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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Let’s check in on Trump-endorsed candidates …

Perhaps Trump has been reading the 538 live blogs and didn’t like my comments about him padding his record when it comes to endorsing candidates guaranteed to win (uncontested, incumbents, etc), but the former president took a few gambles in tonight’s races on dark horse candidates. It … did not pay off. Of the 19 races tonight where Trump made an endorsement, 15 are projected to win, three are projected to lose, and one is leading (Celeste Maloy in Utah’s 2nd District, but it’s a close race). However … 12 of those wins were uncontested races, and among the uncontested races, two endorsed candidates were incumbents (including Rep. Lauren Boebert, who was running in a new district but is still a sitting representative).

When Trump actually rolled the dice tonight, like in endorsing Dave Williams in Colorado’s 5th District or Trent Staggs for the GOP Senate race in Utah, he came up short. Overall, 79 percent of Trump’s endorsees are projected to have won their races tonight, but when you consider only the contested races (even including incumbents), Trump is 50-50 on his endorsements, with one race pending. What was I saying about padding the record again?

Kaleigh Rogers, 538


More Jewish precincts supported Latimer

Philip Bump and Lenny Bronner over at The Washington Post dove into precinct results in New York’s 16th District and found something interesting: More heavily Jewish precincts voted pretty strongly for Latimer.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


Celebrate polling wins

We talk a lot about how effective or useful polling is these days, and Americans don't have a tremendous amount of trust in polling. According to a recent Marist poll, 61 percent of Americans said they trust polls "not very much" or "not at all."

So I think it's important to make note of when polls do a good job of depicting where a race stands. And Noble Predictive Insights's latest poll of Utah, which they fielded last week, was pretty spot on. They found Curtis leading the Senate primary field with 48 percent, followed by Staggs (28 percent), Wilson (9 percent) and Walton (6 percent). According to the AP, the current results are: Curtis 52 percent, Staggs 28 percent, Wilson 14 percent and Walton 6 percent, with 67 percent of the expected vote counted. That's pretty good. And in the gubernatorial race, Noble Predictive Insights found Cox ahead, 55 to 42 percent, over Lyman. He currently leads 59 to 41 percent, with 68 percent of the expected vote counted. Not bad for a primary poll!

—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections


Utahns feel OK about their state

Cox may have been booed at the convention, Meredith, but Utah voters seem to feel OK about the state under his leadership. In a HarrisX/Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted earlier this month, when asked whether the U.S. was on the right or wrong track, 77 percent of Utah voters said it was on the wrong track, compared with 14 percent who said it was on the right track. But when asked the same question about their own state, 48 percent said it was on the right track, and 36 percent said it was on the wrong track. That level of satisfaction is pretty rare these days, so despite some recent closer polling, I'm not surprised to see Cox running away with this race.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538


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