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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Maryland race has its GOP Senate nominee, but Democratic race is close

ABC News reports that former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is projected to win the Maryland Republican Senate primary. He leads Ficker 68 percent to 24 percent with 28 percent of the expected vote reporting. The popular former governor can now look ahead to a difficult campaign to win in his blue state, but one that has put the race on the map.

And with 25 percent of the expected vote reporting in the Democratic primary, Alsobrooks holds a slim lead over Trone, 49 percent to 48 percent. It's early to make much of the county-level patterns here, but it may be a good sign for Alsobrooks that she's down only 53 percent to 43 percent in Montgomery County, which is Trone's home county and where part of his congressional district sits. Meanwhile, she's taking care of business at home, as Alsobrooks leads 69 percent to 29 percent in Prince George's County.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538


'Johnny O' gets a projected W in Maryland's 2nd District's Democratic primary

ABC News reports John Olszewski, Jr., the county executive for Baltimore County, also known as "Johnny O," is projected to win the Democratic primary for Maryland's 2nd Congressional District. He will face Republican nominee Kimberly Klacik, a commentator and former nominee for Maryland's 7th Congressional District, in November.

—G. Elliott Morris, 538


Get ready for Senator Babydog

With Justice very likely to get elected to the Senate in the fall, the nation is about to meet Babydog, his bulldog who has become a folk icon in West Virginia during his governorship.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


Initial results in Maryland's 3rd District

With 27 percent of the expected vote reporting in the Democratic primary for Maryland's 3rd District, Elfreth leads Dunn 37 percent to 28 percent. Meanwhile, Lam has 10 percent. Morse, the Sanders-endorsed candidate I just mentioned, is much further back with just 1 percent.

—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor


Republican women's groups are endorsing in fewer races this cycle

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.