Voters in five states—Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina and Virginia—go to the polls to select candidates in primaries today. In addition, Arkansas is conducting runoffs in two congressional districts because no candidate got more than 50 percent of the vote in the May 22 primary. (Also, voters in Arizona's 8th Congressional District are choosing a replacement for ex-Rep. Gabby Giffords.) Below is our roundup of key primaries and runoffs in these states.
Interactive map of Arkansas' new congressional districts
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AR-01 (D): The first of two Arkansas runoffs features prosecutor Scott Ellington versus state Rep. Clark Hall. Ellington very nearly avoided a runoff altogether, pulling in 49.5 percent in the first round versus 39 percent for Hall. In third place was Gary Latanich, a local professor, who took 12 percent but refused to endorse either of the top two finishers. In pre-runoff FEC reports, Hall outraised Ellington $43K to $20K, but Hall had a wide fundraising advantage ahead of the primary which didn't translate into a lead on election night. Given how close Ellington came the first time, you've gotta figure he has the edge. The winner will take on GOP freshman Rick Crawford in the fall.
• AR-04 (D): Unlike in the 1st District, here the third-place finisher did decide to endorse: D.C. Morrison, who won 21 percent of the vote, got behind state Sen. Gene Jeffress, who took 43 percent. But attorney Q. Byrum Hurst raised a healthy $77K in the pre-runoff period, while Jeffress pulled in only $9K—and for the third time this campaign, received a letter from the FEC about his failure to actually file a required fundraising report. Given how much of a non-campaign Jeffress has run (check out what is apparently his website), it's remarkable he's come this far, but thanks to his evident name rec, I wouldn't write him off as a possible winner tonight. The nominee, who will attempt to hold this open seat for Democrats, will take on Republican Tom Cotton in November.
Head below the fold to see the rest of our writeups.
• ME-Sen (D & R): After the biggest-name Democrats all opted against running here, and national Democrats seemed eager to make a quiet peace with independent ex-Gov. Angus King, the few remaining members of Team Blue willing to make a go of it were of a decidedly low profile. There hasn't been any recent polling of the primary, which features state Sen. Cynthia Dill, state Rep. Jon Hinck, and former SoS Matt Dunlap, all of whom have raised very little money. (Hinck leads with $111K.) An early April survey from MPRC had Dill and Dunlap at 20-17 (with Hinck at 6), so this race is anybody's game.
Republicans have more at stake, since they view King as their enemy and may make a legitimate attempt to hold the seat. Tea partier Scott D'Amboise has been at it the longest—in fact, he began running long before Sen. Olympia Snowe called it quits and has consequently raised the most money, some $700K. Of course, several establishment types are in the race as well, including state Treasurer Bruce Poliquin, ex-state Senate President Rick Bennett, Secretary of State Charlie Summers, Attorney General Bill Schneider and state Sen. Deb Plowman.
After D'Amboise, Poliquin's raised the most money, thanks in part to $100K worth of self funding. Schneider, though, seems to be Snowe's preferred successor, based on some favors she's done for him (stopping short of an actual endorsement, however). Again, we're without any recent polling, so it's hard to say who has the edge, but I wouldn't count out Summers, who performed the best in that MPRC poll mentioned just above.
• ND-Sen (R): It seems that any hope we had for Navy veteran/teabagger/perpetual candidate Duane Sand to topple establishment favorite and first-term Rep. Rick Berg in this open seat primary is pretty much spent. Mason-Dixon pegged Berg's lead at a comically wide 73-16 margin last week. Despite raising nearly $900K, Sand's campaign has been an utter dud. (James L)
• ND-AL (R): You might think that first-term Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk is the establishment choice in this Republican primary: He did win the state GOP's endorsement at its convention back in April and he also enjoys the apparent support of the seat's incumbent, Rick Berg. However, Kalk's primary opponent, fellow Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer, has a much longer political resume, including two unsuccessful runs against then-incumbent Democrat Rep. Earl Pomeroy in the '90s, a stint as chair of the state GOP, and eight years spent in the cabinet of Gov. Ed Schafer. Cramer's also been backed by national conservative organizations like FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth. So perhaps it's not entirely surprising that Kalk is trailing in the latest Mason-Dixon poll of the race by a 60-21 margin. (A sketchier Fargo Forum poll from a few weeks back had Cramer leading by Kalk by 38-25.) (James L)
• NV-04 (R): For his own sake, Republican Danny Tarkanian better not fuck this primary up, because if he manages to lose this race, any journalist will have full license to brand him with the most toxic of all candidate descriptions: "perennial candidate." Tarkanian, the son of legendary former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, lost elections for state Senate, Secretary of State, and U.S. Senate in 2004, 2006, and 2010, respectively. This time, he has his eyes set on the state's newly-drawn 4th District. For a while, it looked like the race would be a two-way affair between Tarkanian and ex-state Sen. Barbara Cegavske, but self-funding businessman and self-touted "constitutional conservative" Dan Schwartz appears to have shaken up the race with a series of glossy attack ads that have caught Tarkanian flat-footed. Adding to his woes, Tarkanian has earned unhelpful press lately after a federal judge ordered him and members of his family to pay a $17 million judgment because they personally guaranteed a bank loan to developer who later filed for bankruptcy. Ouch. All this fuss just to win the right to contest a district that Barack Obama won by 15 percent in 2008? (James L)
• SC-07 (D & R): The Democratic primary experienced some serious—and shocking—upheaval last month, when state Rep. Ted Vick was arrested for drunk driving with a 21-year-old female college student in the passenger seat and an unlicensed firearm in his pocket. So, yeah, needless to say, Vick dropped out. Fortunately, Democrats had a serviceable replacement in the form of local attorney Preston Brittain, who actually wound up outraising Vick overall, with $490K as of his pre-primary filing. Brittain faces Gloria Tinubu, a former state representative who resigned her seat to run for Congress. Oh, did I mention that she was a state rep. in Georgia? Turns out she's quite the character.
Republicans have a multi-way pileup, given that this brand-new red seat certainly favors the GOP. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, Horry County Council Chair Tom Rice, former Horry County Council Chair Chad Prosser, and attorney Jay Jordan are the most plausible players, with Bauer dominating in fundraising and also narrowly leading in the only public poll of the race, with 22 percent. But Rice was right behind him at 21 and is probably Bauer's most serious competition. (Everyone else was in single digits.)