South Carolina, Nevada primaries and Ohio special election: Nancy Mace, Sam Brown win

As Kyle Kondik of Sabato’s Crystal Ball points out on X, "No district in the entire country moved further toward the Rs at the presidential level from 2008 to 2020 than OH-6." That could explain why Democrats overperformed by so much here — the district has some muscle memory of voting for Democrats. I'm reminded of the Pennsylvania 18th special election in 2018, which was shockingly won by Democrat Conor Lamb. That was a Trump+20 seat, but it was an ancestrally Democratic district — in fact, there were still more registered Democrats than registered Republicans in the district at the time.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

Monica mentioned earlier that Mace's position on abortion may stand out among GOP candidates, but it actually puts her in line with much of her state's electorate. According to the May Winthrop University poll I mentioned earlier, 81 percent of South Carolinians support legal abortion if a pregnancy is a result of rape, while just 9 percent oppose it. Voters also supported legal abortion in the case that a "pregnancy threatens the woman's life or health" by a margin of 84 to 5. The pollsters didn't ask about incest, but I suspect the numbers would be similar.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538

With 65 percent of the expected vote counted in Ohio’s 6th, per the AP, Rulli has now taken the lead, 52 percent to 48 percent. And somewhat surprisingly, the AP has also projected the race for Rulli, no doubt because they expect the remaining votes — which were mostly cast on election day — to favor him.

However, the county-level results here are very unusual, with some of them exhibiting the kind of Democratic overperformance that, if replicated districtwide, would have led to a Kripchak win. For example, the AP estimates that virtually all the votes are counted in Washington County, and Rulli leads there by just 6 points. In 2020, Trump won Washington County by 41 points! And Kripchak actually won the 6th District portion of Tuscarawas County, which Trump carried by 33 points, by 12 points!

It's always possible that these county-level swings won't replicate districtwide — indeed, that's what the AP is predicting based on their projection. But regardless of the final outcome, it's clear that Kripchak did shockingly well for a Democrat in Ohio’s 6th.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

After tonight, we'll have seen downballot primaries in 26 states, and so far the only incumbent that has lost renomination is Jerry Carl, who due to redistricting had to run in an incumbent-on-incumbent battle against Barry Moore in Alabama's 1st district. With Mace's race now called in her favor and Timmons ahead by around 10 percentage points, it looks like tonight might continue the streak.

However, that's not too unusual. Based on my quick calculations, on average over the last 7 election cycles, just 8 incumbents who faced a primary challenger lost renomination, and in 4 of those 7 cycles, there were 5 or fewer incumbents that failed to secure their party's nomination.

But we may be on track to break the incumbent winning streak as early as next week, when Virginia representative Bob Good faces state senator John McGuire, a Trump endorsed challenger. Polls show that race up in the air, with two polls conducted since Trump's endorsement showing nearly opposite results. And the following week, Democrat Jamaal Bowman of New York's 16th faces a very tough challenge from Westchester County Executive George Latimer. So don't expect Jerry Carl to be the lone incumbent loser when all is said and done.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538