In South Texas, a special election is being held to determine who will serve the remainder of Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela Jr., who resigned from the seat to join a lobbying firm. While the winner of this election only serves until January, Republicans are seeking to prove they can make inroads in what has been a traditionally blue area.
Republicans are backing Mayra Flores, who is also endorsed by Texas’ Republican Governor Greg Abbott. She faces off against Democrat Dan Sanchez. Flores and the GOP have heavily outspent Sanchez in a bid to take the seat.
The election could lead to a runoff in the summer if no one candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, as two other, lesser-known candidates are on the ballot.
- Kenneth Tran
Laxalt’s campaign is focused on flipping Nevada to red, as disapproval of President Biden grows in the state. In a rally last Saturday, Laxalt told supporters Masto is “the most vulnerable senator in America.”
- Kenneth Tran
The night's first poll closing is in South Carolina, and Republicans will soon know whether Donald Trump has succeeded in knocking off two U.S. House incumbents who displeased him.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C., are facing Trump-backed challengers Katie Arrington, a former state representative, and Russell Fry, a current member of the state legislature respectively.
Mace has confidently predicted victory, while Rice's crowded primary could lead to a runoff on June 28.
There are also primaries for other U.S. House seats, as well as the governor's race in the Palmetto State.
-- David Jackson
The first polls to close Tuesday are in South Carolina , at 7 p.m. ET.
Maine's polls close an hour later, at 8 p.m. ET.
Nevada and North Dakota both close their polls at 10 p.m. ET.
-Ella Lee
The polls are still open in the state of Maine, but one fall race is already set: Current Democratic Gov. Janet Mills will be challenged by former Republican Gov. Paul LePage.
Both are unopposed in their party primaries.
LePage, who became nationally known for offensive comments about women and minorities, won election as governor in 2010 and 2014. The politician who once described himself as "Trump before Donald Trump became popular" could not run in 2018 became of term limits.
Election SoS?: In Nevada GOP primary, candidates see a fundamental shift in the secretary of state role
Races and themes to watch: South Carolina, Donald Trump, Nevada, abortion, Senate control
Mills won the Maine statehouse four years ago. Before that, she served as attorney general, a job in which she had opposed LaPage in court over attempts to expand gubernatorial powers.
A little-known independent candidate, Sam Hunkler, is also planning a fall run for Maine governor.
-- David Jackson
Voters under 34 make up a third of Nevada’s total registered voters -- and young people are more inclined to vote independent than any other age category.
Registered voter demographics from the Nevada Secretary of State show that under-34 voters make up 29% of the state’s Democrats and 40% of the state’s nonpartisan voters. While first-term Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto -- the first Latina elected to Senate -- is the clear Democratic frontrunner, the race between politician Adam Laxalt and retired Army Capt. Sam Brown has tightened in recent weeks.
Nonparty voters won’t have the chance to decide between Laxalt and Brown, as Nevada runs closed primary elections.
Another trend that may tip the scales is a surge in mail-in voters. In 2016, only 7% of Nevada voters cast a mail ballot, while 48% voted by mail in 2020. That’s the first election where Nevada began mailing ballots with prepaid postage to every active, registered voter. The benefit is clear to rural voters, 53% of whom voted by mail in 2020.
-- Katherine Swartz
Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C., was one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach former President Donald Trump for "incitement of insurrection."
"I have backed this President through thick and thin for four years," Rice wrote on Twitter at the time . "I campaigned for him and voted for him twice. But, this utter failure is inexcusable."
Now, Rice is vying to keep his seat in the deep-red state that swung for Trump by more than 11 points in the 2020 election. Trump, who after Rice's impeachment vote called him a "coward who abandoned his constituents by caving to (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi and the Radical Left," has endorsed South Carolina state Rep. Russell Fry.
-- Ella Lee
Cheryl Ward has noticed more summer wildfires in her hometown of Elko, Nevada, than ever.
Last year, 610 fires burned 134,145 acres in Nevada. The number of acres burnt by wildfires in Nevada more than doubled from the 1980-to-1999 period to the stretch from 2000 to 2018.
“We’ve had more and more severe fires as we have the increase in the temperatures each year and less precipitation,” Ward told the Reno Gazette Journal, part of the Gannett network, in April. “But a lot of people here in Elko don’t realize that. They think it’s just change that’s happened throughout history.”
Ward is a Republican and a Latina – among the many voters of color who made up 36% of Nevada's electorate in 2020 and w ho will cast ballots Tuesday in the state's primary elections.
-- Dylan Wells and Mabinty Quarshie
Read the whole story here: Nevadans of color worry about climate change, but will that change their primary votes?
Rep. Nancy Mace's criticism of Trump over the Capitol riot landed her a Trump-backed challenger in Tuesday's primary election, even as Mace now scrambles to woo Republicans and prove that she does, in fact, support the president, despite a vote to certify Joe Biden's victory in 2020.
Mace's maneuvering is about more than just her district, though. For people across the political spectrum, the race will help answer a basic question: How far can Republicans buck Donald Trump and still survive in office?
-- Dylan Wells
Read the whole story here: GOP Rep. Mace voted to certify the 2020 election but says she backs Trump. Can she win her S.C. primary?
A prominent election conspiracy theorist, a pastor who is also a local councilman and a businessman who has loaned his campaign close to half a million dollars are among seven Republicans vying to be Nevada’s next secretary of state.
But while their backgrounds run the gamut, the GOP candidates have broadly centered on platforms of strengthening election security, a catchall term for proposals Republicans see as essential but that Democrats warn could suppress large swathes of voters.
The race comes to a head in Nevada's primary election on Tuesday. While the secretary of state position has often been seen as more bureaucratic than partisan, the role has recently become a flashpoint across the country for not just the counting of votes, but also for which votes get counted.
-- Ariel Gans and Katherine Huggins, Medill News Service
Read the whole story here: In Nevada GOP primary, candidates see a fundamental shift in the secretary of state role
