still appeal to large swaths of the electorate? Politically speaking, is the 28th a really unique place?

We might very well not get a call tonight in Texas’s 28th District given how close the margin is, but let’s talk more about the dynamics in that race. Alex, you’ve been tracking the race closely, and we’ve talked a lot about how this is an establishment vs. progressive showdown, but what other issues are playing out in the 28th District?

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.

The AP has called the Arkansas Senate Republican primary for incumbent John Boozman.

ABC News projects that Rep. Lucy McBath has defeated fellow Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux in a member-versus-member Democratic primary battle in Georgia’s 7th District in suburban Atlanta. McBath will now be favored to win reelection in a seat where Georgia Republicans drew as a Democratic vote sink — it’s 16 points more Democratic than the country as a whole. But McBath’s victory does come with a cost for her party, as she chose to abandon the 6th District, which was redrawn as a strongly Republican seat she would not have held onto. As a result, Democrats will lose a seat in the Atlanta suburbs.

To your point, Jacob, Jan Morgan is a fairly recognizable figure in the state. I haven’t seen her run a traditional campaign or give a lot of interviews, but she may have felt she didn’t need to because she already has a following.

In the race for GOP nominee for governor in Alabama, 77-year-old Kay Ivey is currently leading in her bid for a second term with 56.8 percent of votes. Behind her is Lindy Blanchard, the former ambassador to Slovenia under President Trump, with 19 percent of the vote, and Tim James, whose dad is Fob James, Georgia’s governor from 1979 -1983 and again from 1995-1999. James (the son) has 16 percent of the vote currently:

And because it’s my main focus tonight, I’ll also note that Ivey said in a campaign ad that “fake news, Big Tech and blue state liberals stole the election from President Trump.”

In Arkansas, I find it interesting that Jake Bequette is only slightly outpacing Jan Morgan in the GOP primary. Bequette ran a full campaign and got millions of dollars in outside support from GOP mega-donor Dick Uihlein. Morgan had basically no money but is just 3.5 points behind him. She did win 30 percent in the GOP gubernatorial primary in 2018, though, so maybe this is a regression for her.

In the GOP primary for Minnesota’s 1st District special election, we’ve got 9 percent of the vote counted, and so far it looks to be a two-man race between former U.S. Department of Agriculture official Brad Finstad and state Rep. Jeremy Munson. Perhaps not so coincidentally, these are the two candidates who received support from outside groups: $1.5 million for Munson from a Sen. Rand Paul-affiliated Super PAC and the House Freedom Caucus, and $1.2 million for Finstad from the cryptocurrency-backed American Dream Federal Action. Finstad was also backed by $900,000 from the more moderate Republican group Defending Main Street.

With not quite 40 percent of the expected vote in, John Boozman is ahead in the Republican primary for Arkansas Senate, with 58 percent of the vote so far. Jake Bequette has 22 percent of the vote, and Jan Morgan, a former journalist and gun range owner, has 18 percent. I haven’t written much about Morgan yet, but she has been all-in on the Big Lie — and even took a bus of Arkansans to D.C. ahead of the Jan. 6 rally. She is unlikely to win this race, but she’ll probably maintain a platform as a far-right public figure in the state.

I mean, he won a statewide election to become land commissioner!

Was Bush really that viable, Galen?

Nate, I take what you’re saying about pro-democracy candidates, but I don’t know if that’s the trend line tonight. It might also be that it’s really hard to beat incumbents. Paxton is a big time 2020 election denier and he had a very viable challenger in Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush. That race isn’t remotely close, though.

I want to digest things a bit more, but if the role of the press is to “root for democracy” (I could write a long critique about what is and isn’t implied by that phrase) then I think it’s important to note that a lot of the more anti-democratic candidates didn’t perform well tonight, and that’s probably more important than the horse-race implications. As for Trump, I think there’s an argument to be made that his influence is waning, but I think a candidate like DeSantis is more likely to be the beneficiary of that than one like Pence.

All right, we’ve got some results from the GOP primary for Senate in Alabama worth reporting on now. With 13 percent of the expected vote in so far, Britt leads with 44 percent, not that far from the 50 percent threshold a candidate needs to avoid a runoff. And perhaps back from the dead, Brooks is in 2nd with 29 percent, followed by Durant with 24 percent. However, it does look like we have a fair bit of the vote in from Madison County in northern Alabama (home to Huntsville), which is Brooks’s turf in the House, so that might be overselling his strength at this point.

With 35 percent of the vote in, the race is pretty tight in the Democratic primary in Texas’s 15th District. Ruben Ramirez is slightly ahead with 53 percent of the vote. He’s running as more moderate and has been endorsed by Blue Dog PAC. But Michelle Vallejo, who’s been endorsed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other progressives, isn’t far behind. Meredith is watching how progressive candidates fare across the country. It’s a battle playing out in red states, too, as Democrats try to figure out what kind of candidates can win in heavily Republican or Republican-leaning districts.

George P. Bush has issued a concession statement:

I don’t think this has anything to do with Pence. Sure, he endorsed Kemp, but that’s not why Kemp won. And as far as Pence’s shot at 2024 is concerned, I wouldn’t put him ahead of Trump or DeSantis until I see something in the actual data suggesting otherwise. But I agree that it’s a bad night for Trump insofar as it makes him look silly. Although, as has been said, this doesn’t necessarily say much about whether Republicans will vote for him in a hypothetical 2024 primary.

To sort of change of the roles here, I don’t think that Obama endorsing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a primary against Gov. Kathy Hochul would mean that Ocasio-Cortez would be the next governor of New York, but I’m pretty damn sure, if it were constitutional, that Obama could win a 2024 Democratic Primary.

What do you all think … bad night for Trump, good night for Pence? I know you, Nate, once ranked Pence pretty highly in a FiveThirtyEight presidential draft. Or at the very least, didn’t think it was a bad pick.

That’s a really good point, Jacob. This quote from Kemp during a virtual news conference Monday really stood out to me, too. Kemp said, “I had a great relationship with President Trump. I’ve never said anything bad about him. I don’t plan on doing that. I’m not mad at him. I think he’s just mad at me. And that’s something that I can’t control.”

Hardly sounds like he’s distancing himself from Trump, even if Trump had a vendetta against him.

Trump’s candidate really only won or is leading in one competitive primary for tonight, Georgia’s lieutenant governor race. Overall, it’s a pretty bad night for Trump’s power when measured solely through endorsements — but yes, Alex makes a good point that the success of his ideals might ultimately be more enduring (but harder to measure).

Kemp is not a moderate. I would say he’s Trumpy in all regards except for the stolen election conspiracy theory. This is a guy whose most famous campaign ad features him talking about rounding up undocumented immigrants in his pickup truck and driving them back across the border. His presence as a leading figure in the GOP is a testament to how Trump has fundamentally altered the party, even if his win tonight is a short-term loss for the former president.

I thought, though, Alex made a really smart point earlier about Trump’s endorsements, and that is even if his preferred candidates don’t win, it’s not “necessarily good news for the anti-Trump wing of the GOP. That’s because, at least in several of Georgia’s races, the non-Trump backed incumbent is still embracing Trumpian politics!”

It should be clear by now that Trump’s endorsement doesn’t necessarily make you a favorite. Georgia shows that it can come up short both against well-established incumbents (like Kemp) and in open primaries (Georgia’s 6th and 10th) that are more fractured.

Tonight’s results are still coming into focus, but let’s check in on how Trump’s endorsement track record is faring. As we mentioned earlier on the live blog, Georgia is the real test of Trump’s strength tonight as he endorsed seven non-incumbent Republican candidates in Georgia’s GOP primaries for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general.

And so far we know that Trump’s pick lost in the governor’s race, but won in the Senate primary. How are the other primaries where he’s weighed in shaping up for him?

Now is a good time to check in on how Republican women are doing tonight. As I wrote earlier, women make up 45 percent of the Democrats’ House nominees so far but just 19 percent of the Republicans’ nominees. And for Senate races, women are 14 percent of Democrats’ nominees, but no Republican women have won their party’s nomination yet. As we’ve written before, that’s in part because Republican women face more hurdles to earning their party’s nomination than Democratic women, including weaker networks and less financial support.

So far, Republican women aren’t doing great overall, but they are in some notable races. In the GOP Senate race in Alabama, former Business Council of Alabama President Katie Britt, who has support from VIEW PAC, Maggie’s List and Winning for Women, is leading with 44.4 percent of the vote share, but just 10 percent reporting. And I know we’ve been watching the Democrats’ runoff in Texas’s 28th District closely, but the GOP has a runoff there, too. That race is between two women, Cassy Garcia, who is leading, and Sandra Whitten. In Texas’s 37th District, another runoff, Jenny Garcia Sharon is leading.

In Texas’s 28th District, ABC News has Rep. Henry Cuellar now leading Jessica Cisneros, 53 percent to 47 percent, with roughly 63 percent of the vote recorded. Cuellar’s boost likely came from recently counted votes in Starr County, which swung more than 50 points to the right in 2020.

Notably, too, Nate, it’s a race where Trump sunk $2.5 million of his own campaign cash. That’s something he doesn’t usually do in races where he’s already endorsed a candidate. In other words, it’ll be hard for Trump to downplay that he didn’t care about this race.

And for Perdue! The man is a former Georgia Senator. This is not someone with no background in politics who threw his hat in on a whim!

The margin will probably tighten a bit, but I don’t think we should overlook how embarrassing what is currently a 50-point (!) loss is for Perdue and Trump.

One interesting thing about the Democratic primary in Minnesota’s 1st District is that the top two candidates (so far) are both guys who describe themselves as moderates forced out of the Republican party by extremism.

Ettinger, currently leading this race with 51.5 percent of the vote and 2 percent reporting, was once a Mitt Romney supporter. He’s now the co-chair of Democratic Governor Tim Walz’s Economic Expansion Council and has described the Republican party as “purging itself” of moderates. Richard Painter, meanwhile, with 17.5 percent of the vote, was once part of the Bush White House legal team, but has run unsuccessfully for office as a Democrat in the state once already. Both seem to have really been pushed over the edge by Trumpism, although Painter describes grievances with the GOP stretching back to the 1990s.

Geoff, I agree on Kelly, and I would add that the GOP primary in Arizona is late and still very unsettled, while Republicans have known their likely nominee in Georgia for months. But I wouldn’t count Warnock out at all. He’s got a ton of money, he’s a skilled campaigner, and Walker is a flawed opponent. Both races are going to be very close.

Among the Democratic senators on the ballot this year, the two biggest fundraisers are Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Warnock, and both face tough reelection fights in red-leaning swing states. My question is, who has a better shot at winning reelection — Kelly or Warnock? I’ll go ahead and say Kelly because Arizona has a swingier electorate — it’s just not as racially polarized in its voting patterns as Georgia is. And in a GOP-leaning year, I think Kelly could have more swing voters to win over than Warnock.