What Went Down During The May 17 Primary Elections

In PA-17 there are two Democrats trying for the nomination to win Lamb’s seat, Chris Deluzio and Sean Meloy. Deluzio is a Navy veteran who served in Iraq and has worked at the Brennan Center for Justice and the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security. Meloy is an LGBTQ+ rights activist who has served on the Pennsylvania Commission on LGBTQ Affairs. Meloy has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood Action Fund and the NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC, and it will be important to see whether and how the abortion issue may motivate Democratic voters tonight.

Amelia, Hines’s journey to the 13th District has been quite something. A Charlotte native who lived in Winston-Salem at the time, Hines originally announced he was running in the 5th District, which contained neither Charlotte nor Winston-Salem. But after Budd decided to run for Senate, Hines switched to Budd’s 13th District, where he spent part of his childhood. That became the 7th District under the new congressional map passed by Republicans last year but was eliminated when that map was struck down as an illegal gerrymander. Hines then opted to run in the new 13th District, which is south of Raleigh and doesn’t overlap at all with the old 13th.

With 29 percent of the vote in, Hines is leading in the Republican primary in North Carolina’s 13th district, with 32.5 percent of the vote. Opponents Barbour and Daughtry are trailing behind him, with 21.9 percent of the vote and 19.5 percent of the vote, respectively. As a reminder, Hines was heavily criticized for shopping around for a district to run in — it’s fair to say his ties to this district are not strong. His support from Trump and the Club for Growth may help him overcome that obstacle, though.