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:
Polls are closed in the Ohio special election
It's 7:30 p.m. Eastern, which means polls are now closed in Ohio. There are no primaries in the Buckeye State tonight, but there is a special election in the state's 6th District, which was represented by Republican Rep. Bill Johnson until January, when he resigned to lead Youngstown State University.
According to Daily Kos Elections, Ohio's 6th District voted for Trump 64 percent to 35 percent in 2020, so Republican state Sen. Michael Rulli should easily defeat Democratic Air Force veteran Michael Kripchak there today. However, we'll still be keeping an eye on Rulli's winning margin as an indicator of the national political mood. Special election performance over a partisan baseline has historically been a good predictor of general election outcomes.
That said, individual special elections can be idiosyncratic, so you really need to consider today's result in Ohio's 6th alongside the other special congressional elections we've had this cycle. So far, Democrats have overperformed the weighted partisan leans of the districts in those elections by an average of 4 percentage points. We'll see how much — or whether — Ohio's 6th moves that average.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
One candidate tonight could help fill your dramatic campaign ad fix
I don't know about the cinematography, Monica, but if Halo composer and NV-03 candidate Marty O'Donnell comes out on top in his GOP primary tonight, I hope we'll see some great campaign ad scores from him.
—Tia Yang, 538
Burgum’s ad was notable for another reason …
… It was one of the few times a public figure claiming to be from a "small town" was legitimately from a small town. Burgum’s hometown, Arthur, North Dakota, has a population of 328 at the 2020 census. That’s even smaller than 538's tiny-town contingent: My hometown population is 506, and Monica’s hometown has a population of 2,500.
—Kaleigh Rogers, 538
Will the next North Dakota governor ever make a video like this?
One of the races I'm watching tonight is the Republican primary for North Dakota's governor, and, as Geoffrey noted earlier, that race has been increasingly heated. Of course, the Republican nominee is seeking to replace Burgum, who is retiring after a brief run for the Republican nomination for president, and amid chatter that he could be Trump's vice presidential pick. So I'd just like to take a moment to remember this cinematic video Burgum used to launch his presidential campaign, with a voiceover that praised small-town values over scenic images of hills and livestock. Maybe we can look forward to such a video one day from his successor.
—Monica Potts, 538
Women we're watching tonight: Will Fedorchak be the first non-incumbent woman nominated in a safe red seat?
According to our recent analysis of primaries this cycle through May 21, 41 percent of Democrats' nominees (that is, primary winners) for House, Senate and governor are women, compared to just 16 percent of Republicans'. That's a big difference. To date, no non-incumbent Republican women have won a nomination for a safe Republican seat in November — and there were certainly plenty of opportunities, given a high number of GOP (and overall) retirements this year. In short, Democrats are nominating many more women than Republicans thus far, and doing so in places where their chances are better in November.
Tonight there is at least one Republican woman with a good shot at bucking that trend and effectively claiming a safe red seat in November: North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, who's running for the state's open at-large House seat. In addition to endorsements from several of the women's groups we're tracking (E-PAC, VIEW PAC and Winning for Women), she has Trump's endorsement, too.
Another Republican primary of note features two women, and GOP women's groups, going head-to-head: In South Carolina's 1st District, incumbent Rep. Nancy Mace faces several challengers, but her most notable opponent is former state cabinet official Catherine Templeton. Templeton is endorsed by Winning for Women, while Mace is endorsed by VIEW PAC (and notably, Trump). It's the first race we've seen so far in this season where two of the women's groups we're tracking are actively endorsing against each other.
On the Democratic side, three incumbent Democratic women in Nevada — Sen. Jacky Rosen, Rep. Susie Lee and Rep. Dina Titus — should cruise to victory with no serious competition in their primaries today, but they'll be watching today's GOP primaries to see which Republicans they'll face in November, when their races could be close, as Geoffrey wrote in 538's primary preview.
—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor