South Carolina, Nevada, North Dakota primaries and Ohio special election 2024: Nancy Mace, Sam Brown win
Democrats nearly won a safely Republican congressional seat.
June 11 was another packed primary day, as voters in South Carolina, Maine, North Dakota and Nevada weighed in on who will make the ballot this fall. We had our eyes on a slew of Republican primaries on Tuesday, including several competitive contests for U.S. House seats, as well as contests to pick Nevada's GOP Senate nominee and effectively pick the next governor of North Dakota.
In South Carolina, Rep. Nancy Mace's Trumpian pivot didn't cost her, as she handily fended off an establishment-aligned primary challenger. Fellow incumbent Rep. William Timmons, who was looking vulnerable after an infidelity scandal, also came out ahead in a closer race against his right-wing challenger. In North Dakota's At-Large Congressional District, Julie Fedorchak became the first non-incumbent woman this cycle to win a GOP primary for a safely red seat. In Nevada, Republican voters chose Sam Brown as their candidate to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen this fall.
Finally, a special election is set to give House Republicans one more seat of breathing room, as voters in Ohio's 6th District filled the seat vacated by Rep. Bill Johnson's departure in January — though not without some unexpected suspense.
As usual, 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.
Latest headlines:
Nevada matters, but maybe not in the House
National Republicans are extremely cool on Nevada's three competitive House races this cycle, and I expect that won’t change after tonight's results in the GOP primaries. To the extent there was hopefulness around any of the candidates, it was Marty O'Donnell in the 3rd District and Flemming Larsen in the 1st District, who are both wealthy and have the capacity to self-fund campaigns. But neither man looks like they're going win at this point, leaving the GOP with a retread candidate in the 1st District and an untested conservative commentator in the 3rd District.
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
Nevada's state legislature has more women than any other state
Fun fact: Nevada's state legislature is 60 percent women, making it the state with the greatest share of female representation at that level in the country. (Next is Arizona, with 51 percent.) Nevada's congressional delegation is also majority women. Both of their senators are women, and two of their four representatives are women. All are Democrats. As Nathaniel just mentioned, Rosen, one of the female senators in Nevada, will face Brown in November, in what is expected to be a close race.
—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor
First vote drop shows Johnson with an early lead in Nevada's 3rd
As we wrote earlier, Nevada's 3rd congressional district is likely to be one of the most competitive races in the state this fall, with 7 candidates vying to take on Democratic Rep. Susie Lee in this competitive district in the suburbs south of Las Vegas. With 79 percent of the expected vote reported, Johnson, a think-tank founder and policy analyst, has an early lead with 31 percent of the vote so far, according to the AP. Second is Schwartz, with 24 percent of the vote. Schwartz has been running in, and losing, Republican primaries in Nevada since 2012 — most recently a 2022 bid for lieutenant governor. Brian Nadell, who is on our list of anti-abortion candidates, is way behind, with 1 percent of the vote.
—Monica Potts, 538
Brown wins in Nevada
And the AP has projected the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Nevada for Brown. He'll take on Rosen in the fall in what will be one of the most competitive Senate races of 2024. In fact, considering the weakness of some of the other candidates Republicans will probably nominate for Senate, I'd consider Nevada to be the party's best pick-up opportunity outside the Big Three red states (West Virginia, Montana and Ohio).
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
GOP Rep. William Timmons tries to overcome scandal in South Carolina's 4th District
In the solidly red 4th District around Greenville, third-term Rep. William Timmons is another Republican incumbent dealing with a high-profile primary challenger. Though Timmons is a reliable conservative, state Rep. Adam Morgan could successfully run even further to Timmons's right, seeing as he chairs the state House's Freedom Caucus — modeled after the congressional caucus, whose membership encouraged Morgan's bid and whose campaign arm has endorsed him. Moreover, Timmons still seems to be plagued by a scandal that jeopardized his reelection bid two years ago: In 2022, amid allegations that Timmons was unfaithful to his wife, he only won renomination with 53 percent against weak primary opposition.
One sign that Timmons is feeling the heat is that he's done something unusual in a GOP primary: He's attacked his opponent for being too extreme on abortion rights, running an ad criticizing Morgan for voting "to jail rape and incest victims" who sought abortions — a vote Morgan has defended as "an attempt to close a loophole." Timmons's maneuver could be an attempt to draw Democratic and independent votes in South Carolina's open primary system, even though the incumbent supports a 15-week federal abortion ban.
Timmons still has some notable advantages working for him. He's outraised Morgan $1.9 million to $578,000, helped out by a $900,000 loan to his campaign (Morgan has self-funded nearly half his campaign, too). Outside groups, mainly the pro-cryptocurrency Defend American Jobs super PAC, have spent $1.9 million to boost Timmons, compared with just $327,000 in outside spending supporting Morgan. And here, too, Trump has endorsed the incumbent, which Timmons and his allies have played up in campaign ads. Still, Morgan has emphasized his Republican bona fides, pitching himself as a Christian and "conservative fighter" in his ads.
—Geoffrey Skelley, 538