538 tracked key House and Senate races, including a California special election.
November’s presidential matchup may be set, but Democrats and Republicans still need to decide who will run in hundreds of downballot races (e.g., for Senate and House) this fall. A batch of these contests were decided on Tuesday, March 19.
Tuesday was primary day in Ohio and Illinois, and in the biggest contest of the day, Republicans chose former President Donald Trump's endorsee Bernie Moreno as their candidate in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race. It was a good night for other Trump endorsees too, as Derek Merrin prevailed in the GOP primary for Ohio's 9th Congressional District, while incumbent Mike Bost is leading his challenger in Illinois's 12th District, as of early Wednesday morning. Plus, a special election in California could have immediate implications for House Republicans’ razor-thin majority.
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.
With just a shade under 20 percent of the expected vote counted in Ohio's 6th District, state Sen. Michael Rulli leads state Rep. Reggie Stoltzfus by 7 percentage points in the regularly scheduled primary and 6 points in the special election. Rulli's massive lead in his home base, Mahoning County, is giving him the early advantage.
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
In the only contested Ohio Supreme Court primary today, Democratic 8th District Court of Appeals judge Lisa Forbes is up 64 percent to 36 percent over former public defender Terri Jamison with 26 percent of the expected vote in, according to the Associated Press. The winner will face Republican judge Dan Hawkins, who ran unopposed today, in November to fill the now-open seat of Republican Justice Joe Deters.
The current state Supreme Court is made up of three Democrats and four Republicans. Two of those Democratic justices are up for reelection, alongside Deters's seat. Deters is still running in November, but against his colleague, Democratic Justice Melody Stewart, for different seat on the court. If either Forbes or Jamison can flip Deters's old seat and Democrats can hold on to their other two incumbents, they would gain control of the state's highest court. That seems unlikely though, given Ohio's Republican lean and the results of recent Supreme Court elections in the state.
—Cooper Burton, 538
You didn’t think we’d forget, did you, dear reader? In Florida, Illinois and Ohio, ABC News is projecting that Trump and Biden have won their primaries.
—Mary Radcliffe, 538
Pretty much nothing that happens tonight will alter the view that the GOP is unmistakably Trump's party. Even if a Trump endorsee were to lose, the party is clearly behind Trump and most Republican candidates have aligned themselves with him. That's the recipe to generally appeal to GOP voters. It's true that Dolan could conceivably win the Republican Senate primary in Ohio, but if he does, it'll likely be with a small plurality around 40 percent. The majority of the party will be with the Trump-endorsed candidate (Moreno) or the one who has more closely aligned himself with Trump (LaRose) in what looks to have been a failed effort to win the primary.
—Geoffrey Skelley, 538
