So the question of which state among Arizona, Georgia and Nevada is the most vulnerable Democratic-held Senate seat is an intersection of questions about state-level trends, the candidates involved and how elastic or swingy the state’s electorate is.
To me, Nevada might be the worst state for Democrats on two of those fronts because of what we see in the state-level trends and the candidates. Going by presidential vote versus the nation as a whole, Nevada was D+3 in 2012, about even with the country in 2016 and R+2 in 2020. That year, Biden won by about 4.5 nationally but only by a little over 2 points in Nevada. Arizona and Georgia were slightly redder, R+4, but have both been trending bluer, unlike Nevada.
Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto may end up with, on paper, the toughest GOP opponent of the three Democrats in these seats, as former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt has both Trump’s backing and support from groups like the Club for Growth. Nevada also has a very transient population, so familiarity with Cortez Masto despite a term in office isn’t necessarily that high. In Arizona, Sen. Mark Kelly might end up facing Blake Masters, who has Peter Thiel’s money, but doesn’t seem to be an especially impressive candidate. And in Georgia, Sen. Raphael Warnock will face Herschel Walker, who we just found out may have a son no one knew about publicly, one of many potential skeletons in his closet. All this might make Cortez Masto the most endangered. But all three could very well lose.
Regarding Nevada, the other important point is that the state has really struggled economically throughout the pandemic. Unemployment was really high when COVID-19 first hit because so much of the state relies on industries like hospitality. Now unemployment is much closer to normal, but the state’s residents are being hit hard by inflation. So to the extent that the midterms are a way for voters to vent their frustration with the economy, that could be bad news for Democrats in Nevada.
Galen, they said data journalism when I got hired, so just trying my best.
Yeah, Alex, Cameron County is where most of the outstanding votes are at this point, but Sanchez is barely winning it. And when you consider how election day votes have been better for Republicans recently than early votes… Flores has to be feeling pretty good about her chances.
Rice’s potential loss to Fry in South Carolina really does seem to signal that Republican primary voters care more about whether politicians support the false claims Trump made about the 2020 election above all else.
Geoff, those math skills are what make our newsroom special
Rice could be done for tonight in South Carolina’s 7th District. With 96 percent of the expected vote reporting, Fry has 50.0 percent to Rice’s 24.8 percent. But is that over or under a majority? I did a little division and Fry is just above the majority mark to avoid a runoff — he’s at 50.047 percent.
Latest count in South Carolina’s 7th District GOP primary
Results of the Republican primary for South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District, as of 9:51 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Votes | Vote % |
|---|---|---|
| Russell Fry | 31,176 | 49.9% |
| Tom Rice* | 15,496 | 24.8 |
| Barbara Arthur | 8,559 | 13.7 |
| Ken Richardson | 3,810 | 6.1 |
| Garrett Barton | 1,789 | 2.9 |
| Mark McBride | 1,223 | 2.0 |
| Spencer Morris | 385 | 0.6 |
Harry Reid was also unusually powerful both in Nevada and in D.C., so there’s something of a vacuum in his absence.
Just a little update on South Carolina’s 1st district, where the race is inching closer and closer. Just over half of the expected vote is reporting, and Mace has 52 percent of the vote, compared to Arrington’s 48 percent. It’s too bad for Arrington that Piper-Loomis didn’t drop out of the race and endorse her earlier! Piper-Loomis has two percent of the vote — not a lot, but if Arrington had those votes, she’d be even closer to 50 percent.
Back to Sarah’s question, I think it’s tricky because Georgia and Arizona may have stronger Republican leans, but they have been trending blue recently. Nevada has less of a Republican lean, but has been trending red. Regardless of whether Nevada is the most vulnerable Democratic Senate seat, I think it might be the most meaningful for the party’s future. The reason Democrats have lost ground there is because 1) they have just continued to lose more and more ground with white voters without a college degree and 2) they have started to lose ground with Hispanic voters. That is an alarming situation to be in for the party.
Non-college-educated white Americans significantly outnumber college-educated white Americans and Latino Americans are the largest ethnic minority group by a sizable margin and growing quickly. Twenty percent of Americans are Hispanic, while 12 percent of Americans are Black. If Democrats lose Nevada (a state that Democrat Harry Reid won easily, even in the 2010 red wave), which I kind of think they will, it will be a wake-up call for the party.
Flores…might actually avoid a runoff in Texas’s 34th District if this trend persists. Not great for national Democrats. 😬
How Big Lie supporters are doing tonight
Senate, House, gubernatorial, attorney general and secretary of state candidates who have either denied or questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election, and their results in Republican primaries in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina, as of 9:40 p.m. Eastern
| CANDIDATE | OFFICE | Big Lie Position | % REPORTING | VOTE SHARE | STATUS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elizabeth Caruso | ME-02 | ❓Raised doubts | 21% | 38.5% | Trailing |
| Henry McMaster* | SC Gov. | ❓Raised doubts | 45 | 84.0 | ✓ Won |
| Keith Blandford | SC SoS | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 41 | 23.8 | ✗ Lost |
| Alan Wilson* | SC AG | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 42 | 66.8 | ✓ Won |
| Katie Arrington | SC-01 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 49 | 45.9 | Trailing |
| Lynz Piper-Loomis | SC-01 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 49 | 1.9 | Trailing |
| William Timmons* | SC-04 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 24 | 55.6 | Leading |
| Mark Burns | SC-04 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 24 | 22.1 | Trailing |
| Michael Mike LaPierre | SC-04 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 24 | 15.4 | Trailing |
| A. Sonia Morris | SC-06 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 43 | 25.4 | ✗ Lost |
| Russell Fry | SC-07 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 92 | 49.8 | Leading |
| Barbara Arthur | SC-07 | ❓Raised doubts | 92 | 13.9 | Trailing |
| Ken Richardson | SC-07 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 92 | 6.2 | Trailing |
| Garrett Barton | SC-07 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 92 | 3.0 | Trailing |
| Mark McBride | SC-07 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 92 | 1.8 | Trailing |
| Sam Brown | NV Sen. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| William “Bill” Conrad | NV Sen. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Adam Laxalt | NV Sen. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Sharelle Mendenhall | NV Sen. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Joey Gilbert | NV Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Eddie “Mr. Fix It Now” Hamilton | NV Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Tom Heck | NV Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Dean Heller | NV Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Joe Lombardo | NV Gov. | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Guy Nohra | NV Gov. | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Fred Simon | NV Gov. | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Jesse Haw | NV SoS | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Socorro Keenan | NV SoS | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Jim Marchant | NV SoS | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Gerard Ramalho | NV SoS | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Richard Scotti | NV SoS | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Tisha Black | NV AG | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Sigal Chattah | NV AG | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Mark Robertson | NV-01 | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Morgun Sholty | NV-01 | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Cynthia Dianne Steel | NV-01 | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Carolina Andrea Serrano | NV-01 | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Joel Beck | NV-02 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Catherine Marie Sampson | NV-02 | ❓Raised doubts | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| April Becker | NV-03 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Clark Bossert | NV-03 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Noah V. Malgeri | NV-03 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Ann “Annie” Black | NV-04 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Sam Peters | NV-04 | 🚫 Denied legitimacy | 0 | 0.0 | — |
I think that’s right, Sarah, but I also don’t think we can just expect those trends to continue unilaterally. The reason our partisan lean incorporates results from the past two presidential election cycles is that electoral trends are as likely to regress to the mean as they are to continue.
It might hinge on whether the Republicans’ nominees appeal to Hispanic and white voters without a college degree, whom Trump did better with in 2020, as Harry wrote. Trump didn’t endorse in any of the Nevada House primaries. But I assume he’d get involved for the general?
Fair, Nathaniel. But what do you make of the argument that Nevada is inching closer to Republicans than say, Georgia or Arizona, states which are voting more Democratic — even though this year, of course, might be an exception. I thought Harry made an interesting point, too, about how Nevada has a fairly large Latino population combined with a fairly large non-college educated white population, which could especially benefit Republicans this year. In other words, Nevada might in some ways best tell the underlying story of 2022 — that is if some of the demographic trends we’ve seen so far around Latino voters and non-college educated white voters hold.
I mean, I think it’s clear that Nevada is one of the most vulnerable seats for Democrats, Sarah, along with Georgia and Arizona. I still think those other two states are redder than Nevada, though. According to FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean, Arizona is an R+8 state, Georgia is an R+7 state and Nevada is an R+3 state.
While we’re still waiting for polls to close in Nevada (10 p.m. ET), let’s talk about which Senate seat we think will be the most challenging for Democrats to defend this cycle.
Harry Enten now over at CNN wrote a piece earlier this year that argued that Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto might be one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection. What do folks make of that argument? Enten also cited Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as competitive, but made the point that Nevada has steadily been inching toward Republicans for some time now.
This is taking into consideration other statewide races in Nevada, but I have to say that between the GOP favorite for the Senate, Laxalt, and the other GOP candidates for governor and secretary of state, it certainly does seem as if a very Trumpy strain of politics has taken hold in a state that has historically voted rather blue — albeit with a Democratic margin that has shrunk in recent elections.
How Redistricting Has Affected Nevada’s Congressional Races
Nevada was one of the few states where Democrats controlled the congressional redistricting process, and as I explain in the video at the bottom of this post, they drew a high-risk, high-reward gerrymander. Prior to this new map, Nevada had one safely blue seat around Las Vegas (the 1st District), one red seat in northern Nevada (the 2nd) and two slightly Republican-leaning seats that included portions of the Las Vegas suburbs (the 3rd and 4th). However, Democrats unpacked the 1st District and redistributed its Democratic voters more evenly among the 1st, 3rd and 4th. As a result, all three districts now lean slightly Democratic.
The upshot for the 2022 elections: Not only are the 3rd and 4th districts competitive now, the 1st is as well. That’s inspired a field of eight Republicans to run for the seat, without a clear favorite. And all the new turf that’s been added to the 1st District could affect the Democratic primary as well, where Rep. Dina Titus is facing a challenge from progressive Amy Vilela. Almost half of the people in the new district have never seen Titus’s name on the ballot before.
I’ve been watching to see if any incumbents that weren’t on our radar have weak showings, and the winner so far might be Republican Rep. William Timmons in South Carolina’s 4th District. With about a fifth of the expected vote reporting, he has 56 percent, just a bit north of avoiding a runoff. The second-place candidate, pastor Mark Burns, has 21 percent, and he has been making the case that Timmons isn’t conservative enough, even though the incumbent has Trump’s backing and voted against certifying the 2020 presidential result.
In Texas’s 34th District, Flores’s lead is increasing. With 50 percent of the expected vote reporting, she leads Sanchez 48 percent to 46 percent. Of course, Flores will need to earn at least 50 percent of the votes, plus at least one additional vote, to avoid a runoff.
(As a side note, I wonder if Democrats could’ve easily won this race if they simply coalesced around one candidate? Democrat Rene Coronado has netted about 5 percent of the vote so far, per The New York Times.)
What We’re Watching In Nevada Tonight
Nevada is the state with the most primary action today — there are no fewer than eight interesting primaries there. You can read all about them in our preview of today’s elections, but here’s a Reader’s Digest version:
- Former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who has Trump’s endorsement, is the Republican front-runner for Senate against Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, but Army veteran Sam Brown has waged a strong grassroots campaign drawing on his outsider appeal. The latest poll gave Laxalt a 48 percent to 34 percent lead against Brown.
- In the GOP primary for governor, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo has Trump’s endorsement but he didn’t really need it: He was leading in the polls well before Trump weighed in. Former Sen. Dean Heller is also running after revamping his moderate image into a more pro-Trump one, but his campaign hasn’t really caught on. Instead, former professional boxer Joey Gilbert, who attended the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, appears to be Lombardo’s main competitor.
- In the 1st Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Dina Titus may face a surprisingly strong challenge from progressive Amy Vilela. Vilela had outspent Titus $437,195 to $329,210 as of May 25, and almost half of the residents of the redrawn district aren’t currently represented by Titus, so her incumbency advantage may be weaker than usual.
- There’s also an eight-way GOP primary for the 1st District, which is newly competitive thanks to redistricting. Carolina Serrano, who led the Trump campaign’s Hispanic outreach efforts in Las Vegas in 2020, is the leading fundraiser, but Army veteran Mark Robertson, pro-Israel activist David Brog and former Rep. Cresent Hardy are also viable contenders.
- Attorney April Becker has the establishment’s seal of approval in the 3rd District Republican primary, but that isn’t always a guarantee of victory. Engineer John Kovacs and Army veteran Noah Malgeri are also in the running for this swing seat currently represented by Democratic Rep. Susie Lee.
- The GOP primary for the 4th District looks like it’s between Air Force veteran Sam Peters and Assemblywoman Annie Black. While both wanted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Black has extra baggage as an attendee of the Jan. 6 riot, which could hurt her in November against Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford.
- Nevada’s next secretary of state will oversee the 2024 election, and he could be a Big Lie supporter. Only two candidates acknowledge Biden legitimately won in 2020: attorney Cisco Aguilar, who is unopposed in the Democratic primary, and Sparks City Councilman Kristopher Dahir, who is a heavy underdog in the Republican primary. The GOP nominee is more likely to be former Assemblyman Jim Marchant, who believes the 2020 election was stolen, or former state Sen. Jesse Haw, who has decried the election’s “shenanigans” but hasn’t said whether it was legitimate.
- Finally, the Republican primary for the right to take on Attorney General Aaron Ford looks like a jump ball. Former Nevada Cannabis Association President Tisha Black is more establishment-aligned, while conservative activist Sigal Chattah has staked out some more extreme positions.
With 40 percent of the expected vote reporting in South Carolina’s 1st District, things are narrowing just a bit — Mace is still holding on above the 50 percent marker, with 53 percent of the vote, but Arrington is a little closer than she was before with 45 percent of the vote.
Democrats are currently winning only 54 percent of the vote in Cameron County, Texas (home of Brownsville). Biden won 56 percent there, and that was considered a bad performance. As friend-of-the-site Sean Trende points out, it sure seems like Democrats have fundamental problems in South Texas.
Meet The Nevada GOP Candidates Who Support Trump’s Big Lie
Each primary week, Kaleigh has been highlighting the candidates who have questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election or took legal action to overturn its results. This week, she focused on Nevada because so many Big Lie-supporting candidates are running — including yet another office-seeker who attended Trump’s rally that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
With two-thirds of the expected vote reporting, Fry has 49 percent of the vote in South Carolina’s 7th district. If he doesn’t get above 50 percent there will be a runoff, but he could still win outright tonight.
Latest count in South Carolina’s 7th District GOP primary
Results of the Republican primary for South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District, as of 9:09 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Votes | Vote % |
|---|---|---|
| Russell Fry | 21,184 | 48.6% |
| Tom Rice* | 11,195 | 25.7 |
| Barbara Arthur | 6,068 | 13.9 |
| Ken Richardson | 2,642 | 6.1 |
| Garrett Barton | 1,473 | 3.4 |
| Mark McBride | 783 | 1.8 |
| Spencer Morris | 273 | 0.6 |
Can The Jan. 6 Hearings Change Public Opinion?
In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Galen talks to Kaleigh about the ongoing House select committee hearings investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and how the message of those hearings is developing through both emotional testimony and raw footage from the day of the assault.
This kind of makes me think we should take better note of the difference between the two districts Rice and Mace are running in. Rice is running in a very rural district (the most rural type of district according to the Congressional Density Index) with a median household income of $20,000 less than the national average. Mace is running in a suburban/urban district with, as I mentioned, a median household income $10,000 greater than the average. So yes, the two have taken different approaches to their grievances with Trump, but they are also talking to pretty different voters.
Where are Female Candidates Competitive?
This year, according to the Center for American Women in Politics, women are 31 percent of all nominees in House primaries (compared to 35 percent in 2020), and 12 percent of nominees in Senate primaries (compared to 31 percent in 2020), thus far.
Although women are keeping pace with previous years, the party differences are stark — women are 43 percent of the Democrats’ nominees in the House and 15 percent of their nominees in the Senate, compared to just 19 and 8 percent of the Republicans’ nominees in the House and Senate, respectively.
That gap should grow after tonight’s races, too, due in large part to one state — Nevada. In recent election cycles, Nevada has been a leader in electing women, at all levels. In 2018, Nevada became the first state to have a majority-female state legislature, and Nevada’s congressional caucus is currently 67 percent women. Moreover, both of Nevada’s senators are women, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen (with Cortez Masto up for reelection this year). Two out of their four House members are also women, Reps. Susie Lee and Dina Titus. And in Nevada’s 1st District, there’s a woman-versus-woman match-up as Titus faces a challenge from the left in Amy Vilela, an advocate for Medicare for All, who received an endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders last week. Meanwhile, Titus is endorsed by EMILY’s List as is true of all incumbent women in Nevada up for reelection (Cortez Masto and Lee in addition to Titus). Here are all the Democratic women running tonight I’ll be keeping a close eye on:
https://538.io/carpenter2/table.html?slug=conroy.may-17-lb.9
There are also some Republican women running tonight who are being backed by some of the women’s groups associated with the GOP. As we’ve written before, though, Republican women face more hurdles to earning their party’s nomination than Democratic women, including weaker networks and less financial support. But although the GOP hasn’t historically invested in organizations that recruit and train women to run for office, there was a marked shift in their investment in 2018. New organizations like Winning for Women and E-PAC, joined groups like VIEW PAC and Maggie’s List, who have attempted to mimic the success of women’s groups on the left.
In Nevada’s 3rd District, there is a crowded field (the winner would likely face Lee in the general), but April Becker, an attorney, could be the front-runner with support from E-PAC, VIEW PAC, Maggie’s List, Winning for Women and the National Republican Congressional Committee. Meanwhile, in South Carolina’s 1st District, incumbent Rep. Nancy Mace will face former state Rep. Katie Arrington, who has received Trump’s endorsement. Mace has support from VIEW PAC and Winning for Women, who have endorsed against a Trump-supported candidate in previous races. This will be an important race to watch to understand the future of the GOP, especially given how much negative attention Mace has received from Trump. Here are all the Republican women running tonight I’m be keeping a close eye on:
How Republican women are doing tonight
Women running for Senate, House and governor and their results in Republican primaries in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina, as of 9:05 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Office | % Reporting | Vote Share | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elizabeth Caruso | ME-02 | 10% | 38.1% | Trailing |
| Nancy Mace* | SC-01 | 28 | 53.9 | Leading |
| Katie Arrington | SC-01 | 28 | 44.1 | Trailing |
| Lynz Piper-Loomis | SC-01 | 28 | 2.0 | Trailing |
| A. Sonia Morris | SC-06 | 30 | 26.6 | Trailing |
| Barbara Arthur | SC-07 | 44 | 17.0 | Trailing |
| Sharelle Mendenhall | NV Sen. | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Amber Whitley | NV Gov. | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Jane Adams | NV-01 | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Carolina Andrea Serrano | NV-01 | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Cynthia Dianne Steel | NV-01 | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Catherine Marie Sampson | NV-02 | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| April Becker | NV-03 | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Ann “Annie” Black | NV-04 | 0 | 0.0 | — |
And in fact, the AP has just called the primary for Hoeven.
Polls are now closed across North Dakota, where there aren’t any competitive primaries. Rep. Kelly Armstrong is unopposed, and Sen. John Hoeven is expected to easily dispatch primary challenger Riley Kuntz.
Yeah, Galen, the lines were a bit different back then, but Trump beat Marco Rubio in the 1st District just 29 percent to 26 percent in the 2016 primary. That made it Rubio’s best district in the state.
There Is No Drought Of Big Lie Candidates Tonight
Around this time in 2020, Nancy Mace was enjoying the boost from a recent “total endorsement” from then-President Donald Trump in her race to represent South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, and touting her MAGA bona fides in campaign ads, including her work on Trump’s 2016 campaign. This year, though, as the freshman representative seeks reelection, things are different.
After voting to certify the results of the 2020 election and refraining from parroting the former president’s false claims of a stolen election, Mace has fallen out of the former president’s good graces. She now faces a new Trump-endorsed challenger in the GOP primary: state Rep. Katie Arrington. Arrington has claimed the election was stolen from Trump, as has Lynz Piper-Loomis, who is technically a third candidate in the primary, though she has spent the last few weeks throwing her support behind Arrington. Mace heads into tonight with a slim lead in the polls, so this race will definitely be one to watch as it draws together a number of themes we’ve been tracking in Republican races so far: Trump’s influence, the Big Lie and how conservative incumbents fare against Trumpy challengers.
I’ll also be watching a number of races in Nevada, where the Big Lie has been a recurrent theme in GOP races. First, there’s the race for Republican nominee for governor, where the front-runners have all at least flirted with the notion of a stolen election, saying things like there was “probably fraud on both sides” and that “it’s time to expose the election fraud we all know is there.” The GOP primary in Nevada’s 4th Congressional District has also attracted some Big Lie proponents. Air Force veteran Sam Peters has questioned the results of the 2020 election and has said he wouldn’t have voted to certify it, while his competition state Rep. Annie Black is yet another Republican candidate who personally attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021 that preceded the attack on the Capitol.
Then there’s the primary race for Nevada’s secretary of state. As I’ve mentioned before, the role of secretary of state is particularly noteworthy because those who hold the office typically serve as their state’s chief election official, meaning they determine how elections are executed. Electing someone who doesn’t believe the last election was legitimate, despite all of the so-called “evidence” of a stolen election being summarily debunked, doesn’t bode well for future elections in the state. That could be the case in Nevada, too, where the GOP race for secretary of state includes more than one election denier, most notably former state Rep. Jim Marchant, who has been a vocal Big Lie supporter and said he would not have certified Nevada’s results if he had been the secretary of state in 2020.
Here’s a table of all the Big Lie candidates I’m keeping tabs on tonight:
How Big Lie opponents are doing tonight
Senate, House, gubernatorial, attorney general and secretary of state candidates who have accepted the legitimacy of the 2020 election, and their results in Republican primaries in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina, as of 9:34 p.m. Eastern
| CANDIDATE | OFFICE | Big Lie Position | % REPORTING | VOTE SHARE | STATUS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| John Hoeven* | ND Sen. | ✅ Accepted 2020 results | 15% | 79.4% | ✓ Won |
| Marvin Lepp | ND SoS | 🤔 Accepted with reservations | 12 | 30.8 | Trailing |
| Kelly Armstrong* | ND-AL | ✅ Accepted 2020 results | 13 | 100.0 | ✓ Won |
| Lauren Martel | SC AG | 🤔 Accepted with reservations | 39 | 32.8 | ✗ Lost |
| Nancy Mace* | SC-01 | ✅ Accepted 2020 results | 44 | 53.0 | Leading |
| Tom Rice* | SC-07 | 🤔 Accepted with reservations | 76 | 24.8 | Trailing |
| William “Bill” Hockstedler | NV Sen. | ✅ Accepted 2020 results | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Kristopher Dahir | NV SoS | 🤔 Accepted with reservations | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Jane Adams | NV-01 | 🤔 Accepted with reservations | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Cresent Hardy | NV-01 | 🤔 Accepted with reservations | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Danny Tarkanian | NV-02 | 🤔 Accepted with reservations | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| John Kovacs | NV-03 | 🤔 Accepted with reservations | 0 | 0.0 | — |
I think one advantage that Mace might have in the 1st district is that it’s a somewhat fancy part of South Carolina. This is not Trump country per se. It includes the expensive area along the South Carolina coast near Charleston, with a median family income about $10,000 a year greater than the national average.
I’ve also got my eye on South Carolina’s 7th District because Fry has been toeing Trump’s party line when it comes to the Big Lie. In a video posted to Facebook in January, Fry said: “If you look at the 2020 election, it was very clear that it was rigged.” However, it’s worth noting his campaign has refused to answer direct questions about whether or not he believes the 2020 election was legitimate, and prior to that February video, he hadn’t said a word about it. Trump endorsed Fry on February 1. He posted the video on January 30.
That Democratic opponent was Joe Cunningham, who served one term before losing to Mace in 2020. You might be wondering, “Whatever happened to that guy?” Well, he’s running a quixotic campaign for South Carolina governor this year — and he’s currently leading state Sen. Mia McLeod 55 percent to 31 percent in the Democratic primary.
Looking to South Carolina, if Arrington does manage to prevail, it wouldn’t be her first time unseating an incumbent in the 1st Congressional District.
She defeated Rep. Mark Sanford (yes, the guy who said he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail” when in fact he was visiting his lover in Argentina) in the Republican primary in 2018. But Arrington then went on to lose to her Democratic opponent in a big upset in the general election. Mace has been arguing that she is the best candidate to keep Democrats from winning the district, but it’s important to remember that this year’s political environment is much more favorable to the GOP than 2018 was — and the district is also slightly more Republican-leaning after redistricting. It now has a partisan lean of R+17.
Now seems as good a time as any to check in on how Trump’s endorsed candidates are doing tonight. A mixed result in the two races so far where the outcome was actually in doubt.
How Trump’s endorsees are doing tonight
Senate, House and gubernatorial candidates endorsed by former President Donald Trump and their results in Republican primaries in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina, as of 8:53 p.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Office | % Reporting | Vote Share | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| John Hoeven* | ND Sen. | 0% | 84.6% | Leading |
| Henry McMaster* | SC Gov. | 24 | 83.8 | ✓ Won |
| Katie Arrington | SC-01 | 21 | 43.8 | Trailing |
| William Timmons* | SC-04 | 13 | 56.9 | Leading |
| Russell Fry | SC-07 | 36 | 46.1 | Leading |
| Adam Laxalt | NV Sen. | 0 | 0.0 | — |
| Joe Lombardo | NV Gov. | 0 | 0.0 | — |
Meanwhile, the Fire Rice — or is it Fry Rice? — parade continues in South Carolina’s 7th District, as Fry leads Rice 46 percent to 25 percent with 35 percent of the expected vote reporting. If this continues, Fry may just miss avoiding a runoff, but he would be a heavy favorite in a potential June 28 runoff over Rice.
In South Carolina’s 1st District, Mace continues to hang out just north of the pivotal 50 percent mark she’ll need to avoid a runoff and win the GOP nomination over Arrington. Mace leads 54 percent to 44 percent with 21 percent of the expected vote reporting.
We are starting to get some returns from the GOP primary in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, where former GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin is trying to mount a comeback after losing the seat in 2018 to now-Rep. Jared Golden, who represents the reddest state of any House Democrat. Poliquin first has to get by Caratunk first selectman Liz Caruso, who is an underdog with far less money than Poliquin but who’s run more of an anti-establishment campaign to Poliquin’s right. At the moment, Poliquin leads 61 percent to 39 percent with only 7 percent of the expected vote reporting.
Speaking of South Carolina, this might be a nothingburger since Sen. Tim Scott had no primary opposition to his reelection bid, but because he’s one of the top Republican fundraisers, I’ll be curious to see whether he’s padding his coffers for something else down the road — mayhaps a 2024 presidential run? Or being Trump’s running mate, should the former president run again? Scott himself hasn’t downplayed that possibility, so it’s worth keeping an 👀 on Scott’s political future…
Doubling back to South Carolina, I was thinking of the Ultra MAGA candidates Sarah mentioned earlier: While Rice’s main opponent is the Trump-endorsed Fry, another challenger is Barbara Arthur. In the May 5 debate I wrote about earlier, she received loud applause from the audience when she told Rice: “You voted against one of the best presidents that we have had. That man had America back on track.” She said Trump had “revived American pride, he stirred patriotic hearts, and he lit a flame in America that we had not seen in a long time.” That attitude didn’t earn her Trump’s endorsement or the lead. She’s currently in third.
Going back to Sarah’s question from earlier, I think Democrats’ inaction in Texas’s 34th is down to a couple things.
First, it’s for the old version of a seat that’s going to get much bluer and will likely be easier for them to win in November. So the winner of this special election will have maybe two-to-three months of activity in Congress before everyone goes home to campaign for the new seat. Is that worth investing much money? But also, Gonzalez decided to run in the new 34th instead of defending the very swingy 15th District — Democrats in the state legislature actually drew his hometown into the 34th in an amendment to the map. That created an awkward situation where national Democrats have no long-term dog in this fight from a candidate perspective. Gonzalez easily won the regular primary for the new version of this seat, so the Democrats running in the special aren’t seeking this seat beyond the special. If Gonzalez had done a solid for his party and fought to defend the much-tougher 15th District in November, perhaps Democrats would be spending on behalf of a different candidate in an effort to boost that person ahead of the November race.
With 36 percent of precincts reporting, Republican Mayra Flores has now taken the lead over Dan Sanchez, 47 percent to 46 percent. We’re still missing early vote returns for Jim Wells, Kenedy and DeWitt counties.
Speaking of Rio Grande Valley-based Texas congressional seats, is now a good time to mention we still don’t know who the Democratic nominee will be in the 15th or 28th districts this fall? Michelle Vallejo leads by 20 votes in the 15th, and Henry Cuellar leads by 187 votes in the 28th. Both races are getting recounted. The runoffs were three weeks ago.
Ooh, good question, Galen. I think probably not, but given that it is one of those Rio Grande Valley seats that has zoomed right recently, we can’t entirely rule it out? I’m not sure we understand what is happening politically in that region, and since our FiveThirtyEight partisan lean includes results from the 2016 presidential election (before this realignment took hold), it could be overestimating Democrats there.
Is there any risk that Democrats lose the the new 34th congressional district this fall with its partisan lean of D+17?
I also sort of understand why national Democrats didn’t invest too heavily in this race because, as Nathaniel reiterated, the November election to succeed Vela will take place under district lines that are way more favorable to Democrats. That said, I wonder what kind of message not investing in the race sends to voters in the district? Biden performed fairly poorly in South Texas in 2020 (at least compared to Hillary Clinton in 2016) and this might send voters in the district a message that Democrats have taken their votes for granted…
Well, Sarah, I think Democrats would tell you it was because they are confident that they will win the seat in November because of the bluer district, so what’s the point? But that ignores the fact that Democrats’ majority in the House is really narrow right now — just 11 seats! If a Republican flips one of their seats, that’s a non-trivial shift!
I think the real reason is probably that Democrats knew they might lose this special election given the Republican-leaning national environment, and if they decided to go all-in here, it would nationalize the race the way the Georgia 6th special election was nationalized in 2017. Then, if they did indeed lose, they would get a bunch of demoralizing headlines about an impending “red wave.”