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:
Final thought: Incumbents still haven’t lost, but there have been many close calls
My takeaway from tonight is that, once again, we saw some close shaves for incumbent members of Congress. Incumbents may be heartened by the fact that, so far, only one of them has lost renomination this cycle, and that was in an incumbent-versus-incumbent race caused by Alabama redistricting, so one of them had to lose. However, they shouldn't get too comfortable. Many incumbents have won renomination with pretty uninspiring vote shares in the 50s or 60s — Timmons is only the latest example. Therefore, I'm pretty confident it's only a matter of time until one of them loses. (In fact, I recommend tuning into our live blog on June 25 to see if Rep. Jamaal Bowman becomes one of them.)
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
What are your takeaways from tonight?
With only three outstanding House races unprojected in Nevada, we're getting ready to wrap up the old live blog soon. Start thinking those final thoughts, folks, and send 'em here!
—Tia Yang, 538
Timmons pulls out a win in South Carolina
We just got the last tranche of votes from Greenville County in South Carolina's 4th District, and they weren't enough to put Morgan over the top. With virtually all of the vote counted, then, per the AP, it's Timmons 52 percent, Morgan 48 percent, and Timmons has been projected as the winner. In the end, his race was much closer than Mace's, despite her getting all the attention!
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Don't forget about Yucca Mountain, Jacob
Brown could also find himself in hot water this fall because he used to support using Yucca Mountain, a site in Nevada, as a nuclear waste site. That's a no-no in Nevada politics, and Brown has since backtracked on that position, but expect it to come up in Democratic ads a lot.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
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