Six states ranging from California to New Jersey held primaries on Tuesday night.
Many of the results from California will take a while to learn, given the state’s late poll-closing time and slow vote-counting.
In the California governor’s race, Democratic former US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is in strong position to get one of the two slots in the November election given how votes counted after Election Day in California are typically more Democratic. The other slot is likely to go either Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton or Democratic billionaire investor Tom Steyer.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass advanced to the November election. Republican former reality TV star Spencer Pratt landed in second place behind Bass in the first reports, but later updates found him losing ground to progressive city councilmember Nithya Raman. That trend, coupled with the expected Democratic shift from ballots counted after Election Day, means the second spot remains too early to call.
Here are some of our other takeaways so far.
The Democratic establishment gets its guy in Iowa
The Iowa Senate race has not been considered a top-tier race. But the Democratic primary drew lots of attention.
The Democratic super PAC VoteVets spent about $10 million to help state Rep. Josh Turek. State Sen. Zach Wahls tried to fight back by making the race a referendum on Chuck Schumer, the oft-maligned Senate minority leader whom some Democrats are running against.
But however much Democratic base voters might not love Schumer, it didn’t work. If fact, Turek sailed to a painless victory, leading Wahls by 25 points with nearly all the vote reported.
Turek will advance to a general election matchup with GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson.
Hinson is the clear favorite in a state Trump won by 13 points in 2024. But Democrats hope Trump’s tariffs could make the farm-heavy state more competitive than usual. And Turek comes from a western Iowa state legislative district that backed Trump.
Some prognosticators on Tuesday night moved the race from a likely Republican win to merely leaning towards the GOP.
If Democrats can put it in play, that would be huge for their majority math, given they will need to flip multiple states that Trump won in 2024 by double digits.
A Trump endorsee goes down in the Iowa governor’s race
For all the narrative about Trump demonstrating his power by knocking off incumbent Republicans in primaries in recent weeks, his endorsement record hasn’t been flawless, especially in lower-profile races.
Two candidates he backed last month are headed for runoffs in primaries for Georgia governor and US senator from Alabama, for instance.
And on Tuesday night, a Trump endorsee lost.
Trump on Friday decided to endorse Rep. Randy Feenstra in the Iowa governor’s race, hoping it would put Feenstra over the top in a crowded field. But Feenstra on Tuesday lost narrowly to businessman Zach Lahn.
Feenstra becomes the first statewide Trump endorsee to lose a primary in 2026. (A few also lost in 2022.)
Lahn, who was backed by Turning Point Action and controversial former Rep. Steve King, now faces highly touted Democratic state Auditor Rob Sand in a governor’s race that might be more promising for Democrats than the US Senate race.
Indeed, the two statewide Iowa primaries turned out just like Democrats would have hoped.
Another bit of good news for Democrats in Montana
Democrats’ Senate hopes also got a slight boost in Montana, another state Trump won by double digits in 2024.
That’s because a campaign to elevate little-known Democrat Alani Bankhead worked, with Bankhead winning the party’s nomination.
The hope among some appears to be that Bankhead, who has raised very little money, will either drop out or not run much of a campaign, allowing independent former University of Montana President Seth Bodnar to be the main opposition to Republican former US Attorney Kurt Alme.
(Letting independents lead the opposition is an increasingly popular Democratic strategy in deep-red states. And Bodnar has ties to former Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.)
Bankhead has denied she’ll bow to Bodnar, but her win makes this state more worth watching.
AOC is having a good primary season
Tuesday continued a good primary season for the rising-star Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
The democratic socialist’s endorsed candidate, Adam Hamawy, won New Jersey’s 12th District. Another, Sam Forstag, leads in Montana’s 1st District. And in California’s 22nd District, her endorsee, political science professor Randy Villegas, is currently ahead of an establishment favorite, state Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, to face GOP Rep. David Valadao in a top-targeted race for Democrats.
Previously this year, Ocasio-Cortez-backed candidates have won in New Jersey’s 11th district (Analilia Mejia) and Pennsylvania’s 3rd (Chris Rabb).
Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez declined to back her former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, in the primary to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Chakrabarti missed out on the top two spots needed to advance to November.
An incumbent governor is in danger of losing his party’s nomination
Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s tenure in Trump’s Cabinet didn’t exactly go as planned. And now it looks like the man who was elevated to replace her as South Dakota governor could be struggling to keep his job too.
Gov. Larry Rhoden trailed businessman Toby Doeden, who advanced to a runoff, and was running just ahead of third-place Rep. Dusty Johnson in a crowded primary field late Tuesday night.
But the race likely won’t be over yet. That’s because South Dakota has a rarely invoked runoff law that means the top two face off head-to-head if nobody gets 35% of the vote.
