We have a big night on Tuesday with primaries and runoffs taking place in Alabama, Maine, and Texas. Alabama and Texas are holding runoffs in primaries where no candidate earned a majority of the vote during the first round back in early March, including a pair of major races for the Senate. Maine, meanwhile, has the distinction of being the only state in the nation where voters nominate candidates using instant-runoff voting, which comes into play if no candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes.
With the coronavirus pandemic fueling a surge in mail voting, election watchers everywhere should expect that we might not learn the results in every race for some time—perhaps days or even weeks. We'll need to wait a while to know the winners of any Maine primaries that need to be decided by an instant runoff because the secretary of state's office will wait until it has received all ballots before tabulating the runoff.
The pandemic has altered the election in another important way: All three of the states on Tuesday's docket postponed races that were set for earlier in the year. The Alabama runoff was originally planned for late March, just four weeks after the first round of the primary, while Texas was set for May. Maine also pushed its primary back from June.
Our live coverage will begin at 8 PM ET Tuesday night at Daily Kos Elections when the polls close in Alabama, Maine, and most of Texas. You can also follow us on Twitter for blow-by-blow updates. And you’ll want to bookmark our primary calendar, which includes the dates of the presidential and down-ballot primaries in all 50 states—many of which have been changed—as well as our separate calendar tracking key contests further down the ballot taking place nationwide this year.
Alabama
Polls close at 8 PM ET / 7 PM local time.
• AL-Sen (R) (62-34 Trump, 61-38 Romney): Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville only narrowly edged former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions 33-32 in the first round of voting back in March, but he's the favorite in the runoff.
Donald Trump, who fired Sessions in 2018, quickly endorsed Tuberville for the second round, and he’s spent the last four months repeatedly attacking his former attorney general. And while Sessions and Tuberville spent around the same amount of money from April 1 to June 24, which is the time the FEC defines as the preprimary period, the anti-tax Club for Growth has deployed about $600,000 to help the former coach.
The only poll we’ve seen since the end of May was an early July survey from Auburn University at Montgomery that found Tuberville ahead 47-31. The winner will take on incumbent Doug Jones, who is the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate simply by virtue of Alabama's deep red hue.
• AL-01 (R) (63-34 Trump, 62-37 Romney): Mobile County Commissioner Jerry Carl outpolled former state Sen. Bill Hightower 39-37 in the first round in this contest to succeed Rep. Bradley Byrne, who gave up this Gulf Coast seat to unsuccessfully run for the Senate. Shortly after, Carl earned an endorsement from state Rep. Chris Pringle, who finished third with 19%, while Byrne backed him last month. Carl and Hightower both deployed a comparable amount of money during the preprimary period, but Hightower’s allies at the Club for Growth have spent heavily.
• AL-02 (R) (65-33 Trump, 63-36 Romney): Businessman Jeff Coleman took 38% of the vote in the first round of the primary to succeed retiring Rep. Martha Roby in this Montgomery-area seat, while former state Rep. Barry Moore was far behind with 20%. Roby endorsed Coleman in the final days of the runoff.
While Coleman outspent Moore about $260,000 to $125,000 during the preprimary period, though, the Club for Growth has spent over $640,000 promoting Moore and attacking his rival. The nihilist House Freedom Caucus has also spent $135,000 to help Moore.
Maine
Polls close at 8 PM ET. All primaries will, if necessary, be conducted by means of an instant runoff. Voters rank candidates in their order of preference. If no one takes a majority, the last-place candidate gets eliminated and has their votes reassigned to their voters' next preferences.
• ME-Sen (D) (48-45 Clinton, 56-41 Obama): Republican Sen. Susan Collins is a top Democratic target, and both parties have long treated state House Speaker Sara Gideon as her inevitable opponent. Gideon faces two Democratic primary foes in 2018 gubernatorial candidate Betsy Sweet and attorney Bre Kidman, but neither of them have attracted anything like the national attention and financial support that Gideon has. A mid-May survey from Victory Geek for a group run by former Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling, an ally of Sweet, found Gideon leading the primary 64-17.
• ME-02 (R) (51-41 Trump, 53-44 Obama): Democrat Jared Golden won a tight race to flip this northern Maine seat two years ago, and he’ll be a major Republican target in the fall. The three Republicans running to face him are 2018 Senate nominee Eric Brakey; former state Rep. Dale Crafts, who has the backing of ex-Gov. Paul LePage; and real estate agent Adrienne Bennett, a former LePage spokesperson. Crafts narrowly outspent Brakey $173,000 to $167,000 during the preprimary period, while Bennett spent just $98,000.
The Club for Growth and Protect Freedom PAC has also deployed over $1 million to aid Brakey, while a newly formed group called the American Policy Fund has spent around $350,000 opposing him. Some of Protect Freedom’s advertising has gone after Bennett, while no major outside groups have spent much supporting or opposing Crafts.
We’ve seen two polls here, and they’ve shown very different results. In mid-June, the conservative firm We Ask America had Bennett leading Brakey 28-22, while Crafts was in third with 20%. However, a SurveyUSA poll from early July for FairVote, a nonpartisan electoral reform group that supports ranked-choice voting, found Crafts beating Bennett 37-25, with Brakey at 19%. SurveyUSA also found that a plurality of both Bennett and Brakey supporters listed Crafts as their second choice, which could help him in the event an instant runoff is necessary.
Texas
First polls close at 8 PM ET / 7 PM local time in the portion of the state located in the Central Time Zone, which includes most of it. Polls close in the rest of the state (a smaller portion in the El Paso area that's in the Mountain Time Zone) one hour later.
• TX-Sen (D) (52-43 Trump, 57-41 Romney): Air Force veteran MJ Hegar outpolled state Sen. Royce West 22-15 in March in the contest to take on Republican Sen. John Cornyn, and she’s enjoyed a sizable financial advantage for the second round. Hegar outspent West $1.1 million to $390,000 during the preprimary period, and EMILY’s List also dropped $1.3 million on ads during the final week of the contest; the DSCC has also been running ads in coordination with Hegar.
West, though, has earned endorsements from most of his former rivals from the March primary. West, who would be the state’s first Black senator, has also contrasted his record with Hegar's, arguing that he's more progressive on issues like police reform and health care expansion.
Cornyn has long signaled that West is his preferred opponent, and he even ran ads late in the campaign "attacking" West as too liberal, which is just the sort of argument meant to encourage Democratic voters to support the state senator. Cornyn also released a poll from TargetPoint that showed Hegar ahead by a small 33-29 margin; an early July University of Texas-Tyler poll found her up by a somewhat larger 35-22.
• TX-10 (D) (52-43 Trump, 59-39 Romney): Mike Siegel, who was the 2018 Democratic nominee against veteran Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, led physician Pritesh Gandhi 44-33 in the first round of voting in this gerrymandered district that stretches from Houston to Austin. While Gandhi only narrowly outspent Siegel during the preprimary period, his allies at 314 Action have been running commercials promoting Gandhi as the more electable of the two.
• TX-13 (R) (79-20 Trump, 80-19 Romney): Lobbyist Josh Winegarner outpolled former White House chief physician Ronny Jackson 39-20 in this open Texas Panhandle seat back in March, but Jackson looks like the favorite going into the runoff. Jackson has the backing of both Donald Trump, who unsuccessfully tapped him to head the Veterans Administration in 2018, as well Chris Ekstrom, who took a close third place in the first round of voting. Winegarner, by contrast, earned an endorsement from retiring Rep. Mac Thornberry before the first round of voting.
Jackson outspent Winegarner $410,000 to $280,000 during the preprimary period, and his allies at the Club for Growth and another outfit called Miles of Greatness Fund have also thrown down about twice as much money as a pro-Winegarner group called Ag Together PAC. Winegarner’s side has been running ads focusing on his opponent’s weak ties to the district and the whistleblower complaints that derailed Jackson’s failed nomination to run the VA, while Jackson and his supporters have gone after Winegarner’s lobbying career.
We've seen two recent polls, both from the pro-Jackson groups. A mid-June survey for the Club from WPA Intelligence had Jackson up 49-41, while a poll taken at the end of the month by Fabrizio, Lee & Associates for Miles of Greatness had Jackson ahead 46-29.
• TX-17 (R) (56-39 Trump, 60-38 Romney): Former Rep. Pete Sessions, who lost his bid for a 12th term in the Dallas-based 32nd District in 2018, outpaced businesswoman Renee Swann 32-19 in the first round. Since then, Sessions has earned an endorsement from George Hindman, who finished just behind Swann in March.
Sessions and Swann spent comparable amounts in the preprimary period, and there has been little outside spending. Both Swann and her most influential ally, retiring Rep. Bill Flores, have criticized Sessions for relocating to his childhood home of Waco to stage a comeback 100 miles from his old district, while Sessions has tried to play up his local roots. Sessions has also argued that his long service in Congress will allow him to help Donald Trump, and he’s run ads calling Swann’s loyalty to the Republican Party into question.
• TX-22 (R & D) (52-44 Trump, 62-37 Romney): Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls led self-funder Kathaleen Wall 40-19 four months ago in the contest to succeed retiring Republian Rep. Pete Olson, but he’s largely been on the defensive since then. Whoever wins will face Democrat Sri Preston Kulkarni, who won his party’s nomination in March, for a seat in the southern Houston suburbs that has been moving to the left during the Trump era.
Wall, who outspent Nehls by a staggering $2 million to $94,000 margin during the preprimary period, has run a barrage of ads arguing that Nehls has done a poor job combating sex trafficking, and the sheriff has acknowledged he doesn’t have the money to air his own commercials. Wall has also attracted national attention with her racist ads about China.
• TX-23 (R) (50-46 Clinton, 51-48 Romney): Navy veteran Tony Gonzales outpolled businessman Raul Reyes 28-23 in the first round of the contest to succeed retiring Rep. Will Hurd. Tuesday’s winner will be in for a challenging race to hold this swingy West Texas seat against Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, who won her primary in March and has proven to be one of the party’s strongest fundraisers.
Gonzales won Hurd’s endorsement before the first round, and he went on to earn the support of Donald Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Sen. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, has starred in TV spots backing Reyes, though he couldn’t persuade Trump to remain neutral. Gonzales outspent Reyes by a wide $205,000 to $100,000 margin during the preprimary period, while outside spending has benefited each candidate about equally.
• TX-24 (D) (51-44 Trump, 60-38 Romney): Air Force veteran Kim Olson, who was the 2018 Democratic nominee for state agriculture secretary, led local school board member Candace Valenzuela 41-30 in round one. The winner will take on former Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne, who won the Republican nomination in March to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Kenny Marchant in this Dallas-Fort Worth area seat.
While Olson had a big financial advantage heading into the March contest, Valenzuela, who would be the first Black Latina to serve in Congress, outspent her $400,000 to $280,000 in the preprimary period. Several groups, including the Latino Victory Fund and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, have spent at least $855,000 on advertising praising Valenzuela and criticizing Olson, while VoteVets has dropped around $110,000 to aid Olson. Valenzuela also has the support of 2018 nominee Jan McDowell, who finished third with 10% four months ago.
Olson generated some controversy last month when she said of protests against police brutality: “Even if people loot, so what? Burn it to the ground, you know, if that’s what it’s gonna take to fix our nation.” Both Valenzuela and Republicans highlighted those comments, which Olson argued were taken out of context. A Data for Progress poll from the final week of the campaign for Valenzuela’s allies at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus showed her ahead 52-37.
Other Texas Races to Watch: TX-03 (D), TX-31 (D)
Tuesday will be an exciting night, so we hope you’ll join us for our liveblog at Daily Kos Elections!