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:
We're waiting, Nevada …
It's been almost an hour since polls closed in Nevada, and still no results have been released. Maybe they got stuck in line at the Sphere?
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
What secrets may Eastern Colorado hold?
I for one am now very curious how the special election in Colorado’s 4th District plays out in two weeks. We’ve been treating it like a solid Republican seat. After all, Trump won it by 19 points in 2020. But in tonight’s Ohio 6 special, the Democrat outperformed Trump’s margin by — wait for it — 19 points. At least very superficially, that’s a reminder that special elections can produce quirky outcomes. In fairness, Colorado’s concurrent regular primary should help boost turnout in the Centennial State, especially with the crowded and high-profile GOP primary in the 4th District that features Rep. Lauren Boebert. But I’m still interested in how Republican Greg Lopez does in the special election and whether Democrats can keep up the strong over-performances they’ve notched so far this cycle.
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
North Dakota’s Measure 1 seems doomed in court
Mary, you mentioned potential legal challenges for North Dakota’s ballot measure setting congressional age limits. It's pretty clearly unconstitutional under current Supreme Court precedent; the court found in 1995's U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton that states can't impose qualifications to run for office beyond those set forth in the Constitution. (And while the Constitution sets a minimum age to be elected to Congress, it's silent about a maximum.) However, congressional expert Matt Glassman writes on X that this ballot measure could be a way to get the Supreme Court to reconsider that precedent — which could open the door to congressional term limits as well.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Fedorchak's projected win is a milestone for GOP women this cycle
With Fedorchak's projected win in North Dakota’s at-large district, she becomes the first non-incumbent Republican woman to win an open primary in a safe red district this cycle. Why have Republican women had such a slow start in primaries this year? We wrote about some possible explanations last week.
—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor
The winner of Maine's 2nd District GOP primary will face an endangered Democratic incumbent in fall
Maine's 2nd District is host to a GOP primary in which two first-term state representatives, Austin Theriault and Mike Soboleski, are contending for the right to take on three-term Democratic Rep. Jared Golden. The incumbent has managed to hold onto this seat, which takes in most of Maine north of its southern coastal area, despite its slight Republican lean: Trump would have carried it 51 percent to 45 percent in 2020, according to Daily Kos Elections, making it the second-most Republican-leaning seat (by presidential vote) that a Democratic incumbent is defending in 2024, trailing only Rep. Mary Peltola's at-large seat in Alaska.
Theriault, a former NASCAR driver, looks to be favored. He has Trump's endorsement, which he's naturally emphasized in his ads, and he's congressional Republicans' top choice, having earned the backing of Speaker Mike Johnson and the Congressional Leadership Fund. Moreover, Theriault has raised $1.2 million to Soboleski's $117,000. The only somewhat recent poll was an early April survey from Public Opinion Strategies on behalf of Theriault's campaign that found him leading Soboleski 30 percent to 7 percent. But while Theriault has Trump's backing, Soboleski aligns with the former president — and around two-thirds of Republicans nationally — on the question of the 2020 election's legitimacy. Unlike Theriault, Soboleski has echoed Trump's unsupported claim that Biden didn't legitimately win.
—Geoffrey Skelley, 538