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
Republicans will pick their opponent for Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen
We're about 20 minutes out from polls closing in Nevada, so let's take a look at some of the key races happening there tonight.
Nevada will hold a pivotal Senate contest this fall for the seat held by Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen. Retired U.S. Army Capt. Sam Brown is the front-runner in the Republican primary, having established himself by finishing second for the GOP nomination in Nevada's 2022 Senate race. Brown's candidacy is highlighted by his military service record, during which time he suffered third-degree burns from a 2008 roadside bomb explosion in Afghanistan. Brown has proved a prodigious fundraiser, having brought in $7.1 million as of May 22. Former Ambassador to Iceland Jeffrey Ross Gunter, who served under Trump, is Brown's main competition, and he's self-funded $2.7 million of the $3.3 million he's raised.
National Republicans have largely consolidated behind Brown, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Brown and the NRSC have run joint ads focused on immigration and national security, and Rosen's campaign is already running spots against him focused on abortion rights. For his part, Gunter has linked himself to Trump, though Trump made a last-minute endorsement of Brown Sunday night, and has run ads claiming Brown backs the controversial-but-stalled plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Brown expressed support for the plan during his 2022 bid, but has backtracked in the face of criticism this time around.
It's unclear how big a threat Gunter is to Brown, as an early June survey from Noble Predictive Insights found Brown ahead 53 percent to 15 percent. But Gunter released a late May survey by Kaplan Strategies that found him running about even with Brown at around 30 percent. Outside groups have come in big for Brown to the tune of $4.3 million, and Gunter is enough of a danger that the pro-Brown Duty First Nevada super PAC is running ads portraying Gunter as a fake Republican. Still, Gunter's campaign actually canceled some ad buys ahead of the primary — not exactly a signal of confidence.
—Geoffrey Skelley, 538