The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.
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Leading Off
● MD-Sen: Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks overcame a massive financial deficit to defeat self-funding Rep. David Trone in Tuesday's Democratic primary to succeed retiring Sen. Ben Cardin. Alsobrooks leads 54-42 with the Associated Press estimating that 66% of the vote is tabulated as of Wednesday morning.
Trone, according to data from AdImpact, outspent Alsobrooks and her allies at EMILYs List $48 million to $7 million on the airwaves, but his advertising onslaught was unable to match the depth of Alsobrook's support from Maryland's political establishment. Overall, Trone self-funded more than $60 million, a record for a primary.
Alsobrooks will now face former Gov. Larry Hogan, who beat wealthy perennial candidate Robin Ficker 62-30 with 82% of the estimated vote in, in a rare competitive general election in this dark blue state. Republicans argue that Hogan, who decisively won reelection during the 2018 Democratic wave, maintains enough crossover support to put this race in play, and they were encouraged by early polls that showed him easily beating either Alsobrooks or Trone.
Democrats, though, believe that, with Donald Trump at the top of the ballot and control of the Senate on the line, Hogan will struggle to win over voters who otherwise like him but don't want to empower Republicans. A constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights, which Hogan has generally opposed, will also be on the ballot in November.
A win for Alsobrooks in November would make her the first African American to represent Maryland in the Senate, as well as only the fourth Black woman to ever serve in the chamber. Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who is on a glide path in neighboring Delaware, would share that latter distinction in a body where two Black women have never served at the same time.
The Independent's Eric Michael Garcia also highlights that Alsobrooks is already one of the first, if not the first, Senate candidates to acknowledge she has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the neurological disorder commonly known by its initials, ADHD.
Alsobrooks' victory was by no means the only notable result on a multi-state election night. Below is a state-by-state summary of where things stood as of 8 AM ET in all of the major contests. (Note that mail ballots counted after election night could shift some of the final margins, and that all estimates of the total percentage of the vote currently counted come from the Associated Press.) You can also check out our cheat-sheet that summarizes the outcomes in every key race.
Election Recaps
● Anchorage, AK Mayor: Former Anchorage Assembly Chair Suzanne LaFrance leads far-right Mayor Dave Bronson 55-45 with about 51,000 ballots tabulated in the nonpartisan general election. Bronson did not concede on election night to LaFrance, a Democratic-backed independent, but the Anchorage Daily News notes that it would be tough for him to overcome a nearly 5,000-vote gap.
The paper says that it is "not yet clear exactly" how many more ballots remain to be tabulated in this nearly all-mail election, though officials have not yet counted votes cast on Election Day. The deadline for the Anchorage Assembly, which is the local equivalent of a city council, to certify the results is May 31.
The winner will serve a three-year term, as Anchorage is the rare major American city where terms last an odd number of years. LaFrance would be the first woman elected mayor of Alaska's largest city and the second to ever hold this post. The first was Austin Quinn-Davidson, who became interim mayor in the fall of 2020 but did not compete in the election that Bronson won the following spring.
● MD-02 (D): Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski easily defeated Del. Harry Bhandari in the primary to replace retiring Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, who supported Olszewski; The county executive leads 78-9 with 66% of the estimated vote in. Biden carried this seat in the Baltimore suburbs 59-39 in 2020.
● MD-03 (D): State Sen. Sarah Elfreth won the 22-candidate primary to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. John Sarbanes by beating retired Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn 35-25 with 69% of the estimated vote in. Elfreth should have no trouble prevailing in the general election for the 3rd District, which includes the state capital of Annapolis and several of Baltimore's suburbs, as Biden won it 62-36.
Dunn, who helped defend Congress on Jan. 6, raised a massive amount of money from donors across the country. But Elfreth, who benefited from over $4 million in outside spending from the hawkish pro-Israel group AIPAC, emphasized her roots in the constituency—a not-too-subtle contrast to Dunn, who does not live in the 3rd District. (Members of Congress do not need to live in the district they represent.)
● MD-06 (D & R): Democrat April McClain Delaney and Republican Neil Parrott will face off in the race to replace unsuccessful Democratic Senate candidate David Trone. This seat, which contains the western part of the state and a slice of the Washington, D.C. suburbs, favored Biden 54-44.
Delaney, who is a former U.S. Commerce Department official, won her primary by outpacing Del. Joe Vogel 39-27 with 53% of the estimated vote in. Delaney is also the wife of former Rep. John Delaney, who represented the previous version of the 6th District for three terms before leaving office in 2019 for an ill-fated bid for president.
Republican primary voters gave Parrott his third chance to flip the 6th after picking him over fellow former Del. Dan Cox, who was the GOP's disastrous standard-bearer for governor in 2022; Parrott leads 47-31 with the AP estimating that 81% of the vote has been tabulated.
Parrott first lost to Trone 59-39 in 2020 back when the 6th was safely blue turf. While decennial redistricting made the constituency more competitive following the most recent census, the Republican still fell short by a 55-45 margin in 2022.
● Baltimore, MD Mayor (D): Incumbent Brandon Scott held off former Mayor Sheila Dixon to win the Democratic primary, which is tantamount to election in this dark blue city. Scott leads 51-41 with 71% of the estimated vote reporting.
Scott is poised to become the first Baltimore mayor to win a second full term since Martin O'Malley did so in 2004, though O'Malley left halfway through after being elected governor in 2006.
● NC-LG (R): GOP strategist Hal Weatherman beat Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O'Neill 74-26 in the runoff to replace far-right Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is the Republican nominee for governor. Weatherman will go up against Democratic state Sen. Rachel Hunt, who is the daughter of former four-term Gov. Jim Hunt, in a state where candidates for governor and lieutenant governor are elected separately.
While Hunt decisively won her primary outright on March 5, Weatherman's race went into overtime after he outpaced O'Neill 20-16. (Runoffs only take place in North Carolina if no one takes more than 30% and if the trailing candidate requests them.) But Robinson used the second round to back Weatherman, who has worked as a top staffer for several extremist politicians, and that endorsement appears to have given him a huge boost.
● NE-02 (R): Rep. Don Bacon turned back a hardright primary challenge from businessman Dan Frei 62-38.
Bacon will now face a rematch against state Sen. Tony Vargas, a Democrat he defeated 51-49 in an expensive 2022 battle. Biden carried this Omaha-based seat 52-46 during the last presidential election.
● WV-Sen (R & D): Gov. Jim Justice defeated Rep. Alex Mooney 62-27, a drubbing that even Mooney's allies at the Club for Growth publicly acknowledged was coming. Justice, who had the support of Donald Trump and the GOP establishment, is all but assured to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in what's become a dark red state.
Still, Democrats were relieved that Don Blankenship, the ex-Republican ex-con who ran conspiracy-filled ads, came in a distant third in their primary. Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott defeated Marine veteran Zachary Shrewsbury 45-36, with the remaining 18% going to Blankenship.
● WV-Gov (R): Attorney General Patrick Morrisey beat former Del. Moore Capito 33-28, with wealthy car dealership owner Chris Miller in third with 20%. Morrisey, who prevailed in a contest defined by escalating transphobic campaign ads from all three main candidates, is favored in the fall against Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, who had the Democratic primary to himself.
Morrisey, despite his failure to unseat Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in 2018, spent the entire contest as the frontrunner, and AdImpact says the Club for Growth and its affiliates spent $11.4 million to make sure he stayed ahead. Termed-out Gov. Jim Justice backed Capito, who is the son of Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, in the final month of the race, but it wasn't enough.
● WV-01 (R): Rep. Carol Miller fended off former Del. Derrick Evans, who served 90 days in prison for his participation in the Jan. 6 riot, 63-37 to win renomination in this dark red southern West Virginia constituency. Miller's victory came the same night that her son, the aforementioned Chris Miller, took third in the primary to lead the state.
● WV-02 (R): State Treasurer Riley Moore lapped Army veteran Joe Earley 45-20 in the primary succeed failed GOP Senate candidate Alex Mooney; retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Chris Walker, who appeared to be Moore's main intra-party foe, instead earned just third place with 16%.
While Moore's cousin, Moore Capito, lost the primary for governor, the state treasurer was always the favorite to claim this safely Republican seat in the northern half of the state. Moore, who had endorsements from Mooney and Speaker Mike Johnson, also benefited from outside spending from a crypto-aligned group called Defend American Jobs.
Senate
● NV-Sen: Former diplomat Jeff Gunter's newest ad attacks Army veteran Sam Brown for supporting the creation of a nuclear waste depository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, an issue that Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is almost sure to seize on in the likely event that Brown beats Gunter in the June 11 GOP primary.
"For 25 years I've treated skin cancer patients and have seen the damage radiation can do," Gunter, a dermatologist, tells the audience. "But Sam Brown doesn't seem to care and plans on dumping toxic nuclear waste here, just miles away from children's schools."
The Los Angeles Times Seema Mehta last month likened the proposed depository, first considered in 1978, to a "third rail in Nevada politics," and it's one that the Silver State's most famous Democrat was happy to throw Republicans up against. The late Majority Leader Harry Reid secured his first term in 1986 after labeling GOP foe Jim Santini "wishy-washy on this," and he won competitive races in 1998 and 2010 by lobbing similar attacks at his GOP opponents.
Most Republicans have since made it clear that they oppose a project that, thanks in large part to Reid, has never gone forward, but Brown has adopted a different approach.
Mehta, who obtained a recording of Brown speaking at a campaign event when he sought Nevada's other Senate seat in 2022, reports that the candidate bemoaned the lack of a depository as an "incredible loss of revenue for our state." In those same comments, which previously went unreported, Brown also accused Reid, who had died the previous year, of "fearmongering" on the issue.
This time around, Brown has avoided taking a side one way or the other on the project.
"I’m always interested in economic opportunities for Nevada that better diversify our economy," he told Mehta. He separately informed The Hill that he is "not strictly committed to opening Yucca Mountain at this time" but said he'd "consider all thoroughly vetted future proposals, with the safety of Nevadans being my top priority."
This new stance did not deter Gunter from slamming Brown for his prior remarks, and Rosen has made it clear she's ready to do the same in a general election.
"Nevada Republicans and Democrats have been fighting against storing dangerous nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain for decades," her team told the L.A. Times, "but Sam Brown agrees with the D.C. politicians in Congress who still want to turn Nevada into the nation’s dumping ground for toxic waste."
Governors
● ND-Gov, ND-AL: InForum's Rob Port shared that Democratic pollster DFM Research has released a poll of the June 11 primaries on behalf of North Dakota United, whose president Nick Archuleta did not disclose whether his group had any rooting interest.
"We released the poll because there is a lot of different information out there," Archuleta told Port. "We wanted to know what the real story is."
In the Republican primary for the state's open governorship, DFM finds Republican Rep. Kelly Armstrong with a wide 56-18 lead over Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller. That result is similar to Armstrong's 60-19 advantage in an internal poll from Guidant Polling & Strategy that his campaign recently shared with Port.
DFM shows a much more competitive primary, however, in the race to succeed Armstrong for North Dakota's sole House seat, with former state Rep. Rick Becker leading 29-26 over Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak. Former Miss America Cara Mund is further back at 14%, while former State Department official Alex Balazs takes just 5%, and 26% of respondents are undecided.
● NJ-Gov. Former Republican state Sen. Ed Durr has announced he would run next year to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.
Durr attracted national attention in 2021 when, as a virtually unknown truck driver with no political experience, he ousted Democratic state Senate President Steve Sweeney after spending all of $153. However, Durr lost his reelection bid 53-46 to Democratic Assemblyman John Burzichelli last year despite running in a district that would have favored Donald Trump 51-48 in 2020, according to VEST data from Dave's Redistricting App. Sweeney himself is now running for governor on the Democratic side.
Durr joins a GOP primary that includes state Sen. Jon Bramnick and former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, who held Murphy to an unexpectedly slender 51-48 win in his 2021 reelection bid.
● WA-Gov: Two would-be candidates both named Bob Ferguson have dropped out of the race after a much more famous man of that same name, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, threatened that he would seek to have them prosecuted for violating state law.
Ferguson, the leading Democrat seeking Washington's open governorship, cited a statute that makes it a felony for anyone who files for office if they have "[a] surname similar to one who has already filed for the same office, and whose political reputation is widely known, with intent to confuse and mislead the electors by capitalizing on the public reputation of the candidate who had previously filed."
Glen Morgan, a conservative activist, took credit for recruiting the other two Fergusons, one a retired state employee and the other an Army veteran. Both had entered the race just before Friday's filing deadline and were set to appear on the Aug. 6 primary ballot as Democrats.
"If I had started a little bit earlier, I would have been able to have six Bob Fergusons," Morgan told the Seattle Times' Claire Withycombe. "I contacted about 12. I just ran out of time."
The attorney general warned on Monday, though, that if the Bobs did not withdraw, he would "ask local prosecutors to do the right thing and pursue further action." The two would-be contenders complied but responded bitterly, with one accusing the attorney general in a statement of "bullish behavior by someone that is too afraid to stand toe-to-toe with me."
Morgan had claimed that his recruits had "want[ed] to clear their name" by running for governor, but the real risk to the attorney general was that these doppelgängers could have cost him votes in the primary, where all candidates from all parties run together on a single ballot. The top two vote-getters advance to the general election, making it at least theoretically possible that the two newcomers could have kept the original Bob Ferguson from making it to November.
Despite their departures, though, the ballot will be extremely crowded. According to the state's official candidate list, 28 individuals paid the $2,000 filing fee in the hopes of succeeding retiring Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee. That roster includes nine Democrats, eight Republicans, and a passel of longshots identifying as independents or members of third parties.
Polls have shown Ferguson and former Republican Rep. Dave Reichert as heavy favorites to face one another in the fall, though each still has one notable intra-party rival.
For Ferguson, that's state Sen. Mark Mullet, a moderate who has recently benefited from some outside spending. On the Republican side, Reichert is contending with far-right Army veteran Semi Bird, who won the endorsement of the state GOP last month after a chaotic convention that Reichert refused to participate in.
House
● CO-05: Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, who represents the neighboring 3rd District, has endorsed state party chair Dave Williams for the Republican nomination in Colorado's 5th District, a safely red open seat in the Colorado Springs area. Williams previously earned Trump's endorsement, while conservative radio host Jeff Crank has the backing of House Speaker Mike Johnson and the 5th District's retiring incumbent, Doug Lamborn.
● FL-08: House Speaker Mike Johnson has endorsed former state Senate President Mike Haridopolos, who faces minimal opposition in the August Republican primary for this safely red open seat in the Cape Canaveral area.
Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott both previously endorsed Haridopolos, as did retiring Rep. Bill Posey when he dropped out after the filing deadline passed to ensure Haridopolos would have little trouble winning the race to succeed him.
● MO-03: The hardline Club for Growth has endorsed former state Sen. Bob Onder in the Aug. 6 primary to succeed retiring Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, a fellow Republican. The Club previously backed Onder over Luetkemeyer in the 2008 contest for the now-defunct 9th District, a contest Luetkemeyer won 40-29.
● NJ-08: The Congressional Hispanic Caucus' BOLD PAC has announced a $500,000 TV, digital, and mail campaign to help Rep. Rob Menendez in the June 4 Democratic primary. The PAC's initial ad, which is available in English and Spanish, touts Menendez as someone working to lower costs for families and does not mention his main intra-party opponent, Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla.
● OR-03: Primary School flags that the super PAC Voters for Responsive Government has now deployed a total of $2.3 million to defeat former Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal. The Oregonian notes that VRG does not need to reveal its donors until Monday, the day before the Democratic primary for this safely blue seat.
● WA-04: Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse got some unwelcome news at Friday's candidate filing deadline when he learned that three Democrats had filed to run against him in the Aug. 6 top-two primary for Washington's conservative 4th District.
In 2022, Newhouse crushed his Democratic opponent 66-31, so he'd have had little to worry about in a similar matchup this November. However, the trio of Democrats running this time could split the left-leaning vote, allowing one of the other two Republican candidates, either Trump-backed former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler or 2022 Senate nominee Tiffany Smiley, to advance instead.
That could set up a tough general election for Newhouse, who voted to impeach Trump following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol—and that's not even his most immediate problem. First, though, the congressman needs to make sure he has enough support to earn a spot in the second round.
Until two years ago, no incumbent had ever failed to advance out of a top-two primary in Washington, but Newhouse's former colleague, Jamie Herrera Beutler, made history the hard way. Like Newhouse, Herrera Beutler supported impeaching Trump, who responded by endorsing her MAGA-flavored challenger, Army veteran Joe Kent. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez consolidated the Democratic vote while Kent narrowly edged past Herrera Beutler, only to lose to Gluesenkamp Perez in an upset in the fall.
The field also includes one independent and John Malan, a perennial candidate who will be listed on the ballot as a "MAGA Democrat." The reason Malan can run under this contradictory banner is that the state allows candidates to use up to 18 characters to describe the party label they prefer, whether or not such a party exists.
Former state Sen. Dino Rossi tested this rule out in the 2008 race for governor when, in an effort to avoid identifying himself with the Republican Party at a time when the party's brand was especially toxic in this blue state, he ran under the banner of the "GOP Party." A judge allowed the label after a legal challenge, but the "GOP Party" candidate still lost to Democratic incumbent Christine Gregoire 53-47.
● WA-05: The race to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers also came into focus following the close of candidate filing, with six Republicans and five Democrats set to appear on the ballot. Washington's 5th District, which includes Spokane and other communities in the eastern part of the state, favored Donald Trump 54-44 in 2020, so it's likely that a Republican will hold onto the seat
There were no notable late entrances or exits in a contest where only two Republicans appear to be waging serious efforts. The best-funded candidate at the end of March was Spokane County Treasurer Michael Baumgartner, who had $363,000 in the bank. The only other GOP contender who had access to a credible sum of money at the close of the first quarter was state Rep. Jacquelin Maycumber, who had $134,000 on hand.
Former Trump administration official Brian Dansel was a distant third with only $11,000 at his disposal, while Spokane City Councilman Jonathan Bingle and radio host Rene' Holaday had less still. Rick Flynn, who unsuccessfully ran for a local school board in 2023, does not appear to have set up an account with the FEC.
The main Democratic contender looks to be former Spokane County party chair Carmela Conroy, whose $64,000 war chest was almost twice as much as what her nearest intra-party foe, physician Bobbi Bennett-Wolcott, had.
Judges
● GA Supreme Court: Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is both starring in and paying for a new ad boosting conservative Justice Andrew Pinson ahead of next week's officially nonpartisan race for the Georgia Supreme Court, where he faces a stiff challenge from former Democratic Rep. John Barrow.
Like most advertising typical of judicial campaigns from yesteryear, Kemp's spot is largely bloodless and devoid of any explicit campaign themes. Instead, the governor declares that Georgians "need judges who follow the law and uphold the Constitution, not more partisan politicians in the courtroom" and calls Pinson, whom he appointed to the bench in 2022, "the conservative voice we can trust."
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a special political organization called the Georgians First Leadership Committee created under a law spearheaded by Kemp is spending "more than $500,000" to air the ad. As the AJC explained last year, that committee can both raise unlimited sums from individuals and coordinate directly with campaigns. (Super PACs may do the former but not the latter.)
Mayors & County Leaders
● San Francisco, CA Mayor: The group GrowSF, which the San Francisco Standard characterizes as "moderate-leaning," has publicized a survey from FM3 Research that shows Mayor London Breed narrowly beating former Supervisor Mark Farrell 51-49 after simulating an instant-runoff election.
The poll finds the mayor ahead with 21% in an initial round when respondents are asked to list their first choice, with Farrell and nonprofit founder Daniel Lurie tied for second with 16% each. Another 12% favor Aaron Peskin, who is the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, while Supervisor Ahsha Safaí takes 7%.
Peskin is the lone candidate who identifies as a progressive, prompting Daniel Anderson, a former Peskin campaign manager, to express skepticism to the Standard that he would start off in fourth place.
Anderson may have a rooting interest, but he isn't the only one who's argued Peskin is stronger than he appears in this survey. Farrell, who like all of the other candidates is part of the city's centrist political faction, warned that Peskin could win in comments to the New York Times last month.
"It is in the best interest of San Francisco and all of the moderate candidates to work together to stop Aaron Peskin from becoming mayor," said Farrell. However, Farrell's fears are not universally shared among moderates.
"There's been a lot of arguments and conversations that to stop Peskin, moderates need to coalesce. The data shows that this is not needed," a Breed ally named Todd David told the Standard after the FM3 poll was publicized. "So the strategy of 'We must stop Aaron Peskin,' … there's no data which backs up that strategy."
GrowSF's poll supports that assertion, since it shows Peskin getting eliminated after a second round of instant-runoff tabulations. The survey's sponsor has not taken sides yet, though it says its polling "will inform the endorsements made in our voter guide."
Poll Pile
Ad Roundup
Correction: Due to an editing error, our item on the Maryland Senate primary referred to the Republican candidate as David Trone rather than Larry Hogan.
Campaign Action
