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

538 tracked over 10 competitive primaries for Senate, House and governor.

By538 and ABC News via five thirty eight logo
Last Updated: May 14, 2024, 10:06 PM EDT

Tuesday, May 14 was another busy primary day, as voters in three states decided who would be on their general election ballots this fall. In Maryland, Democrats nominated women in two safely Democratic congressional seats, including Angela Alsobrooks, who is poised to become only the third Black woman ever elected to the Senate. In West Virginia and Nebraska, incumbent Republican representatives fended off far-right challengers.

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.

May 14, 2024, 10:06 PM EDT

Question: Is Trone really more electable than Alsobrooks?

The Democratic primary for Maryland Senate has focused heavily on electability, with Trone arguing that Democrats should nominate him because he’ll have an easier time beating Hogan in the fall, whereas nominating Alsobrooks would risk giving Republicans a pickup opportunity. However, I’m skeptical that Hogan really has a shot in a state as blue as Maryland, no matter who Democrats nominate. What do you guys think?

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

May 14, 2024, 10:04 PM EDT

Alsobrooks holds small but meaningful lead over Trone in Maryland

With 41 percent of the expected vote reporting, Alsobrooks now leads Trone 53 percent to 43 percent, and we're starting to see projections for her from some outlets, such as the Associated Press. Probably the biggest sign of Alsobrooks's edge is that she's leading outright in places beyond the majority- or plurality-Black localities of Prince George's County (her home base), Baltimore City and Charles County.

In the last two open-seat Senate races in Maryland in 2006 and 2016, the Democratic primary featured one major Black candidate and one major white contender, and in each race the Black aspirant only carried those three places. But this time around, Alsobrooks is ahead in Baltimore County and running basically even with Trone in his home base of Montgomery County. All of this adds up to a lead that looks likely to hold up at this point.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538

May 14, 2024, 9:48 PM EDT

As Alsobrooks surges, campaign and supporters celebrate early

At Alsobrooks’s HQ, a senior campaign adviser just interrupted appetizers and light dancing to announce that while the race hasn’t been called, they were “outperforming” their expectations for the night.

ABC has not projected Alsobrooks's victory, but is reporting her leading over Trone by 8 points. Connor Lounsbury, the adviser, said that the campaign was seeing particular improvements in Alsobrooks’s performance when comparing her vote-by-mail and and Election Day numbers.

Lounsbury also said that Alsobrooks was outperforming, by their estimations, in Montgomery and Baltimore Counties — pivotal places for the candidate.

—Isabella Murray, ABC News

May 14, 2024, 9:37 PM EDT

Checking in on anti-abortion candidates

Anti-abortion candidates are projected to win their primaries in many races, ABC News is reporting: Harris in Maryland's conservative 1st Congressional District, Ricketts in the Nebraska Senate special election, Flood, Bacon and Smith in all three of Nebraska's House Republican primaries, and Justice, Miller and Moore in West Virginia's Senate and two House primaries.

In fact, their projected wins mean that all of West Virginia's representatives in Washington next year could be anti-abortion candidates, since the Republicans are favored to win the general elections in November. That could matter as the abortion battles raging across the country could move to D.C. if Republicans win big in the fall.

—Monica Potts, 538