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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Moore leading in West Virginia's 2nd

As I wrote earlier, West Virginia voters have a slew of anti-abortion candidates to choose from. Justice represents the first winner on that list. Miller and Evans in the 1st District are both on our list, and several candidates in the 2nd District also qualify as anti-abortion candidates by our definition.

With the first batch of about 12 percent of the votes in, incumbent Miller is comfortably leading her challenger, Evans, in West Virginia's 1st congressional district. The current leader in the 2nd District is Moore, with 48 percent of the vote share (27 points ahead of his closest rival) and 21 percent of the expected vote reporting. Three candidates for West Virginia governor are also anti-abortion, including the current leader, Morrisey.

—Monica Potts, 538


West Virginia polls seem to have been ... mostly ... on target

So far, it looks like the polls in West Virginia's GOP Senate and gubernatorial primaries did a pretty solid job, even with the four-way pileup for governor.

However, there is one race looks to be a bit of a polling miss in the state: the GOP primary for attorney general. So far, with about 20 percent of the expected vote reporting, state Auditor John McCuskey leads state Senator Mike Stuart by 22 points, a far cry from the 1-point race we saw in recent preelection polling from Research America/WV Metro News. McCuskey significantly outspent Stuart throughout the race, and it looks like that investment might be paying off.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538


Blankenship bears a striking resemblance to another oddball figure in politics

Every time I see a picture of him, I have to remind myself he's not Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy. They have an uncanny resemblance.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538


Justice projected to win GOP West Virginia Senate primary

ABC News reports Jim Justice is projected to win the West Virginia Republican Senate primary. In a deep-red state, he is also overwhelmingly likely to defeat his Democratic opponent. That race is yet to be projected.

—G. Elliott Morris, 538


Something to listen to while you wait!

It's going to be a minute before we start to get primary results this evening, so allow me to make a humble suggestion in the meantime: Listen to the 538 Politics podcast!

Yesterday I sat down with my colleagues Nathaniel and Geoffrey and friend of the pod Leah Askarinam to talk about the recent The New York Times/Siena College swing-state polls and preview tonight's races. In case you missed it, the polling was pretty bad for President Joe Biden. He trailed former President Donald Trump in every battleground state except Wisconsin and lagged by 12 percentage points in Nevada.

But there are some caveats in understanding what those polls mean at this point in the cycle. Most importantly, it's less that Trump has picked up ground than that Biden has lost it, and a big question over the next five and a half months will be whether Biden can gain that support back. There's a lot more to say, but I'll let you listen to find out!

As far as tonight's races go, we mainly focused on the important Democratic Senate primary in Maryland, where things are looking truly competitive. We also hit on a couple of House primaries that feature people who were in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — one Capitol police officer and one Trump supporter. Check it out!

—Galen Druke, 538