Maryland, West Virginia and Nebraska primaries 2024: Alsobrooks beats Trone

Nebraska has a busy electoral slate today, but only one primary looks potentially intriguing: the GOP contest in the Omaha-based 2nd District. Republican Rep. Don Bacon is seeking reelection, but Biden would have carried the seat by 6 points in 2020 and Bacon only won reelection by about 3 points in 2022 against Democratic state Sen. Tony Vargas. Bacon's reputation as a relative moderate has helped him hold onto this purple seat, but it's also made him potentially vulnerable to a more conservative primary challenger.

That has made the campaign of Dan Frei, an Omaha businessman running to Bacon's right, one to monitor tonight. Though it's unlikely given the incumbent's fundraising advantage and outside spending support, were Frei to upset Bacon, that would likely make the 2nd District more winnable in November for Vargas, who has raised $2.4 million for an anticipated rematch against Bacon. But Frei has come close to pulling off a primary upset here before: In 2014, his insurgent campaign only lost 53 percent to 47 percent against then-Rep. Lee Terry despite being outspent about 20-to-one.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538

If you've followed our live blogs for previous elections, you're probably familiar with the issues that have generally been motivating voters across the country: for Republican primary voters, economic issues and immigration; for Democratic primary voters, abortion access and threats to democracy.

Well, Maryland is here to upset the trend! In a May poll from Emerson College/The Hill/WDVM-TV, registered Republicans were still most likely to select the "economy (jobs, inflation, taxes)" as the most important issue facing the state, with 38 percent choosing that issue. But the second-most chosen issue among Republicans was crime, at 18 percent, followed by immigration at 11 percent; no other issue was chosen by more than 10 percent of registered Republicans.

Among registered Democrats, we also see some differences from other states. They were most likely to select the economy, at 24 percent, then crime, at 17 percent. These were followed by "threats to democracy" at 16 percent, "housing affordability" at 15 percent and health care at 11 percent. Perhaps surprisingly, abortion access was selected by only 5 percent of registered Democrats in Maryland.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538

It's 7:30 p.m. Eastern, which means our first polls of the night — in West Virginia — are now closed. Expect results shortly!

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

Since about the mid-1990s, Democrats have been electing more women to Congress than Republicans, and the gap gets bigger each cycle. A number of factors explain this disparity between the parties, but one is that the GOP continues to invest less in recruiting and financially supporting its female primary candidates.

There was some speculation that this might be changing. After the 2018 midterm elections, a handful of GOP groups aiming to elect more women cropped up after just four of the 42 new women who joined Congress were Republicans. That imbalance was a wake-up call for New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, who had reportedly recruited more than 100 women to run for Congress that year, but just one of them prevailed in November; most failed to emerge from their primaries. After the 2018 cycle, Stefanik started Elevate PAC as the Republican counterpart to EMILY's List. Stefanik announced she wanted to "play big in primaries," even though Republican leadership said it was "a mistake." Perhaps as a result, in the 2020 cycle, more Republican women ran in and won primaries than ever before.

But this cycle, Elevate PAC hasn't posted any endorsements to its website; Open Secrets shows that it has made contributions to primary candidates — but that list includes men, too, evidence that Stefanik may have other priorities this time around.

But Elevate PAC isn't the only GOP women's group that seems to be pulling back. We've also been tracking endorsements from Winning for Women, Maggie's List and VIEW PAC. Through today's primaries, Winning for Women and Maggie's List have endorsed just two non-incumbents (Wendy Davis, who lost her primary last week in Indiana, and Laurie Buckhout, who won her March primary in North Carolina). VIEW PAC is outpacing these other groups in endorsements, but it has still endorsed only five non-incumbents (two of whom have won their primaries thus far).

Today, there is one Republican woman running in an incumbent-less primary with support from VIEW PAC: Mariela Roca, an Air Force veteran, is running in Maryland's 6th District. However, she faces an uphill battle against two former state delegates, Dan Cox and Neil Parrott.

The primaries aren't over, so we don't yet know if the GOP is slipping when it comes to nominating women. But preliminary evidence from the Center for American Women in Politics suggests a decline. The number of female Republican House candidates is down by 38 percent from 2022 to 2024 in states where filing deadlines have passed.

—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor

CORRECTION (May 15, 2024, 3:15 p.m.): A previous version of this post stated that Winning for Women and Maggie's List have only endorsed one non-incumbent through today's primaries. The post has been updated to include Laurie Buckhout of North Carolina's 1st Congressional District, whom both organizations have also endorsed.