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:
Heading for a rematch in Nevada's 1st?
In Nevada's 1st District, 64 percent of the expected vote is counted already, and Robertson leads Larsen 49 percent to 38 percent for the right to take on Titus. As you might recall, Robertson was the GOP's nominee here in 2022 as well.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Finally, votes in Nevada!
We finally have a bunch of votes in Nevada! It was our snarky comments that did it, I'm sure.
According to the AP, 57 percent of the expected vote is already reporting in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. As expected, Brown is crushing Gunter 57 percent to 17 percent.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Which will come first ...
Results from Nevada or the A's actually moving to Vegas?
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
The Republican primary in North Dakota will likely pick the state's next governor
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum's retirement has precipitated an expensive and increasingly ugly Republican primary for governor between Rep. Kelly Armstrong and Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller. Armstrong is more familiar to voters, having served in Congress since 2019, while Burgum tapped Miller as his new lieutenant governor in December 2022. Both candidates have thrown around large sums of their own money: Based on financial reports though May 2 and large donations reported through June 7, about $3.8 million of the $4.2 million Miller has reported raising has come out of her own pocket, while Armstrong has self-funded almost $1.3 million of the $3.4 million he's collected.
Armstrong is the front-runner, having garnered endorsements from Trump and the state GOP. He also held a clear lead in three different surveys conducted in May, all of which showed him receiving close to 60 percent while Miller only attracted around 20 percent. Looking to gain ground, Miller has tried to link herself to Trump and Burgum, who's endorsed her. She's also run negative ads against Armstrong, including one that Rob Port of InForum described as "the most brutal" he'd seen in North Dakota that accuses Armstrong of insider trading and defending a child molester when he was a lawyer. Armstrong's campaign called the insider trading claim a lie, and the victims in the molestation case called for Miller to stop running ads about it. And Armstrong isn't without his own ad controversy, as his campaign ran a spot against Miller that included a citation from an artificial intelligence news website, which prompted Miller to criticize Armstrong for running "fake news" about her record.
—Geoffrey Skelley, 538