With Boebert out of the picture on the Western Slope, the GOP primary for Colorado's 3rd District has been heating up. A whopping 11 candidates originally filed to run for the GOP nomination in this district, but only five serious contenders are on the primary ballot: attorney Jeff Hurd, former state Rep. Ron Hanks, retired businessman Lew Webb, Colorado Board of Education member Stephen Varela and businessman Russ Andrews.

Hurd has a clear fundraising advantage here, with over $1 million in his war chest, compared to the next-highest fundraiser on the ballot, Andrews, who brought in $423,000. Hurd's haul includes cash infusions from the Koch brothers and other conservative PACs like the Mainstreet Partnership, and the national cattlemen's and automobile dealer's associations. But Hanks, a more MAGA-aligned candidate who ran for Senate in 2022, is getting some outside support as well … from Democrats. As they did in 2022, Democratic groups have been airing pro-Hanks ads, presumably betting that a candidate like Hanks — an election denier who once dubbed himself a "pro-Trump warrior" — would be a weaker general election candidate. Still, it seems like Hurd has the edge: A June poll showed him with an 18-point lead. Whoever wins will most likely face off this fall against presumed Democratic nominee Adam Frisch, the business owner who nearly unseated Boebert in 2022.

—Kaleigh Rogers, 538

Today's primaries are just the opening salvo in what is slated to be a very busy week in politics. The first presidential debate of 2024 is this Thursday, and we're also waiting on a number of high-profile rulings from the Supreme Court, which are expected to come down during the latter half of the week.

On Monday's installment of the 538 Politics podcast, we trained our gaze on the debate. It's the earliest presidential debate in history, will exclude the Commission on Presidential Debates for the first time since the '80s and features the first contest between a president and former president in over a century. Given all that is unique about Thursday's debate, we asked whether historical lessons from past presidential debates apply and how much we might expect the debate to shift voters' views.

We also dissected some questionable uses of polling and previewed a couple of the high-profile primary races in New York and Colorado tonight. If you're looking for something to do while you wait for results to come in this evening, give it a listen!

—Galen Druke, 538

Palmetto State primary voters went to the polls on June 11, but one notable race went to a runoff: the GOP nomination contest in the open and solidly red 3rd District. In the first round of voting, pastor Mark Burns ran slightly ahead of Air National Guard Lt. Col. Sheri Biggs, 33 percent to 29 percent. And Burns is probably favored on Tuesday thanks to his endorsement from former President Donald Trump, which Burns has highlighted in ads ahead of the runoff. He also received an endorsement from state Rep. Stewart Jones, who finished third in the primary with 19 percent. Moreover, Burns had $111,000 in the bank versus Biggs's $43,000 as of June 5, and Burns further improved his financial standing with a $250,000 loan on June 7. That brought his total campaign loans this cycle to $750,000, for which The Post and Courier found Burns had received extremely favorable terms that could run counter to campaign finance laws.

Still, Biggs can't be counted out due to outside spending. Conservatives for American Excellence and America Leads Actions, two super PACs that have opposed more anti-establishment candidates this cycle, have spent $510,000 to oppose Burns or boost Biggs during the runoff campaign, while Burns has received just $59,000 in outside support. This opposition to Burns may connect to his controversial past: A high-profile Trump surrogate in 2016, he retweeted a fake photo of Hillary Clinton in blackface, and in 2022 he called for the execution and arrest of those who support transgender and other LGBTQ children. In a June 18 debate, Burns also faced questions about 2016-era revelations that his church website biography falsely claimed that he'd obtained a bachelor's degree and had served in the Army Reserve.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538

Good evening, and welcome to another election night with 538! Today, voters cast their ballots in downballot primaries in Colorado, New York, South Carolina and Utah. And with so many of those states and districts being uncompetitive in November, that means today's results will decide the next members of Congress from many of those places. In fact, as my colleagues will tell you shortly, we're expecting at least one sitting member of Congress to lose reelection tonight.

We should start seeing results shortly: Polls just closed (at 7 p.m. Eastern) in South Carolina, while it will be pencils down in Colorado and New York at 9 p.m. Eastern. Finally, we will start getting results in Utah shortly after 10 p.m. Eastern. We hope you'll stick with us throughout the evening; this is the last regularly scheduled primary until late July, so enjoy the election-night rush while you can!

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

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