On May 21, voters in Georgia, Idaho, Oregon, Kentucky and California held key elections for Congress and nationally watched local races. Two key figures from one of Trump’s legal cases, Fani Willis and Scott McAfee, easily won their races, while conservatives won a Georgia Supreme Court election fought largely over abortion. In the House, progressives lost two key races in Oregon, while California voters picked a successor to Kevin McCarthy.
As usual, 538 reporters and contributors broke down the election results as they came in with live updates, analysis and commentary. Read our full live blog below.
To our conversation on issue-related polling vs. vibes, I read that post today too, Nathaniel, but I think there's still something interesting in the polling around what voters say they're focused on. I've been tracking this throughout the primaries, and I think it can help hone in on how voters in different states are thinking about the issues that impact their communities. For example, we learned that Maryland voters are more focused on crime than voters in other states. Georgia Democrats are particularly worried about healthcare. Illinoisans are focused on crime and taxes.
These kinds of insights perhaps don't tell us who voters are going to choose at the ballot box, but they do tell us something about how voters are thinking about politics. And while a lot of voting choices may be just vibes, which vibes voters care about are probably connected to the issues they see as important in their local communities.
Mere minutes after polls closed in Oregon's 6th District, ABC News reports that Erickson is projected to win the GOP primary. With about 37 percent of the expected vote counted, Erickson leads the field with 75 percent. The businessman only spent $43,000 on his primary bid but easily secured a rematch against Salinas, who is favored to win a second term in this relatively new district.
Polls are now closed across Oregon and Idaho (plus California)
The night's only halfway over! And for anyone who took my advice to watch today's Pacers-Celtics game, overtime wrapped up just in time for our last polls to close.
As of 11 p.m. Eastern, polls are now closed in the Idaho panhandle and nearly all of Oregon, plus the California 20th District special runoff election to fill Kevin McCarthy's vacant House seat.
A close race for the Democratic nomination in Oregon’s 5th District
Right on cue, Jacob: Oregon’s most competitive House race this fall will likely be in the 5th District, where Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer is defending a seat that Biden would’ve carried by 9 percentage points. That potential prize has precipitated a highly competitive Democratic primary between state Rep. Janelle Bynum and attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner. Bynum has led the way in fundraising, bringing in $1.1 million to McLeod-Skinner’s $726,000. But McLeod-Skinner may be better known, having defeated incumbent Rep. Kurt Schrader in the 2022 Democratic primary before losing to Chavez-DeRemer by 2 points in the general election later that year.
Candidates running in the Democratic primary for Oregon's 5th Congressional District, attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner (left) and Oregon state Rep. Janelle Bynum.
McLeod-Skinner has countered by running ads highlighting Bynum’s 2019 vote to oppose expanding the statute of limitations for rape survivors to file civil suits in sexual assault cases. Bynum defended the vote at the time, saying “it’s not popular to protect the accused, but it is our job.” Additionally, an outside group called Health Equity Now has spent about $350,000 on ads promoting McLeod-Skinner as a progressive. However, the group appears to have Republican ties, so it may be a case of GOP meddling to boost a potentially weaker general election candidate. Regardless, the race certainly looks close: The only polling that we’ve seen of the primary this year is a late April survey by Brilliant Corners Research & Strategies on behalf of Bynum’s campaign that found her a hair ahead of McLeod-Skinner, 37 percent to 34 percent.
