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:
Timmons has taken the lead in South Carolina's 4th District
With 31 percent of the expected votes counted, incumbent Timmons has now taken the lead in South Carolina's 4th District. He currently has 54 percent of the vote to Morgan's 46 percent. Election day voters tend to be more conservative, but this is a district that is already the most conservative in the state, having gone for Trump 68 percent in 2020, so that’s slightly less of a factor here, and Timmons may have overcome that early surge from Morgan.
—Kaleigh Rogers, 538
Election day votes are coming to Republicans' rescue in Ohio
Counties are beginning to count their election day votes in Ohio’s 6th District special election, and as expected, they’re really good for Rulli. With 29 percent of the expected vote counted according to the AP, Kripchak’s lead is down to 54 percent to 46 percent.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Mace still ahead in South Carolina's 1st
We’re up to about 20 percent of the expected voted counted and Mace is still ahead of Templeton by a healthy margin, 57 percent to 29 percent. She’s well ahead in Berkeley and Dorchester Counties, which were the two localities to vote against her in her relatively close 2022 GOP primary, so that’s a good sign for her. Still early, but the crush of outside money from the Club for Growth backing Mace seems to have accomplished its mission.
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
Checking in on anti-abortion candidates in South Carolina
We're still waiting on results from most states, but I'm tracking early results on anti-abortion candidates in South Carolina. In the 1st Congressional District, Templeton is trailing Mace 29 percent to 57 percent, with 20 percent of the expected vote reporting, according to the AP. In the 3rd District, the AP is reporting that Biggs is now barely trailing in second place with 30 percent of the vote, with her nearest competitor, Burns, at 31 percent, and 45 percent of the expected vote reporting. Morgan is slightly ahead of incumbent Timmons in the 4th District, 52 to 48 percent (with 16 percent of the expected vote reporting), while Buckner is ahead of Scott in the 6th District 56 to 44 percent, with 21 percent of the expected vote reporting. The other two Republican House primaries are uncontested.
—Monica Potts, 538
We’re pretty firmly in runoff territory in South Carolina's 3rd
Upstate, the race to replace retiring Rep. Jeff Duncan has essentially fallen into a close three-person race. With 63 percent of the expected votes counted, Trump-endorsed Burns is at 31 percent, Biggs has 30 percent and Jones has 20 percent. Toss in double-digit support for Kevin Bishop, the recently retired communications director for Sen. Lindsey Graham, and it's enough to split the vote in a way that makes it very hard for any candidate to break the majority threshold. Whoever finishes tonight in the top two slots will very likely face off again in a runoff election in two weeks' time. It's been interesting to see the vote regional breakdown as ballots are counted. Jones is leading in Laurens County with 52 percent of the vote there — no surprise, as this is the part of the district that Jones represents in the state House. Burns is leading in Pickens, Abbeville (trivia: this is the first county in the U.S., alphabetically), and McCormick Counties — the first two are slightly more conservative, and the first is his home county.
—Kaleigh Rogers, 538