What Went Down In Elections In Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont And Connecticut

[Editor’s Note: The following has been updated as of 8:21 a.m. Eastern with the latest results.]

Today, voters in Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin headed to the polls, and two headlines coming out of tonight are Trump-endorsed candidates once again did well, as do progressive candidates (save Rep. Ilhan Omar).

To be clear, Omar won renomination, defeating former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels. But it was a close race — within 2 percentage points, with 99 percent of the expected vote in, much closer than the margin by which Omar won renomination in 2020. It does seem as if Omar might face unique challenges when it comes to clearing her party’s primary, as we talked about on the live blog earlier.

Meanwhile, in both Wisconsin and Connecticut, the Trump-backed candidate prevailed in statewide races. In Connecticut’s Senate GOP primary, Leora Levy — who Trump endorsed and twice nominated to be ambassador to Chile (she was never confirmed) — defeated former state House Minority Leader Themis Klarides. And in Wisconsin’s GOP primary for governor, the Trump-backed Tim Michels, a construction executive, defeated former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. But as we said on the live blog, don’t make us tell you what this means for the “new” GOP vs. the “old” one.

Rather, the biggest piece of history coming out of tonight is that, with state Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint’s victory in the Democratic primary for Vermont’s at-large district, Vermont is now on track to elect its first woman to Congress.

Finally, here are updates on the other races that weren’t called when we put the live blog to bed.

• Vote-counting has proceeded slowly in the special election for Minnesota’s 1st District, but Republican Brad Finstad ultimately prevailed over Democrat Jeff Ettinger 51 percent to 47 percent. The race was another test of the fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and even though Finstad won, Democrats overperformed in this district. Ettinger ran well ahead of the district’s R+15 partisan lean.
  
• In the GOP primary for Wisconsin attorney general, the race is still too close to call with Fond du Lac District Attorney Eric Toney and former state Assemblyman Adam Jarchow neck and neck. With 80 percent of the vote reporting, Toney is at 37.4 percent and Jarchow is at 36.8 percent. A third candidate, Karen Mueller, is further back with 26 percent. The winner will face incumbent Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul in November.
• Finally, in the Democratic primary in Wisconsin’s 3rd District, state Sen. Brad Pfaff, who had the endorsement of outgoing Democratic Rep. Ron Kind, won 41 percent to 30 percent. This will be a hard seat for Democrats to hold onto in November, though, as its FiveThirtyEight partisan lean is R+9.

We’re up to 67 percent of the expected vote reporting in the GOP primary for Wisconsin governor, and Michels’s lead is holding steady. No major outlet has called this race yet, but I wouldn’t want to be Kleefisch.

The Associated Press has projected the winner of the Republican primary for Minnesota secretary of state is Kim Crockett, who has said that the 2020 election was rigged. She is the fifth outright election denier that the GOP has nominated for secretary of state, all in potentially close states (Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico are the others).

Let’s check in one last time on how Republicans who have falsely claimed the 2020 election was rigged, or questioned its results without evidence, are faring in primaries tonight.

ABC News projects that Leora Levy has won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Connecticut.

Rice County is home to the city of Northfield and St. Olaf College, for any of the Prairie Home Companion, Golden Girls or choral music fans out there.

As expected, counting is going slowly in the special election for Minnesota’s 1st District. Republican Brad Finstad leads Democrat Jeff Ettinger 59 percent to 38 percent, but only 5 percent of the expected vote is reporting. However, it does look like we have full results from Rice County, which we can compare to those from the 2020 election. Finstad won there 60 percent to 37 percent, and Trump won there … 60 percent to 37 percent. In other words, it’s looking like a 2020-esque political environment out there (which is actually not bad for Democrats!).

Vos, the Wisconsin state Assembly speaker, has pulled ahead with Racine County apparently done counting. However, there are still about 1,100 votes left to count in Walworth County.

We’ve got 40 percent of the expected vote in from the Democratic primary for Wisconsin’s 3rd District, and while Pfaff’s lead has shrunk, it remains pretty sizable. He’s at 45 percent while Cooke is in second at 27 percent.

In case you’re wondering, two other OG members of the Squad, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, are unopposed in their primaries coming up in the next few weeks. However, Rep. Jamaal Bowman could face a notable challenge from Westchester County legislator Vedat Gashi.

As Alex just mentioned, Omar’s primary opponent has conceded. Interestingly, past political science research has shown that female incumbents are more likely than male incumbents to face competitive primary challenges, due to the perception that they are easier to unseat. I think that perception might be weakening, especially among Democrats … in any event, all other female Democratic incumbents have won, or are projected to win, their primaries tonight:

So I think there’s like a meme on Twitter about close Wisconsin elections coming down to the margin in Waukesha County. But for true Sconnie Politicos (I used to work at Wisconsin Public Radio), there is a trio of counties that really matter and they are the WOW counties: Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington. Those three populous counties encircle Milwaukee, have lots of high-propensity voters and have traditionally been a source of conservative political activism in the state. Gov. Scott Walker is from the area. Those three counties have shifted left over the past decade, however, and I would be curious if the GOP primary electorate is actually shrinking there, as it grows in the more rural and post-industrial parts of the state. It’s a prime area for the type of voter who is ancestrally Republican, but allergic to Trump. As you can see in this map of the vote swing from 2016 to 2020, those counties form a big blue circle of leftward lurch.

That was certainly a close race for Omar! Much closer than her 2020 primary challenge.

Reports are surfacing that Don Samuels is conceding to Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minnesota’s 5th District. As of now, per ABC News, we’re still at 96 percent of the expected vote in and Omar maintains a narrow lead over Samuels — 51 to 48 percent. Assuming the race is projected in Omar’s favor soon, she should be in good standing come November given that her district has a partisan lean of D+57. Omar will likely face Cicely Davis this fall, who is ahead in her race currently, but the Republican primary hasn’t yet been projected, either.

In Connecticut, former state House Minority Leader Themis Klarides dropped out of the gubernatorial primary to give Bob Stefanowski a clear shot at Gov. Ned Lamont. She switched to the Senate race, where initially it looked like she’d get a go at Sen. Richard Blumenthal in a race that some Republicans hoped could come online. But then Leora Levy, who Trump nominated twice to be ambassador to Chile (she was never confirmed), jumped in the race, started attacking Klarides as a RINO and secured an endorsement from Trump. And now the folks at Decision Desk HQ (but not yet ABC News) are projecting Levy is the winner.

Well, Sarah, that stems from a long-running (gosh, over a decade now!) meme among election nerds about “crucial Waukesha County” always being the most suspenseful part of any Wisconsin election night. But in all seriousness, it’s a very populous suburban county that contains a lot of “old” Republicans, to borrow the terminology from our discussion before. If an establishment-leaning Republican hopes to win statewide in Wisconsin, they must run up their margins in Waukesha.

For us non-Wisconsinites, why is Waukesha County so important, Nathaniel?

Why Michels is favored in the Wisconsin GOP gubernatorial primary, in one tweet:

With around half of the expected vote reporting in the GOP primary for Wisconsin governor, the gap between Michels and Kleefisch has narrowed to 2 points. Michels still looks like the favorite based on what areas are outstanding, though.

So far, seven Republicans who have denied or questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election have won primaries tonight, and an additional three are leading.

In the GOP primary for attorney general in Wisconsin, we’re up to about 37 percent of the expected vote counted. Eric Toney is still leading with 39 percent, while Adam Jarchow right behind with 37 percent. Karen Mueller is further back with 23 percent.

According to our friends at Ballotpedia, Trump has endorsed in 25 state legislative races this cycle.

Republican Robin Vos is the longtime speaker of the Wisconsin state Assembly. He has proven his conservative bona fides by leading the charge for anti-union legislation in the state and other conservative priorities. But he believes (correctly) that it is impossible to decertify the 2020 election in the state, which Trump has demanded, and so Trump endorsed his primary challenger, Adam Steen. And, amazingly, it looks like Vos might actually be in trouble: Early returns have Steen leading 51 percent to 49 percent.

With 37 percent of the expected vote now reporting, Leora Levy has maintained the same lead in the race for Connecticut’s U.S. Senate seat: 51 percent. We’re still waiting on votes to come in from parts of the greater Hartford area and Greenwich (the latter is Levy’s hometown).

I was going to mention that too, Nathaniel. According to Trump, Kleefisch and Michels present a clear case of an insider (Kleefisch) versus an outsider (Michels). As I wrote earlier tonight, at a rally for Michels just last week, Trump said Kleefisch is “the handpicked candidate of the failed establishment, the RINOs and the Washington swamp.” “Outsiders” tend to do better among Republicans, but as Nate wrote for the site, nominating inexperienced candidates could backfire.

Well, Sarah, Kleefisch is a former lieutenant governor and is deeply enmeshed in the Wisconsin GOP establishment, while Michels — who has never held office before — is more of an outsider. But interestingly, Kleefisch is actually the one with more dangerous views on democratic norms. She has called the 2020 election in Wisconsin “rigged,” while Michels has carefully avoided answering the question directly (though he has said he believes some fraud did take place). That’s not what you would expect, given that Trump snubbed Kleefisch in order to endorse Michels.

The Republican primary for Wisconsin governor has been interesting for a lot of reasons, but here’s a nugget (a similarity, though, not a difference!) that intrigued me — even though both Republican candidates are very hardline on abortion rights, both Kleefisch and Michels recently signaled that they’d be open to supporting paid family leave if they’re elected governor. Paid leave is typically an issue that Democrats push, not Republicans, but this is likely an effort to appeal to voters who may have been turned off by the party’s stance on abortion. They’re not the only Republicans to make this argument recently either. In the wake of the Dobbs decision, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said that states need to better support new parents so they have the time and resources to care for their families. So maybe this is another area where traditional party policy stances could be scrambled a bit going forward. (Although to be clear I don’t think Democrats are going to stop supporting paid family leave!)

Oof. There’s still a lot of vote left to be counted in the governor’s primary, but it certainly seems as if the Trump-endorsed candidate could easily win in Wisconsin. What are some of the biggest differences between Kleefisch and Michels?

We’re up to 32 percent of the expected vote counted in the GOP primary for Wisconsin governor, and Michels leads Kleefisch by about 3 percentage points. However, Michels’s lead is a lot stronger than that margin suggests. Kleefisch is barely beating him in the Milwaukee area, places that you would expect to be favorable to former Gov. Scott Walker’s hand-picked candidate. So it’s not obvious where else in the state Kleefisch can pick up ground.

In the Wisconsin GOP primary for attorney general, we have 19 percent of the expected vote reporting and Toney is leading with just over 40 percent of the vote, while Jarchow is pretty close behind with around 36 percent of the vote. Mueller continues to trail with about 23 percent of the vote — again, not a big surprise there since she was a fringier candidate. We didn’t have a great sense of how this race would turn out going in because there wasn’t any public polling, but Jarchow did significantly outraise Toney. That doesn’t seem to be helping him yet — but the night is young, of course, and things could change.

ABC News is projecting that Brad Finstad has won the Republican primary election (not the special election!) for Minnesota’s 1st District. He’s currently leading tea partier Jeremy Munson 77 percent to 23 percent, a much wider margin than when the two faced off earlier this year in the special election’s primary.

Wisconsin’s 3rd District Democratic primary still looks like Pfaff’s to lose, as he has 48 percent with 24 percent of the expected vote reporting. Cooke is in second with 24 percent, so it’s going to take a big shift in that remaining vote to make this race interesting.

We have a few updates on the Trump endorsees front, including projected victories for members reported to be involved in Jan 6: Incumbent Ron Johnson is projected to win the primary in his reelection bid for Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate seat (no surprises here), as is Derrick Van Orden in the state’s 3rd District. Here’s the full slate:

One of the seats that will be hardest for Democrats to hold onto in 2022 is Wisconsin’s 3rd District, a GOP-leaning seat in western Wisconsin that’s long been represented by Democratic Rep. Ron Kind. But Kind is retiring, so the GOP is licking its chops. Nevertheless, four Democrats are battling for the right to give Democrats a chance of retaining this district. And with 18 percent of the expected vote in, state Sen. Brad Pfaff has a commanding lead with 58 percent, followed by businesswoman Rebecca Cooke at 19 percent. Pfaff was once Kind’s chief of staff and has the incumbent’s endorsement.

I think there’s a combination of factors here that are contributing to the competitiveness of Omar’s primary. First, Omar is probably the most controversial member of the Squad. While they are all outspoken progressives, Omar has gotten plenty of bad headlines for her anti-Semitic comments, adultery accusations and a possible campaign-finance scandal. Second, I think there is a lot of bad blood among Democrats in Minneapolis specifically, more so than in Boston or New York City or St. Louis. As Geoffrey mentioned, last year’s campaign around Question 2 and the Minneapolis mayoral election were fierce, fierce fights between the moderate and progressive wings of the party — fights that, notably, the moderate wing won. Third, it’s hard to rule out racism — specifically, anti-Muslim sentiment. The two members of the Squad who have faced the most serious primary challenges, Omar and Tlaib, are both Muslim.

We’re now at 96 percent of the expected vote in for Minnesota’s 5th District and Omar is still hanging in there — albeit barely so! She currently leads Samuels 51 to 48 percent.

Amelia, I was thinking a lot of the same, honestly. Of course, she’s not the only Muslim member of The Squad, but I do wonder how much racism, misogynoir and xenophobia play a factor here …

It’s a fascinating question, Alex. Omar has had some high-profile gaffes — like last year when she was criticized by fellow Democratic House members for a tweet that appeared to compare the U.S. and Israel to the Taliban and Hamas — but I wonder if it’s also related to the fact that it’s just really hard to be a Muslim woman in elected office in the U.S., particularly one who, like Omar, wears a hijab. Maybe that makes her more vulnerable to challenges generally?

Alex, it’s possible Samuels is a stronger candidate than your average primary challenger — and Omar might be weaker than your average incumbent (thus why she keeps attracting opposition). Samuels has deep ties to the community as a former city councillor and former school board member. And the issue of policing may have given him an opening, as he was a prominent opponent of Question 2, the failed city ballot measure last year that would have replaced the police department in Minneapolis with a Department of Public Safety. Omar backed that measure. She’s also had her controversial moments, such as her past comments about Israel and Palestine.

Does anyone have any theories as to why Omar is performing so poorly when other members of The Squad either 1) don’t have serious or any primary challengers (i.e., Reps. Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley), or 2) have handily defeated their challengers (i.e., Reps. Bush and Tlaib)?

Results are starting to trickle in for Wisconsin’s attorney general race, which I’m watching tonight. There’s no competition on the Democratic side — incumbent Josh Kaul was running unopposed — but there are three Republicans vying to take on Kaul in November. Right now, with 9 percent of the expected vote in, former state Sen. Adam Jarchow and Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney are neck-and-neck, each with just under 40 percent of the vote. Attorney Karen Mueller, whose campaign focused mostly on COVID-19 conspiracy theories and was always more of a long-shot, is behind the other two, with about 22 percent of the vote.

Abortion has played a big role in this race. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, the state’s 1849 abortion ban went into effect, which made it impossible to get an abortion in the state. Kaul is challenging it in state court and has promised not to enforce it, although he doesn’t have control over state prosecutors’ ability to bring charges. Jarchow and Toney, meanwhile, both oppose abortion rights and have promised to enforce the ban if elected.

With 13 percent of the expected vote now counted in the Republican primary for Wisconsin governor, Kleefisch leads Michels by about 3 percentage points. This race is living up to the billing so far.

Democrats shouldn’t have any trouble holding the office of Connecticut secretary of state this fall, but notably, the Republican primary for that office was just won by Dominic Rapini, who has cast doubt over the 2020 election result with his repeated references to widespread voter fraud, which have not been substantiated. That means Republicans have now nominated (so far) six secretary of state candidates who have denied or questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election: deniers in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico, and questioners in Alabama and Connecticut.

One thing that can get lost in the conversation about whether or not Republicans will have a good or bad year is that they can have a pretty unimpressive night in the House and still take control of it. The current Democratic majority is just so narrow, and there are just so many places for the GOP to make inroads or flip districts.

Amelia, remember the 2020 Democratic presidential primary? I jest, but what I found particularly interesting about the Wisconsin Senate race was that they coalesced around the candidate with the most progressive credentials!

Results are coming in fast in Minnesota’s 5th District. With about 56 percent of the expected vote in, Omar barely leads Samuels — 51 percent to 48 percent. Definitely not what I expected given how fellow Squad members performed last week, but Omar seems to be member facing the most formidable challengers, it seems …

Okay, now that Barnes is officially projected to win (not that anyone was holding their breath), can we talk about what happened with the Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate primary? Less than a month ago, Barnes had three challengers — and now he’s cruised to victory without any opposition after all of the challengers bowed out of the race in late July. How often does this kind of thing happen, where a fractured field suddenly coalesces around a single candidate?

It was over practically before it even began in the Wisconsin Democratic Senate primary. ABC News projects that Mandela Barnes, the state’s lieutenant governor, will win the Democratic nomination to take on Sen. Ron Johnson. All of Barnes’s major opponents dropped out and endorsed him in the final weeks of the race.

Yeah, I agree that the Dobbs ruling shakes things up. Abortion is interesting because it’s an issue where voters have a clearer understand of which party represents what, and can connect those dots in the voting booth. It’s not murky. If the issue stays salient through November, and I think it will, I think Democrats stand to benefit.