What Went Down During The May 17 Primary Elections

Our colleagues at ABC News are now projecting that Labrador has defeated Wasden in the GOP primary for Idaho attorney general; Labrador’s lead currently stands at 51 percent to 39 percent. This is a pretty big deal for Idaho politics, as Wasden is the longest-serving attorney general in state history, having first been elected in 2002. The tea-party-aligned Labrador is expected to be a much more activist attorney general in terms of suing the Biden administration and, perhaps, seeking to overturn the 2024 election in court.

And in Oregon’s 5th District, the incumbent, Schrader, trails progressive challenger McLeod-Skinner by 22 points, 61 percent to 39 percent. But we expect that margin to shrink as we still have almost no ballots from Schrader’s home base in Clackamas County.

In the 2018 primary, about 37,000 voters cast ballots in the Democratic primary were from there, so if Schrader can win a large share of those votes (and turnout remains as high), he might be able to catch up. However, the small number of votes we do have from Clackamas have only broken for Schrader by 14 points, so if that continues it wouldn’t be enough for him to win.

Meanwhile overnight, things got significantly better for primary challenger Labrador in Idaho’s attorney general race. Labrador now leads Wasden 51 percent to 39 percent in the race with 94 percent of the expected vote in, so it sure seems like Idaho is about to get a much more aggressive attorney general.

As for secretary of state, McGrane now leads Moon just 44 percent to 41 percent, with Souza at 15 percent. McGrane is the only candidate in the race who has said the 2020 election was legitimate, so a majority of votes have now been cast for election deniers in these two races.