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

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

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.


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Projected winners in Maryland's 6th District

ABC News reports that April McClain Delaney is projected to win the Democratic primary in Maryland's 6th District, and that Neil Parrott is projected to win the Republican primary there. Both currently hold double-digit victories over their closest opponents, with over 55 percent of the expected vote reporting in each race. Delaney will start out as the favorite in the general election, but this is a district that could conceivably become competitive in a bad year for Democrats.

—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections


Morrisey projected to win in West Virginia

ABC News reports that Morrisey is projected to win the Republican primary for governor of West Virginia — thus making him the heavy favorite to succeed Justice in Charleston next year. With 91 percent of the expected vote reporting, Morrisey is leading Capito 34 percent to 28 percent.

As you can see in the map below, Morrisey's win was built on his strength in West Virginia's border counties, which perhaps makes sense for a candidate not originally from the state. Capito, meanwhile, is winning a few central counties like Charleston's Kanawha County, and Miller is doing well in southwestern West Virginia — the heart of coal country.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


Another EMILY's List endorsee wins

With Alsobrooks as the projected Democratic winner in the Maryland Senate race according to reporting by ABC News, EMILY's List can chalk up another win. We've been tracking EMILY's List endorsees in primaries and how they're faring. So far, they've endorsed 12 non-incumbent women (including Alsobrooks). Of these, just three have lost their primaries (who all happen to be in California).

If Alsobrooks wins in November, she will be just the third Black woman ever elected to the Senate.

—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor


Trone had a ceiling

Yeah, Geoffrey, and it was a pretty convincing win for Alsobrooks at that. Pretty impressive after she trailed in polls for almost the entire primary — only the last two polls showed her ahead, and in our final average, Trone was still leading by 2 points. But Trone seemed to have a ceiling, as he just did not gain much support no matter how much more money he spent.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


Final thought: TV advertising and diminishing marginal returns

Money can buy you a lot of things, but it's not all-powerful. Trone found that out the hard way tonight when he hit a ceiling of about 42 percent of the vote (with 61 percent of the expected vote reporting), despite spending untold millions. If Trone had spent $30 million less, I'm not sure he would have done all that much worse. If he had spent $60 million less, he probably wouldn't have registered at all.

It was obvious that money was a big part of victories elsewhere in the state and country. In Maryland's 3rd District, Elfreth was able to ride a wave of outside support to a comfortable but tough projected win over Dunn — without that money, I'm not sure she would have succeeded. And the third-place finisher, Lam, was not coincidentally the only other candidate to go on TV. In Maryland's 6th District, the only two Democrats with money to go on TV were also the ones to place in double digits, Delaney and Vogel, and the bigger spender won more votes. And in West Virginia's 2nd District and Nebraska's 2nd District, big spending by incumbent GOP representatives and their outside allies ultimately staved off underfunded challenges from right-wing opponents.

Anyway, my biggest takeaway is that Maryland has something to offer for everyone! And our flag is the best in the nation. With that: Good night.

—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections