New York, Colorado and Utah primaries 2024: Bowman loses, Boebert wins

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.


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Final thought: A good night for House Republicans

On the whole, House Republicans got good news tonight, especially in Colorado. Having Evans, Crank and Hurd as their nominees doesn’t guarantee they’ll win (maybe just the 5th District), but it substantially raises the party's chances of winning each of those seats compared to what any of their unsuccessful primary opponents' odds would have looked like. Elsewhere, GOP leadership avoided a firebrand winning a safe seat in South Carolina and can enjoy a little schadenfreude as Bowman loses in New York’s 16th District, while Mondaire Jones gets an additional headache in the highly competitive 17th District by losing the Working Families Party primary.

—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections


Final thought: Abortion may not be as big an issue in blue states this year

As Mary wrote earlier, only 3 percent of New Yorkers said that abortion was a key issue in advance of these primaries, down from 11 percent last year. Abortion access is protected in the state, but Democrats were hoping to nationalize it as an issue to win key races this fall. A vote for a Republican in the House or Senate, the thinking goes, is one step closer to a national abortion ban.

However, that strategy didn’t work for Klee Hood, who made access to abortion a centerpiece of her campaign. She lost to Mannion, who also supports abortion rights but also supports some restrictions after 24 weeks. If that issue isn’t as top of mind for New York voters, or other blue state voters, by the time November comes, that could make it harder for Democrats to gain an advantage in tighter general election races in close districts. That’s especially because voters do still care a lot about economic issues and rate Biden’s handling of the economy poorly. Whether abortion will be as much of a deciding factor this year as it was in the midterms, which proved to be good for Democrats, remains one of the biggest questions of this election cycle.

—Monica Potts, 538


Final thought: Outside groups can help sway a primary, but the ground needs to be fertile

We've talked a lot about the many millions AIPAC spent to take down Bowman in New York's 16th District and about losing GOP candidates who faced sizable outside opposition from groups that opposed more anti-establishment Republicans in primaries. In many of these cases, these outside groups came in and spent a lot of money to oppose or support a candidate, and, unsurprisingly, that influenced the outcome!

But the candidates also mattered a great deal in making outside groups' lines of attack and support count in these primaries. Bowman wasn't that strong to begin with, for instance, and he'd made headlines for many wrong reasons in recent months. Someone like Williams in Colorado had angered a lot of people in his party, making it easier for the sizable outside investment against him to work. In South Carolina, Burns had Trump's endorsement, but he also had a very controversial background that may have encouraged outside groups to invest in Biggs to beat him.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538


Final thought: Trump should stick to padding his endorsements

Trump's out-of-pocket endorsements of non-incumbent, contested candidates who really didn’t seem favored to win were a gamble that didn’t pay off. What it did demonstrate is that a Trump endorsement, though it does carry weight in a Republican primary, is not the Midas touch he likes to pretend it is.

—Kaleigh Rogers, 538


Democratic divisions on full view in New York's 16th District

In Tuesday's marquee race, Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman could lose renomination against Westchester County Executive George Latimer in New York's dark blue 16th District. This race is defined by internal Democratic divisions over the Israel-Gaza conflict, the influence of pro-Israel groups and controversies about Bowman's past behavior. Bowman has joined with fellow members of the progressive "Squad" and some other Democrats to criticize and oppose U.S. support for Israel, a position that made him a major target for pro-Israel groups.

Bowman lacks a strong electoral record, having won only 54 percent of the primary vote in his first reelection campaign in 2022. He also attracted scrutiny last September when he pulled a fire alarm in a Capitol Hill office building just before a high-profile vote to avoid a government shutdown, for which he was censured by the House and had to pay a fine. On top of this, old blog posts by Bowman came to light in January that included conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. All of this has helped boost the primary challenge from Latimer, who's also built up a strong local political reputation in Westchester County — where 9 in 10 of the district's voters live, according to Daily Kos Elections.

Still, the big story is Latimer's support from pro-Israel donors and organizations. Latimer has raised $5.8 million, $2.4 million of which came via individual donors who used the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as a conduit to contribute to his campaign. This has helped give him a financial leg up on Bowman, who has raised $4.3 million. And the monetary disparity grows far starker when we look at outside spending. Groups have spent a whopping $17.7 million either opposing Bowman or supporting Latimer, according to OpenSecrets, while they've spent only $3.0 million attacking Latimer or boosting Bowman. As a result, this has turned into the most expensive House primary on record, according to AdImpact.

The principal group behind the massive spending is United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with AIPAC, which has forked out $14.6 million on the race to take down Bowman. Despite the pro-Israel connection, the group's ads rarely mention the ongoing conflict, instead criticizing Bowman on issues such as not supporting President Joe Biden's position on a major infrastructure package in 2021 and a debt ceiling deal in 2023. Bowman and his allies haven't taken this lying down. In the last primary debate, Bowman attacked the "racist MAGA Republicans" — a reference to AIPAC's bipartisan sources of financial backing — supporting Latimer, a criticism leveled in ads put out by Bowman and outside groups backing him.

The most recent survey of the race — an Emerson College/The Hill/WPIX poll from early June — found Latimer ahead of Bowman 48 percent to 31 percent, which signals just how in danger Bowman is of becoming the first Democratic incumbent to lose renomination in 2024.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538