Three Trump-endorsed candidates also lost in Republican primaries.
June 25 was one of the most jam-packed primary election days of the year: Democrats and Republicans in Colorado, New York, Utah and parts of South Carolina picked their party's nominees for this fall's elections.
Two incumbent representatives — Jamaal Bowman and Lauren Boebert — who have made enemies inside and outside their own parties faced serious challengers in their primaries, but they met with different fates. Bowman lost to a more moderate Democrat, George Latimer, in what was the most expensive congressional primary in history. However, Boebert easily prevailed in her Republican primary despite running in an entirely new district.
It was also a bad night for former President Donald Trump. Going into these primaries, only one candidate he had endorsed for Senate, House or governor had lost; tonight alone, three did, including his preferred candidate to replace retiring Sen. Mitt Romney in Utah.
In addition, the fields are now set in some key congressional matchups this fall. In Colorado, Republicans avoided nominating far-right candidates who could have put normally safe red districts in play. Meanwhile, Democrats picked their fighters in two competitive New York House districts that could help them reclaim the House 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.
Going into tonight, Trump had only endorsed one candidate for Senate, House or governor who lost. Tonight alone, he endorsed three. Why do you guys think Trump failed so badly tonight? Was it just bad luck, or something real?
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Perhaps Trump has been reading the 538 live blogs and didn’t like my comments about him padding his record when it comes to endorsing candidates guaranteed to win (uncontested, incumbents, etc), but the former president took a few gambles in tonight’s races on dark horse candidates. It … did not pay off. Of the 19 races tonight where Trump made an endorsement, 15 are projected to win, three are projected to lose, and one is leading (Celeste Maloy in Utah’s 2nd District, but it’s a close race). However … 12 of those wins were uncontested races, and among the uncontested races, two endorsed candidates were incumbents (including Rep. Lauren Boebert, who was running in a new district but is still a sitting representative).
When Trump actually rolled the dice tonight, like in endorsing Dave Williams in Colorado’s 5th District or Trent Staggs for the GOP Senate race in Utah, he came up short. Overall, 79 percent of Trump’s endorsees are projected to have won their races tonight, but when you consider only the contested races (even including incumbents), Trump is 50-50 on his endorsements, with one race pending. What was I saying about padding the record again?
—Kaleigh Rogers, 538
Philip Bump and Lenny Bronner over at The Washington Post dove into precinct results in New York’s 16th District and found something interesting: More heavily Jewish precincts voted pretty strongly for Latimer.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
We talk a lot about how effective or useful polling is these days, and Americans don't have a tremendous amount of trust in polling. According to a recent Marist poll, 61 percent of Americans said they trust polls "not very much" or "not at all."
So I think it's important to make note of when polls do a good job of depicting where a race stands. And Noble Predictive Insights's latest poll of Utah, which they fielded last week, was pretty spot on. They found Curtis leading the Senate primary field with 48 percent, followed by Staggs (28 percent), Wilson (9 percent) and Walton (6 percent). According to the AP, the current results are: Curtis 52 percent, Staggs 28 percent, Wilson 14 percent and Walton 6 percent, with 67 percent of the expected vote counted. That's pretty good. And in the gubernatorial race, Noble Predictive Insights found Cox ahead, 55 to 42 percent, over Lyman. He currently leads 59 to 41 percent, with 68 percent of the expected vote counted. Not bad for a primary poll!
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
