What Went Down In New York, Florida And Oklahoma’s Elections

ABC News projects that Rep. Jamaal Bowman has won the Democratic primary in New York’s 16th District. He will face Republican John Ciampoli, who ran unopposed, this fall. The seat is solidly blue with a partisan lean of D+40, so Bowman should be in good standing for his reelection bid.

For what it’s worth: Bowman is the last member of “The Squad” to have a competitive primary. Both New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley were or are unopposed.

Perhaps the most closely watched race of the night is the special election in New York’s swingy 19th District. Right now, with 24 percent of the expected vote reporting, Democrat Pat Ryan leads Republican Marc Molinaro 70 percent to 30 percent, but don’t be fooled — a lot of those votes are Democrat-friendly mail ballots. For instance, Ulster County is currently voting for Ryan 80 percent to 20 percent, despite going for Biden just 60 percent to 39 percent in 2020.

In New York’s 17th District, DCCC head Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney is facing a primary challenge from state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi. He’s running in this district after squeezing out fellow Rep. Mondaire Jones following the court-ordered redistricting. After all of this, Maloney looks to be in decent shape. He’s tallied 64 percent of the vote to Biaggi’s 36 percent. But that’s still a pretty respectable showing for the state senator, who jumped in the race late and doesn’t live in or represent any of the new district.

With 72 percent of the expected vote tallied, the race in New York’s 12th District has tightened. Goldman now leads Niou 26 percent to 23 percent. Jones, an incumbent from Westchester running in this newly created seat, is in third with 18 percent of the vote.

Finally, more of the expected vote is in in New York’s 22nd District. With 22 percent of the expected vote in, Conole has a slight lead among the Democrats, with 43 percent, over his next challenge, Klee Hood, who’s at 33 percent. On the Republican side, Williams has pulled ahead of Wells, 54 percent to 46 percent.

In New York’s 3rd District, we finally have some votes out of Nassau County! Overall, DNC member Zimmerman still leads with 39 percent, followed by Kaiman at 25 percent and Lafazan at 17 percent.

ABC News projects that Nadler has defeated Carolyn Maloney in the Democratic incumbent vs. incumbent race in New York’s 12th District. The sixth and final incumbent primary matchup this cycle was a snoozer, however, as Nadler leads 56 percent to 25 percent with about three-fourths of the expected vote reporting. Both were first elected in 1992, but Nadler will be the only one of the two in the next Congress.

With 11 percent of the expected vote reporting in the Republican primary for New York’s 23rd District, Carl Paladino (51 percent) and Nick Langworthy (49 percent) are locked in a tight race. Both candidates are Trumpy, but Paladino was basically Trump before Trump with his racist and sexist comments during his 2010 gubernatorial campaign.

Well, I saw this coming from a mile away. Shortly after her race is called for her opponent, Loomer says she is not conceding and alleges voter fraud. It’s become the go-to move for election deniers running in the primaries after they lose … and even sometimes when they win! I’ve got a story coming out soon on the site where I dig into these post-election moves, which include winners crying fraud even after they win, and losers attempting to get recounts even when they lost by huge margins.

In New York’s 12th District, Rep. Jerrold Nadler appears on track to win a 16th term in Congress. But he’s also fighting for something more historically significant: continued Jewish representation from New York.

New York, and particularly New York City, has been the beating heart of America’s Jewish population for much of the last two centuries and has in turn been shaped by generations of American Jews. The state sent its first Jewish congressman, Emanuel Hart, to Washington in 1850. And since the 1894 election of Isidor Straus, New York has always had at least one Jewish congressmember in its House delegation.

But that could all change next year. While New York City alone boasted nine Jewish members in Nadler’s first term, he’s now the sole remaining member. And in all of New York state, there’s only one other Jewish House member: Republican Lee Zeldin, who’s giving up his seat to run for governor. So if Nadler loses to Rep. Carolyn Maloney (or challenger Suraj Patel), there’s a real possibility that not just the city but the entire Empire State could be without Jewish representation in the House for the first time in 128 years.

That history has taken on a significance in the 12th District, which is among the most Jewish congressional districts in the country. Nadler, who was educated at a yeshiva as a child, and prominent surrogates, such as former Manhattan Borough Presidents Ruth Messinger and Gale Brewer, have leaned into the campaign’s religious angle.

To be sure, though, if Nadler doesn’t win, there are other Jewish candidates who could find their way to the House next year. Within New York City, attorney Dan Goldman (who’s currently leading) and former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman are both contenders in the 10th District’s Democratic primary. There’s also former Rep. Max Rose, who is favored to win the Democratic primary in the 11th District, though he will be an underdog in the general election. Meanwhile, out on Long Island, Democratic National Committee member Robert Zimmerman, former Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman and Nassau County Legislator Josh Lafazan are competing for the Democratic nomination and could win against presumptive GOP nominee George Santos.

And, of course, across the Capitol, the major question for Brooklyn’s Jewish senator, Chuck Schumer, is not whether he’ll win reelection, but whether he’ll remain majority leader in the new year.

With 30 percent of the expected vote reporting in the Democratic primary for New York’s new 19th District, Josh Riley leads Jamie Cheney 69 percent to 31 percent. The winner will take on (incumbent? If he wins the special election today, yes) Marc Molinaro in this swing district with a R+1 partisan lean.

In New York’s 3rd District, we have a little more vote out of Queens, but still nothing out of Nassau County, which is where most of the district’s voters live. Longtime Democratic National Committee member Robert Zimmerman leads with 39 percent, followed by Jon Kaiman at 26 percent and Josh Lafazan at 17 percent.

NBC has now projected Nadler has defeated Carolyn Maloney in New York’s 12th District Democratic primary. ABC News has not yet projected this race, but Nadler leads 56 percent to 25 percent with about two-thirds of the expected vote reporting.

One trend I’m interested in watching in New York when it comes to Democrats is police reform. It’s obviously still an extremely contentious issue among Democratic voters. While the progressive wing still champions the idea of defunding police forces, it’s unclear how popular that messaging is, especially as New York City has faced increased crime rates — shooting rates and murders are down so far this year, but overall crime rates are up. And you can see Democratic candidates grappling with this. Jones previously had been comfortable calling to defund the police, but has taken a softer stance more recently, and pointed to the election of Mayor Eric Adams as an indicator of what voters actually want when it comes to policing policy. So I’m interested in seeing which messages win over Democratic voters when it comes to policing tonight.

We now have more than three-fourths of the expected vote in from Oklahoma’s 2nd District Republican runoff, and Brecheen continues to cling to a narrow lead, 52 percent to 48 percent, over Frix.

We have 19 percent of the expected vote reporting in the Democratic primary for New York’s open 4th District, and as expected, Gillen is running away with it.

We have about 6 percent of the expected vote here in New York’s 16th District where Rep. Jamaal Bowman faces two main primary challengers on his right flank, Westchester County legislators Vedat Gashi and Catherine Parker. But I said earlier, tonight’s race is definitely Bowman’s to lose: Beyond his fundraising edge, he also has the support of prominent Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and fellow New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

So far, Bowman leads Gashi 92 percent to 5 percent. Parker has netted just 3 percent of the vote, but the night is still young, folks!

The major takeaway of tonight’s results is that Zabar’s remains undefeated! In all seriousness, as fun as it always is to read national trends into the New York races, a contest like, say, New York’s 12th is so unique, and so colored by the specific candidates and their histories, that I’m hesitant to extrapolate too much. For instance, some of Nadler’s strongest selling points were that he voted against the Iraq War and the PATRIOT Act, while Maloney voted for them. He also hit her on some past anti-vaccine stances. Meanwhile, Maloney took him to task for voting for the Iran deal. Those are the same issues Democrats have been arguing about for nearly two decades now. Maloney did, in the wake of the Dobbs ruling, try to make her gender and her longtime abortion rights advocacy central to her appeal — but that doesn’t seem to have done the trick.

I’d agree with Nathaniel that the disagreements in New York’s 10th District aren’t necessarily ideological. That said, PCCC did weigh in to support Rep. Mondaire Jones, and state Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou is being supporting by many progressive groups local to New York. But if the ideologically divisions were wider you’d think more national progressive groups like Justice Dems or Our Revolution would’ve gotten behind a candidate.

Breaking in to share that ABC News projects that incumbent Nicole Malliotakis has won the Republican primary in New York’s 11th district. That leaves Claudia Tenney, running in the state’s 24th District, as the only Trump endorsee tonight whose fate has yet to be projected. Tenney is currently leading with 49 percent of the vote share, though only with 6 percent of the expected vote reporting.

Yeah, I’m not even sure the New York 10th District primary has been super ideological — as Galen mentioned, Goldman is pretty liberal. It’s more a resentment among the progressive wing of the party that Goldman, who is the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, can spend millions of his own money and potentially walk away with a congressional seat. (The fact that he’s a white man running against several women and people of color also probably doesn’t help.)

Sarah, yup, what’s happening in New York definitely seems to parallel some of the general questions facing the Democratic Party nationally, namely in its identity and direction at large (even if, at times, it does seem like a decent amount of intraparty fighting going on 🥲 ). In New York’s 10th District, for example, there’s been a lot of heat directed at Goldman for his elite background and moderate leanings … including from the multiple progressive opponents he’s facing. The problem is, they’re likely to split votes among one another.

In many ways, New York is the epicenter of the Democratic Party. It’s routinely fielded high-ranking members in the House, is home to the current Senate Majority Leader in Schumer, and as we talked about in the 2021 New York City mayoral primary, is perhaps even indicative of larger trends in the Democratic Party. On that note, what are some of the big trends we’re watching in New York’s primaries tonight?

I’m still waiting for results in the GOP race in New York’s 2nd District out on Long Island. There, far-right Navy and Army vet Robert Cornicelli is challenging Rep. Andrew Garbarino. Cornicelli has spent some of his campaign parroting Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was “stolen” and criticizing his opponent for not embracing Trump’s election denialism enough — he slammed Garbarino for voting in favor of a committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, for instance.

We don’t have a lot of results yet in New York’s 22nd congressional district, but there are four Democrats running in the primary there: fundraising front-runner Francis Conole, an Iraq War veteran; veteran and DeWitt Town Councilor Sarah Klee Hood; Syracuse Common Councilor Chol Majok; and Sam Roberts, a former assemblyman and Onondaga County legislator. With only 4 percent of the expected vote reporting, Klee Hood is leading the Democrats with a slim lead, while Wells is ahead in the Republican race.

With 60 percent of the expected vote counted, former federal prosecutor and Trump impeachment lead council Dan Goldman is narrowly leading the Democratic primary for New York’s. 10th. District with 28 percent of the vote. Just behind him, at 21 percent, is New York State Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou. She is endorsed by the Working Families Party and is the more progressive candidate in the race. Goldman is certainly liberal, but his emphasis is more on democracy and voting rights, whereas progressives have put more emphasis on things like housing affordability and racial inequities.

The already substantial returns counted in New York’s 12th District Democratic primary suggest Carolyn Maloney is probably done for. With not quite half the expected vote counted, Nadler leads her 56 percent to 27 percent, with Patel in third with 16 percent.

We’ve got a little bit of the vote in from New York’s 3rd District, and DNC member Zimmerman opens with a slight lead. But there’s no vote in from Nassau County yet, which is the bulk of the district.

Wow, New York actually counted a bunch of votes pretty fast! With 51 percent of the expected vote already reporting in the Democratic primary for New York’s 10th District, Goldman has 27 percent of the vote, Niou has 22 percent, Jones has 18 percent and Rivera has 15 percent.

Things continue to be very tight in the GOP primary runoff for Oklahoma’s 2nd District. We’ve got a little over 50 percent of the expected vote reporting, and Brecheen leads Frix 52 percent to 48 percent. Frix narrowly led in the first round, but only notched 15 percent of the vote in an extremely crowded, fragmented candidate field, just ahead of Brecheen’s 14 percent. Seeing two candidates advance to a runoff with only 30 percent of the overall vote is about the lowest share you’ll ever see.

Polls have closed in New York. Now the wait for actual votes to be counted begins.

Nathaniel talked about this earlier, but New York went through a lengthy redistricting process that ended with a map drawn by a court-appointed special master, which is why the primary was delayed until today. (It was supposed to have been held in June.) The state ended up with two more Republican-leaning districts and two more competitive seats than it might have if the map passed by the legislature had gone into effect. I am watching one of those competitive districts, the 22nd District, which has a D+2 lean and a retiring incumbent in Republican John Katko. The race on the Republican side, between businessman Steve Wells and Navy veteran Brandon Williams has gotten a tad more heated recently, and the House GOP leadership has stepped in to help Wells.

Polls just closed in New York. There are also two special elections today in the state, taking place along the old (pre-redistricting) lines of the 19th and 23rd districts. In the 19th District, whose partisan lean is R+4, either Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, the Democrat, or Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, the Republican, could conceivably win. In the 23rd District, whose partisan lean is R+15, Steuben County Republican Party Chair Joe Sempolinski is favored over Tioga County Democratic Committee Chair Max Della Pia.

Although only the 19th District looks competitive, we’ll still be watching the margins in both seats. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in late June, Democrats have done significantly better than the partisan lean of districts in two special elections, in Nebraska’s 1st District and Minnesota’s 1st District. Historically, that kind of overperformance has boded well for a party in the upcoming midterms — if the party is able to sustain it over several special elections. So if Democrats overperform in New York too — say, if they win the 19th and come within single digits of winning the 23rd — it could be a sign that voter enthusiasm is on Democrats’ side.

One fun tidbit about Alessandra Biaggi. Her grandfather, Mario Biaggi, was a longtime congressman from the Bronx until he was charged with bribery and lost his primary to Eliot Engel. Fast forward 32 years, and Engel is the longtime Bronx congressman who’s ousted in a primary, by Bowman. And now Biaggi’s granddaughter is herself trying to oust an incumbent in a Democratic primary.

As Nathaniel mentioned, one of the incumbents who could lose tonight is Sean Patrick Maloney, who — unlike Jones and Bowman — is a moderate incumbent who could lose progressive challenger, Alessandra Biaggi. Biaggi was endorsed by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, who in 2018 also unseated a Democratic incumbent, so New York is well-versed in these intraparty battles. We should also note (as we did earlier on the blog) that the New York Times endorsed Maloney. In their endorsement of Maloney, the Times said Biaggi is too progressive for the district.

Polls are about to close in New York, but don’t expect results to come in very fast. (We got spoiled with Florida!) New York’s election boards have been dogged by accusations of incompetence for years, as the spoils system still largely determines who runs the state’s elections, despite election administration being a pretty specialized job. County boards of elections also tend to take their time counting absentee ballots.

ABC News projects Rep. Markwayne Mullin has defeated former state House Speaker T.W. Shannon in the Republican primary runoff for Oklahoma’s special election for U.S. Senate. With one-third of the expected vote reporting, Mullin has 67 percent to Shannon’s 33 percent. The second time was not the charm for Shannon in special elections for Senate in Oklahoma, as he also lost in the GOP primary in 2014 against now-Sen. James Lankford.

What happens when a former president is facing all kinds of legal liability on the federal and local level, but is also still the de facto party leader and considering another run for the White House? In Part 2 of this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew dives into four major investigations into former President Donald Trump’s actions, the legal consequences he could be facing and how the American public is reacting to these evolving cases. Then, Nathaniel gives a quick overview of the New York congressional primaries we are tracking.

You mentioned her, Sarah, but Carolyn Maloney might be the most endangered Democratic incumbent on the ballot in New York (at least in the non-Jones division). She faces Nadler in an incumbent-on-incumbent race in Manhattan, but polling just before the primary showed her behind, and Nadler received the New York Times’s coveted endorsement. Maloney also had to recently fend off primary challenges from Patel in 2018 and 2020 that suggested she might have been vulnerable even if her old “silk stocking” district, covering Manhattan’s Upper East Side and parts of Brooklyn and Queens, had been preserved. Patel is running again, too, so he could split some of the support from her current parts of the new 12th District.

Democrat Rep. Mondaire Jones is another New York incumbent in danger. He won in 2020 and became one of the first openly gay Black members of Congress in history, but after Sean Patrick Maloney’s switch, he decided to move to and run in the 10th District, where he faces a lot of challengers seeking that previously open district.

The Upper West Side’s Jerry Nadler is one of those endangered incumbents. The longtime Democrat is one of the most important members of Congress; as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he helped lead the charge to impeach Trump twice. But he’s facing the fight of his political life against fellow Rep. Carolyn Maloney and challenger Suraj Patel. While Nadler has previously represented less of the new district than Maloney, he seems to have some late momentum. He secured a valuable endorsement from the New York Times, has the support of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and had a healthy lead in the final poll of the race. But this is New York! Anything can happen.

I’m not sure … I’m covering New York’s 16th District, a seat currently held by Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a member of the progressive group known as “The Squad.” But I don’t think he’s in danger, per se. (At least not in the way, say, Rep. Ilhan Omar was a few weeks ago.) I say that because Bowman has a huge fundraising advantage going into tonight. Plus, his two primary challengers — Westchester County legislators Vedat Gashi and Catherine Parker — will likely split the non-progressive vote.

Sarah, one is Sean Patrick Maloney, the DCCC chair who cheesed off a lot of progressives by announcing he would run in Jones’s 17th District after redistricting put his house there — despite the fact that three-quarters of his current constituents live in the 18th, so that’s more properly thought of as “his” district. Though Maloney avoided a matchup with Jones when Jones moved south, he does face progressive state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi. Biaggi doesn’t represent any of the new 17th in the legislature, but she does have a pedigree of taking down powerful incumbents: She defeated Jeff Klein, the former leader of the moderate Independent Democratic Conference, in 2018.

In our preview of the key races to watch in New York, we wrote that as many as five incumbents might lose tonight. There is, of course, the incumbent vs. incumbent matchup between Reps. Maloney and Nadler (only one can win!), but who else is in jeopardy tonight?

Next up in New York’s primary? The six open seats with competitive primaries on one or both sides of the aisle:

• In the Republican primary for the 1st District, Suffolk County Legislature chief of staff Nick LaLota faces an unexpectedly strong challenge from cryptocurrency trader Michelle Bond, who has self-funded her campaign. The winner will face Democrat Bridget Fleming in this seat with a FiveThirtyEight partisan lean of R+5.
• The Democratic primary in the 3rd District is a four-way free-for-all. Nassau County Legislator Josh Lafazan and former Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman are the centrists in the race, Democratic National Committee member Robert Zimmerman is a mainstream liberal and community organizer Melanie D’Arrigo is the progressive. The winner can look forward to a competitive general election against Republican George Santos.
• The 4th District is pretty blue, but electability has nevertheless emerged as a concern in the Democratic primary. Former Town of Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen is the favorite, but some believe she would not be a strong general-election candidate and are supporting Malverne Village Mayor Keith Corbett instead.
• The 19th District sports a competitive Democratic primary between attorney Josh Riley and business owner Jamie Cheney. The winner will be a slight underdog to Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro in November.
• In the Republican primary for the swingy 22nd District, former New York GOP Treasurer Steve Wells is the establishment-backed candidate, while Navy veteran Brandon Williams is Trumpier. Four Democrats are also running, but Navy reservist Francis Conole is the clear front-runner.

In the Republican primary for the solid-red 23rd District, attacks are flying between New York GOP Chair Nick Langworthy and real estate developer Carl Paladino. Both are faithful Trump supporters, but Paladino has a history of racist and sexist comments.

In New York’s crowded 10th District, The New York Times endorsed former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman; in the clash of titans in the 12th District, the Times backed Rep. Jerry Nadler; and in the Hudson Valley’s 17th District, the Times gave the nod to Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney.

In all three, the paper’s editorial board (separate from its newsroom) chose a white male candidate over his younger and often more progressive opponents, drawing condemnation from liberal outlets such as The Intercept, The Nation, New York Magazine and celebrities like New York City radio host Errol Louis. In the 10th District, the Times’s endorsement didn’t even mention City Council member Carlina Rivera and state Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, the two progressive women of color polling near the top of the race — only referencing Goldman, Rep. Mondaire Jones and former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman.

Though newspaper endorsements have lost much of their luster of late, there’s widespread belief that the Times nod is still incredibly important within the confines of the city, and especially so in the highly educated, affluent 10th and 12th Districts, which encompass most of Manhattan and wealthier parts of Brooklyn. One prominent Democratic strategist tweeted that “there are no two districts where the NYT endorsement matters as much as” the 10th and 12th Districts. Another told City & State that the Times “gets to choose who the congressperson is” in the 10th.

So how much does the Times endorsement really matter? Well, in the one poll taken after the endorsement, Goldman posted his largest share of the vote (22 percent) and lead (5 percentage points) of any survey thus far.

The paper has a strong record in congressional races, too. In 2020, it endorsed candidates in seven primaries, backing the winner in six. Most notably: Rep. Carloyn Maloney in the 12th, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the 14th, Rep. Ritchie Torres in the 15th, Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the 16th (lending some establishment cred to his progressive challenge to then-Rep. Eliot Engel) and Rep. Mondaire Jones in the 17th.

The only race the Times fell short in was the 9th District. But even then, the paper can take credit for putting unsuccessful candidate Adem Bunkeddeko on the map two years prior, when it endorsed him and he nearly ousted Rep. Yvette Clarke.

If Goldman wins, he’ll have many factors to thank, limitless wealth and a lack of progressive consolidation likely chief among them. But judging by how the other candidates pounced on him after receiving it, the Times endorsement could be a key piece of his path to victory.

And for the Times, it could be a much-appreciated piece of evidence that the paper of record still has some political clout — at least in its own backyard.

For additional context, Mullin is leading in all but two of Oklahoma’s 77 counties, including majorities in the two really big counties, Oklahoma (Oklahoma City) and Tulsa.

Probably the most anticipated races of the evening are in New York, where polls close in 20 minutes. To start, there are four primaries where incumbent House members could conceivably lose:

• The 10th District is miles away from Rep. Mondaire Jones’s current district, but he has decided to run there after getting squeezed in redistricting. State Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou, New York City Council member Carlina Rivera, former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, state Assembly member Jo Anne Simon and attorney Daniel Goldman are all running in the Democratic primary here, too. The New York Times-endorsed Goldman has used his personal wealth to jump to the front of the pack here, but the race is still very competitive.
• The new 12th District combines the historical bases of both Rep. Jerrold Nadler and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, so the two House committee chairs are running against each other in the Democratic primary. Attorney Suraj Patel, who came close to defeating Maloney in 2020, is also running; as a result, polls show Nadler in the lead, even though most voters live on Maloney’s old turf.
• Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman defeated an incumbent in the 16th District Democratic primary in 2020, and now moderates are looking to get revenge. However, the anti-progressive vote looks like it may be split between his two main opponents, Westchester County legislators Vedat Gashi and Catherine Parker.

After annoying progressives with his decision to run in Jones’s old 17th District (forcing Jones’s move), Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney now faces a Democratic primary challenge from state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi. However, Maloney, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has both the financial and geographic advantage.

The Associated Press has called the Republican runoff for Senate in Oklahoma. Our colleagues at ABC News have yet to make a projection, but Mullin’s 28-point lead does seem pretty secure.

It’s a coin-flip race in Oklahoma’s 2nd District GOP runoff, with Brecheen ahead 53 percent to 47 percent and only 16 percent of the expected vote in. Could go either way.