What Went Down During The May 17 Primary Elections

It increasingly looks like it could take days to project a winner in most of Tuesday’s outstanding primaries, so we are going to officially close up shop here on the live blog. Most notably, the Republican primary for Pennsylvania Senate is too close to call between Oz and McCormick; Oz currently leads by 0.2 percentage points, or 2,565 votes. According to NBC and MSNBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki, there are about 32,000 mail ballots left to count, but considering how close the race was all night long, it’s unlikely that those ballots will break disproportionately for one candidate. Therefore, this race is very likely going to a recount, which is automatically triggered anytime a statewide race in Pennsylvania is within 0.5 points. Several other key races we are watching are also still unresolved:

• First, in the Democratic primary for Oregon’s 5th District, the big question is whether Schrader will become the third incumbent to lose renomination this year. Progressive challenger McLeod-Skinner currently leads him 61 percent to 39 percent, but ballot problems in Schrader’s home county have delayed results there. As Geoffrey wrote earlier this morning, there could be thousands of ballots left to count there, but Schrader would need to win them by a hefty margin in order to close the gap.
• Meanwhile in the GOP primary for Oregon governor, Drazan holds a 24 percent to 19 percent lead over Tiernan with many days of mail-ballot dumps still to come. The winner will have a decent shot at winning the general election given the unpopularity of the outgoing governor and the presence of a strong independent candidate.
• Back in Pennsylvania, the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 12th District is also unresolved, but progressives appear on the verge of victory as Lee leads Irwin 41.7 percent to 41.3 percent. It’s unclear how many votes remain to be counted, however.
• In the GOP primary for Pennsylvania’s 7th District, Scheller looks like she’ll probably advance to the general election, but her current margin of 51 percent to 49 percent is weaker than expected for a candidate who had the full backing of House Republican leadership. It remains to be seen if this means Scheller would be a weak candidate in this swing seat in the fall, though.
• In the GOP primary for Oregon’s 5th District, Chavez-DeRemer leads Crumpacker 42 percent to 31 percent, but again, Oregon’s vote-by-mail system means there are still several days of counting ahead. And if McLeod-Skinner wins the Democratic primary, the GOP nominee has a real shot at flipping an Oregon congressional seat for the first time since 1994.
• In the GOP primary for Oregon’s 6th District, Erickson leads Noble 35 percent to 20 percent, but again, Oregon. This district should be safer for Democrats in the fall than the 5th, but it’s not out of the question that either Erickson or Noble could win here.
• Finally, in the GOP primary for Idaho secretary of state, McGrane currently leads Moon just 43 percent to 41 percent. If this result holds, it would be a notable victory for the Republican establishment, especially after its loss in the attorney general race. McGrane has accepted the results of the 2020 election, but Moon has embraced conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

When these races are resolved, it will make it a little clearer what our takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries should be. For instance, progressives came up short in several primaries yesterday, such as North Carolina’s 1st and 4th districts, but wins in Oregon’s 5th and Pennsylvania’s 12th would salvage the night for them. Trump’s endorsement record is still coming into focus, too. On one hand, two of Trump’s endorsed candidates for Senate, House or governor lost their primaries yesterday — as many as lost in the entire 2020 cycle! But on the other hand, his candidates still prevailed in major races such as North Carolina’s Senate and 13th District primaries. And if Oz pulls out a win, it will be a pretty convincing demonstration of his power within the GOP considering the massive amount of money spent by McCormick and the grassroots appeal of Barnette. As we’ve written, while Trump is still endorsing plenty of Republicans in safe primaries, he is also making some riskier endorsements — some of which have panned out, and some of which haven’t. So far this cycle, 62 of the 65 candidates Trump has endorsed for Senate, House or governor (and whose races have been called) have won. Keep in mind, though, that 95 percent win rate is only slightly lower than his 98 percent win rate in 2020. Even if the cycle goes south for Trump personally, though, his illiberal vision is clearly winning out within the Republican Party. According to our research, at least 28 candidates who reject or question the results of the 2020 election won Republican primaries last night — most notably for Pennsylvania governor, an office that could have the power to overturn the 2024 presidential election.

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.

Not much has changed since your late-night crew signed off in the wee hours. The marquee race of the night, the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary, remains too close to call.

As of 7:24 a.m., TV personality and physician Mehmet Oz holds a lead of roughly 2,500 votes over former hedge fund executive David McCormick, with both candidates sitting right at about 31 percent of the vote. (Despite having had a last minute surge in the polls, right-wing commentator and author Kathy Barnette sits in third place at 25 percent.)

With about 98 percent of the expected vote in so far, the outstanding vote has shrunk from late last night, so we’ll be poring over in greater detail where the vote is still outstanding in just a bit. It’s not clear when we’ll have a call — it could be awhile yet — and remember, should the race end up with a margin inside of 0.5 points, state law will mandate an automatic recount.

As for the other big outstanding races — the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District, the Republican primaries in Pennsylvania’s 6th and 7th districts, Oregon’s crowded Republican primary for governor, Oregon’s 5th District and Idaho’s Republican primaries for attorney general and secretary of state — not much has changed from last night; all remain too close to call, so I’ll encourage you to look at our more detailed post from Nathaniel, Jacob and Geoffrey late last night on the state of play, including some of our key takeaways at this point.

A note that we’ll continue to update the liveblog today as we get results.

The race might be tightening in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary, the marquee race of the night, but we’re calling it a night and putting the live blog to bed as it could be days before we know who won there. (Don’t worry, readers, we’ll be back tomorrow to fill you in on the latest.)

As of 12:59 a.m. ET, TV personality and physician Mehmet Oz holds a lead of fewer than 1,000 votes over former hedge fund executive David McCormick, with both candidates sitting right at about 31 percent of the vote. (Despite having had a last minute surge in the polls, right-wing commentator and author Kathy Barnette sits in third place at 25 percent.)

With about 91 percent of the expected vote in so far, there are still many thousands of votes left to count, so it’s difficult to know just how this could pan out. But should the race end up with a margin inside of 0.5 points, state law will mandate an automatic recount. We might not know who the GOP nominee is at this point, but one thing we do know is that the eventual nominee will face Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in November, as Fetterman won the Democratic primary with nearly 60 percent of the vote.

As for the other big outstanding races, here’s where things stand:

• The Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District remains too close to call. There, progressive state Rep. Summer Lee holds a tiny 523-vote lead over establishment-backed Steve Irwin. Since this is an open, solidly blue seat, Lee was seen as one of progressives’ best chances to add to their numbers tonight. She looks like she’s in good shape, but we don’t know how many ballots are outstanding and it’s possible Irwin could close the gap.
• The Republican primaries in Pennsylvania’s 6th and 7th districts also remain undecided. In the 7th, a GOP-leaning swing seat held by Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, 2020 nominee Lisa Scheller is just ahead of Kevin Dellicker, her underfunded challenger, 51 percent to 49 percent. The 6th District, defended by Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, is more of a reach for Republicans, but businessman Guy Ciarrocchi leads businessman Steve Fanelli in the GOP primary by 3 points, 34 percent to 31 percent, with no conclusion yet.
• Oregon’s crowded Republican primary for governor also has no projection, as former state House Minority Leader Christine Drazan narrowly leads former state Rep. Bob Tiernan. The winner will face former state House Speaker Tina Kotek, who defeated state Treasurer Tobias Read in the Democratic primary, and independent Betsy Johnson.
• In Oregon’s 5th District, progressive challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner leads incumbent Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader by 18 points, 59 percent to 41 percent, but only a third of the vote is counted and an issue with ballots in Schrader’s home county could keep the race in suspense for a while. At the very least, though, the fractious Democratic primary has Republicans thinking they can make a play for this seat in the fall; former Happy Valley mayor Lori Chavez-DeRemer leads businessman Jimmy Crumpacker 41 percent to 32 percent in the GOP primary.
• We’re also waiting for a winner in Idaho’s Republican primaries for attorney general and secretary of state. Incumbent Attorney General Lawrence Wasden is locked in a tight race with former Rep. Raúl Labrador, while Phil McGrane — the only candidate who has accepted the results of the 2020 election — leads for secretary of state.

But in terms of races that have been called tonight, here are a few key takeaways:

• The Republican establishment was able to breathe a couple sighs of relief. First, it doesn’t look like they’ll nominate Barnette for Senate, which could have given them headaches in the fall given Barnette’s history of offensive comments and far-right activism. Second, Rep. Madison Cawthorn lost his primary after antagonizing other Republican members of Congress with fables about congressional orgies and drug use (as well as facing several scandals of his own).
• It was more of a mixed bag for former President Donald Trump. At least 22 of his 25 endorsed candidates for Senate, House and governor won tonight (although most of them were not in competitive races). He did score notable wins in the open North Carolina Senate primary and North Carolina 13th primary, but he did incur two losses in the Idaho gubernatorial race and North Carolina 11th District (Cawthorn) — his second and third losses of the year so far. And, of course, we don’t yet know how his pick, Oz, will fare in the Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania.
• One bright spot for House Democrats this cycle, however, has been North Carolina, and the good news continued tonight. In both of the state’s two most competitive districts — the 1st and the 13th — Republicans nominated candidates that could cause them difficulties in the fall. In the 1st, 2020 Republican nominee Sandy Smith narrowly cleared the runoff threshold with 31.4 percent, but she is a candidate with a troubled track record as she has been accused of domestic violence and financial impropriety. Meanwhile, in the 13th, the winner was Bo Hines, a 26-year-old first-time candidate who spent much of the last year jumping from district to district before settling on this one. Biden would have narrowly carried the suburban district, which is trending in Democrats’ direction, so Hines’s relatively untested profile and lack of ties to the area could pose a problem for him in the general. Democrats nominated state Sens. Don Davis and Wiley Nickel in the 1st and 13th, respectively.
• It’s not all good news for Democrats in North Carolina, though. Notably, Rep. Ted Budd easily topped former Gov. Pat McCrory by more than 30 points in the GOP primary — McCrory managed to lose reelection in 2016 despite Trump winning the state at the top of the ticket. Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley easily won the Democratic nomination on the other side, but given that North Carolina is a red-leaning state and the electoral environment is shaping up to be favorable for Republicans, this will be a challenging race for Democrats. Inside Elections, the Cook Political Report, and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball all rate the race as Lean Republican.
• Finally, we might not have a winner in Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate primary, but we do know who won the GOP primary for governor: state Sen. Doug Mastriano. And while this is a troubling development for small “d” democracy — Mastriano led the charge to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Pennsylvania and was present on the Capitol lawn on Jan. 6 in addition to holding a number of other fringey views — it was the outcome that many Democrats were rooting for, as Mastriano’s far-right views will likely make it easier for Democrats to hold the office in November.

In Oregon’s 6th District, cryptocurrency-backed candidate Carrick Flynn has conceded the Democratic primary to state Rep. Andrea Salinas, who leads 38-19 percent in the vote count so far (about 41 percent of all votes have been counted). Flynn had the support of several insanely well-funded Super PACs, but it wasn’t enough to get him anywhere close to the win. The district leans fairly Democratic, so Salinas will be favored in the fall.

We have a lead change in the GOP primary for Pennsylvania Senate: Oz has pulled ahead of McCormick by 736 votes.

McGeachin’s loss isn’t surprising — polls have consistently shown her trailing Little. Considering how pro-Trump Little is, it’s curious why Trump didn’t pull his endorsement, like he did for Mo Brooks in Alabama’s Senate primary. But with over two dozen endorsements for tonight, is it possible Trump just forgot?

Our colleagues at ABC News are now projecting that Little has won renomination for governor of Idaho, defeating his own lieutenant governor, McGeachin. McGeachin is the second Trump-endorsed candidate to lose tonight, and the third so far this year.

In the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary, it looks like we just got about 18,000 votes dropped in Delaware County, and McCormick’s lead grew…by 0.1 points. He’s now up 31.4 percent to 31.1 percent over Oz. Now at 89 percent of the expected vote overall, according to ABC News.

Idaho also has an open secretary of state’s race, and the one candidate who has accepted the results of the 2020 election, McGrane, is currently leading with 52 percent.

Idaho has been counting very slowly, but we finally have enough votes to say that the state’s many far-right primary challengers are mostly falling flat. First, Little is handily defeating McGeachin for governor, 65 percent to 22 percent, with about 20 percent of the vote reporting. It’s closer for attorney general, but Wasden is leading Labrador 52 percent to 40 percent. And in the 2nd District, Simpson is trouncing Smith 69 percent to 22 percent.

If McCormick pulls it out, I’ll be interested to see how Trump responds. Trump went pretty negative on him in the closing weeks of the race, and his victory itself would have to be considered a rebuke to Trump, but there will be tremendous pressure to put up a unified GOP front.

Right, Nathaniel. A back-of-the-napkin calculation says there could be 100,000 votes left in those two counties, slightly more from Delaware. But there’s also another sizable batch in Montgomery County next door, where Barnette leads. Really hard to say how this plays out. So far, Oz is slightly outpacing McCormick in the Philly area, but they’re running even in the four collar counties.

An estimated 43 percent of the expected vote is reporting in the Republican primary for Senate in Oregon, and Perkins — the QAnon believer — leads with 32 percent. This seat was already likely to stay blue in the fall, but you can pretty much sew it up for Democrat if Perkins prevails here.

According to The New York Times, the counties with the most votes left to count in Pennsylvania are one Oz county (Bucks) and one McCormick county (Delaware).

We’ve got 84 percent of the vote in from the GOP primary for Senate in Pennsylvania, and it’s a true-blue nail biter. McCormick leads by just 0.2 percentage points over Oz, 31.3 percent to 31.1 percent. Slightly more than half the remaining expected vote seems set to come from the Philadelphia area. And fact is, there are thousands of mail ballots left to count. So it could be a bit before we know who has won here.

In North Carolina’s 1st District, AP has called the GOP primary for Sandy Smith, who ran for this seat unsuccessfully in 2020. (ABC News has yet to call the race.) She’s the candidate Republican leadership wanted to avoid given her personal baggage, and she’ll start as an underdog in the Democratic-leaning district against state Sen. Don Davis, who won his primary convincingly tonight.

That means Trump-endorsed candidates went 23 for 26 tonight — or perhaps 24, if Oz manages to pull through in Pennsylvania. Not a perfect night for Trump like the Texas primaries, but he can still take credit for a couple dozen wins. And in a few races — Hines and Mastriano among them — Trump’s endorsement could have very well been what made the difference.

If Lee ends up losing, though, she can always go back to her career in the state House.

We’ve got to be nearing the end of vote-counting in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, if we’re not there already. According to ABC News, 99 percent of the expected vote is reporting, and Lee leads Irwin 42 percent to 41 percent — a margin of 534 votes. Pennsylvania’s 0.5-point automatic recount margin does not apply to congressional races, but Irwin’s campaign can still request a recount if they want. I’m not sure we’ll get a winner here tonight.

In Oregon, the complicating factor for Democrats is the presence of independent Betsy Johnson in the race. Johnson is a former Democratic state senator who was one of the more conservative members of the caucus, and she’s running as a middle-of-the-road candidate in the governor’s race. She’s a strong fundraiser and also has backing from Oregon megadonor and Nike founder Phil Knight. It’s not clear she has enough juice to win outright, but there’s a real worry among Democrats she could split enough of the vote to let a GOP candidate through to victory.

ABC News has projected Bo Hines as the winner of North Carolina’s 13th District Republican primary. He leads with 32 percent, just above the 30 percent threshold to avoid a runoff there. He will face Democratic state Sen. Wiley Nickel in the general election in a seat that leans slightly to the right.

If McLeod-Skinner does pull it off in Oregon’s 5th District, Nathaniel, it will be a win for the progressive’s strategy of endorsing against incumbent Democrats who are seen as out-of-step with their district.

ABC News has projected former Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek as the winner of the Beaver State’s Democratic primary for governor. She currently leads by 23 points, 57 percent to 34 percent, over state Treasurer Tobias Read. It remains to be seen who she faces in November in a state where the GOP hasn’t won a gubernatorial election since 1982.

And Nathaniel, Clackamas will take longer than normal to report because of the barcode issue.

In Oregon’s 5th District, with 25 percent of the expected vote reporting, Jamie McLeod-Skinner has a wide lead over incumbent Rep. Kurt Schrader, 65 percent to 35 percent. However, I’m not writing Schrader off yet. Most of the votes so far are coming from Bend’s Deschutes County, which was not in Schrader’s old district. No votes are reporting yet from his home county of Clackamas.

Oregon’s 6th District played host to the most expensive Democratic primary this cycle, but Carrick Flynn, the beneficiary of over $11 million in support from cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, is in a clear second place behind state Rep. Andrea Salinas with about 30 percent of the vote counted. Salinas leads, 37-19 percent.

And in Oregon’s 4th District, ABC News projects Val Hoyle as the Democratic nomination. Hoyle — who was previously the majority leader of the Oregon House of Representatives — had support from many in the Democratic establishment, including sitting Oregon senator Jeff Merkley. Hoyle’s main competitor, climate change activist Doyle Canning, was endorsed by several regional progressive organizations, including the local branches of the Democratic Socialists of America and Sunrise Movement.

Ultimately, it wasn’t even close. With 47 percent reporting, Hoyle has 70 percent of the vote, while Canning has 15 percent.

Now that polls have closed in Oregon and we await the results, let’s look at the colorful field of seven Republicans squaring off for the GOP nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden. That includes a number of Big Lie believers, and even a QAnon adherent! You may remember Jo Rae Perkins from the last time she ran for Senate in 2020, where she garnered attention for promoting QAnon — the conspiracy theory that there is a secret underground cabal of Democratic elite satanic pedophiles who run the country:

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Perkins is running again and this time she is also endorsing other conspiracy theories, including anti-vax sentiments and the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen. In fact, Perkins even attended the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol — she told a local news station that she marched to the Capitol but did not enter it.

There’s also Jason Beebe, currently the Mayor of Prineville, Oregon. When FiveThirtyEight reached out to ask him whether he believed the 2020 election was legitimate, he told us he believed Trump won the election and that “There is so much proof of election fraud that it would be hard for me to believe the elections were legitimate.” And Ibra Taher, who has tweeted Big Lie conspiracy theories:

Good call, Jacob, that would be ironic given some of the chatter about McCormick benefitting.

With Hoyle’s projected win, EMILY’s List is batting 1.000 among endorsed non-incumbents.

Oz, Barnette and Bartos all were listed as Montgomery County candidates on the ballot, so maybe the regional factor actually played against McCormick in the collar counties?

In fact, ABC News is already projecting Hoyle to be the winner in the Oregon 4th. She will be favored, but not guaranteed to win, this fall in this D+9 seat.

So earlier, I speculated McCormick might benefit as more votes from the Philadelphia “collar” counties came in. But it seems like Oz has now taken a narrow lead in the votes from those four counties, and a lot of votes are still remaining, mostly Election Day ballots at this point. McCormick seemed to do best among early votes, whereas Oz has led in Election Day votes, so this could prove to be more of a boon to Oz than McCormick.

And in the open 4th Congressional District, Val Hoyle has a HUGE lead, 70 percent to 15 percent, over the progressive candidate Doyle Canning. Results are still sparse in the other two closely watched districts, the 5th and 6th.

We’ve got the first dump of mail ballots in Oregon. In the Democratic primary for governor, Tina Kotek leads Tobias Read 59 percent to 32 percent. On the GOP side, Christine Drazan has 24 percent, Bob Tiernan 21 percent and Stan Pulliam 10 percent.

Well, let’s see if we have any FiveThirtyEight writers in Pennsylvania’s 184th, a South Philly state House district where the incumbent is another progressive — in this case, Elizabeth Fiedler — facing a more moderate challenger with the backing of local ward leaders. (This is not my district, but that didn’t stop me from getting mailers attacking Fiedler.)

With the polls closing in Idaho, we’re thinking ahead to the GOP governor race. McGeachin made a big splash in the news regarding bans on COVID-related mandates, but only 8 percent of Republicans listed COVID-19 as a major issue and less than 1 percent of Republicans noted frustration at mask or vaccine mandates in an open-ended question on the country’s biggest issues, according to our FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll.

Generally, Little and McGeachin have fairly similar stances on other major issues like the validity of the 2020 election. It’ll be interesting to see if their diverging stances on mask and vaccine mandates will make a difference, although it seems unlikely that they will give McGeachin a much-needed boost since the issue is a lower priority among Republicans.

McCormick now leads Oz by just 0.2 percentage points, or 2,335 votes. If the margin stays within 0.5 points, it would be subject to an automatic recount per Pennsylvania law.

I’ve been watching how women are doing in tonight’s primaries. Among Democrats it’s a mixed bag for non-incumbent women. But non-incumbent candidates endorsed by EMILY’s List are doing really well. Cheri Beasley won her primary in North Carolina’s Senate race, and Valerie Foushee won in North Carolina’s 4th District. And we are watching the nail-biter in Pennsylvania’s 12th, where Summer Lee is up by a handful of votes with 98 percent of precincts reporting. EMILY’s List also endorsed two women in Oregon (Val Hoyle and Tina Kotek), where we don’t have any results yet.

With 76 percent of expected votes reporting, the GOP race in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District is still too close to call. Sandy Smith, who, as I mentioned earlier, attended the Jan. 6 rally, is leading with 30.7 percent of the vote, with Sandy Roberson trailing at 26.1 percent. Here’s how the other Big Lie believing candidates are faring so far:

That’s my district, Dan!

In a West Philadelphia state House race, progressive incumbent Rick Krajewski just got some good news as a bunch of precincts reported. He leads a challenger who was backed by Philadelphia’s Democratic committee by a sizable margin.

Thom Tillis twists the knife in North Carolina’s 11th:

Let’s all take a minute to just appreciate that Summer Lee started out tonight in Pennsylvania’s 12th District down by 21 percentage points.

I’ve also been looking at Oz’s areas of strength in Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary, and some of what we’re seeing makes quite a lot of sense once you consider that Trump endorsed him. Oz’s best counties include Lackawanna and Luzerne in northeast Pennsylvania, as well as Fayette County and Greene County in the southwest corner of the state. These are places with ancestral Democratic leanings and lots of blue-collar white voters that have swung sharply to the right in the Trump era (although Lackawanna, home to Scranton, does remain Democratic-leaning overall).

I know I said at the beginning of the night that that Lancaster County snafu probably wouldn’t delay a call, but … only 8,077 votes separate Oz and McCormick right now. I don’t know how many of the 21,000 faulty ballots are Republican, but the race may very well come down to them.