A New York Times headline sums it up nicely: "A Black Progressive and a Trump Acolyte Win Florida Governor Primaries". Voters in both parties bypassed the establishment candidate. Democrats selected Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who upset former Rep. Gwen Graham. Republicans followed the endorsement of President Trump, choosing Rep. Ron DeSantis. The general election here thus takes on echoes of neighboring Georgia, both gubernatorial races "between left-leaning African-Americans banking on the region’s new, diversifying electorate, and ardent, Trump-style nationalists."
As expected, Gov. Rick Scott easily won the GOP nomination for Senate, setting up what will likely become one of the most expensive Senate races in U.S. history.
Rep. Martha McSally defeated hardliners Kelli Ward and Joe Arpaio in a race where Trump made no endorsement. Likely a pragmatic choice by the president, as neither Ward or Arpaio were seen as particularly good general election candidates. McSally will meet her congressional colleague, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema in what will be a closely-contested general election.
Gov. Doug Ducey easily won renomination; he'll face David Garcia in November. Former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick won the Democratic nomination in Arizona's 2nd congressional district. This is the seat being vacated by McSally, and represents one of the best opportunities for a Democratic gain in November.
Businessman Kevin Stitt won the GOP gubernatorial runoff; he'll meet Democrat Drew Edmondson in November. While Oklahoma is a deep red state, a Democratic flip is not out of the question here in November. Outgoing GOP Gov. Mary Fallin is one of the most unpopular in the country, Edmondson is a strong candidate and polling thus far has him doing better against Stitt than the now-defeated Cornett.
The final big primary day of 2018 comes at us this week, with Arizona and Florida holding contests this Tuesday. There are also a few runoff elections in Oklahoma.
Arizona
Polls close at 7:00 PM local time (9:00 Eastern). Where do I vote?
Senate: Sen. John McCain's death has created a vacancy that will be filled by Gov. Doug Ducey. By law, that replacement must be a Republican, although given Ducey's party affiliation that would be expected in any case. It will be interesting to see what direction he goes. The person selected will serve until a special election is held in 2020. The winner of that will complete the final two years of McCain's term.
The state's other Senate seat is up in 2018 and will be a fiercely-contested general election race. Sen. Jeff Flake is retiring. On Tuesday, we'll mostly be watching the Republican primary, where Rep. Martha McSally is hoping to fend off former State Sen. Kelli Ward and former Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Ward previously ran for the U.S. Senate in 2016, where she lost the Republican primary to McCain. McSally has opened up a lead in the most recent polls; a win by Ward or Arpaio would increase the likelihood that this seat flips to the Democrats in November. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is expected to be the Democratic nominee.
Governor: Gov. Ducey is running for re-election. He is expected to win his primary and will face the winner of a three-way Democratic contest. Ducey will start out the favorite in this race.
House: The state has nine congressional districts. Reps. McSally (AZ-02) and Sinema (AZ-09) are foregoing re-election to run for the U.S. Senate. McSally's seat is a major target for Democrats this fall. Former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick is favored in a crowded Democratic primary, while Lea Marquez Peterson appears to have an edge for the GOP. Sinema's seat is likely to stay in Democratic hands; former Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton will be the nominee.
Florida
Polls close at 7:00 PM local time (7:00 Eastern except 8:00 PM Eastern for parts of the Panhandle). Where do I vote?
Senate: Gov. Rick Scott faces only nominal competition; he'll meet Sen. Bill Nelson in November. The general election is seen as a toss-up, although Scott has had a small but consistent lead in recent polls. Democrats already have an uphill climb to take control of the Senate, it will be that much harder should they lose the race here.
Governor: The chance to replace termed-out Gov. Rick Scott has created a very crowded primary field in both parties. For the GOP, Rep. Ron DeSantis and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam are the leading candidates. DeSantis' position in the race was significantly strengthened after an endorsement by President Trump in June. On the Democratic side, there seem to be several candidates with a shot at the nomination, including former Rep. Gwen Graham as well as the Mayor of Tallahassee and former Mayor of Miami Beach. The general election is a toss-up.
House: The state has 27 congressional districts. The GOP-held 26th and 27th districts in the very southern part of the state present good pick-up opportunities for Democrats. Both those districts were among 23 (before PA redistricting) that elected a Republican to Congress while voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016. In fact, these two gave Clinton her largest margin of all such districts. The 27th is particularly vulnerable, where 15-term incumbent Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is retiring. One of the candidates running for the GOP nomination to replace her was abducted by aliens.
Oklahoma
Polls close at 7:00 PM local time (8:00 Eastern). Where do I vote?
The state will hold runoffs Tuesday for races where no candidate received a majority of the vote in the June 26th primary. This includes the GOP primary for governor and several congressional districts.
Primary Calendar
After Tuesday, there are only a few East Coast states that remain on the 2018 primary calendar
Republican Troy Balderson has been certified as the winner of the recent special election in Ohio's 12th congressional district. After absentee and provisional ballots were counted, Balderson defeated Democrat Danny O'Connor by 1,680 votes, or 0.8%.
Once Balderson is sworn in, Republicans will hold 237 seats, Democrats 193, with five vacancies. Those seats will remain unfilled until after the November 6th midterm elections.
Balderson and O'Connor will have a rematch for a full term this November. Most forecasters give a slight edge to Balderson at the moment. Donald Trump won here by about 11% in 2016.
An interactive map of the 'Classic' version of the forecast is below. At a high level, this version couples available polling with numerous fundamental factors to derive a probability of victory for the individual candidates in each race. We group those probabilities as FiveThirtyEight does, so that our map is consistent* with theirs.
Click or tap the map to view the ranges and to use it as a starting point for your own 2018 House forecast.
* We hope to update the interactive map daily. As the FiveThirtyEight model runs "every time new data is available", there will occasionally be differences between the two. See the timestamp below the map for the date and time of the last update.
Rep. Duncan Hunter of California was indicted Tuesday and charged with the illegal use of campaign funds over a seven year period. House Speaker Paul Ryan indicated Hunter would be removed from his committee assignments until the matter is resolved.
Hunter is in his fifth term representing a conservative San Diego-area district that supported Donald Trump by 15% in the 2016 election. Only seven of the state's 53 congressional districts voted for the president over Hillary Clinton that year.
Hunter was renominated in California's top-two primary in June. Even if he were to decide not to run, there is no good mechanism to remove his name from the November ballot. Additionally, California does not allow for write-in candidates.
The indictment has opened up yet another opportunity for a Democratic flip as the party attempts to gain control of the House in November. As of Wednesday morning, both Sabato's Crystal Ball and The Cook Political Report have moved this race from safe Republican to leans Republican. Nathan Gonzales of Inside Elections has not yet made a change, although he seems to have his priorities in order:
Alaska and Wyoming hold primaries on Tuesday. Polls close at 7:00 PM Mountain Time (9:00 PM Eastern) in Wyoming, with Alaska polls following at 8:00 PM local time (midnight Eastern for most of the state). Wyoming has a Senate election, while both states have primaries for gubernatorial elections and their single, at-large congressional district.
Mostly Useless Trivia: Alaska and Wyoming are the largest and 3rd largest states by area, and thus their single congressional districts are two of the three largest in the country. The combined area of these two districts is about 669,000 sq. miles. This is larger than the combined land area of the smallest 334* districts.
An overview of the races follows. Live results will be available after the polls close; reload this page for the latest.
Incumbent Gov. Matt Mead cannot run for a third term. The GOP primary looks like the most interesting race of the day here, both for its competitiveness and the fact that the winner will almost certainly be the next governor of this deep red state. There are six candidates on the ballot. Limited polling indicates a tight three-way race between Wyoming State Treasurer Mark Gordon, Businessman Foster Friess and attorney Harriet Hageman, all near 20%. Two other candidates, Sam Galeotos and Taylor Haynes are closer to 10%. On Election Day, President Trump tweeted an endorsement of Friess.
Wyoming Senate Primary
Republican Sen. John Barrasso is seeking a third term in 2018. Barrasso is being challenged by a political newcomer, businessman Dave Dodson who has been able to self-fund to get his message out. Another candidate, former Catholic priest Charlie Hardy, dropped out Monday and endorsed Dodson. There's no polling here, so it is unclear how much of a threat Dodson is to the incumbent. Assuming Barrasso prevails, he'll be a heavy favorite against Gary Trauner in November. Trauner is unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Should there be an upset, the race could be a little more interesting. As the AP notes, "Wyoming hasn't had a Democratic U.S. representative since 1978, but Trauner came within half a percentage point of beating Republican Rep. Barbara Cubin in 2006."
Wyoming House Primaries
Republican Liz Cheney is expected to win today and in November.
The state's independent Gov. Bill Walker is not on the ballot today. His path to reelection has been complicated by the last-minute entry of former Sen. Mark Begich into the Democratic primary. Former State Sen. Mike Dunleavy is expected to win the Republican nomination. This will set up a competitive three-way battle for governor in November; several polls conducted in June gave Dunleavy a small lead.
Alaska House Primaries
Incumbent Don Young - the longest-serving current member of the House - will be seeking a 24th term this November. Democrats are expected to nominate either Alyse Galvin or Dimitri Shein. Galvin is actually an independent who is able to run in the Democratic primary due to a court ruling earlier this year. (A third Democrat, Carol Hafner, has never been to the state.) Regardless of who emerges, Young will be favored for reelection.
* Based on current Pennsylvania district boundaries, which will change as of January, 2019. This might change the number slightly.
There are 80 days until the November 6th midterm elections. On this page, we present two battleground House maps based on the current ratings of Sabato's Crystal Ball, The Cook Political Report, and Inside Elections. 218 seats are needed to control the House in the 116th Congress that will be seated in January, 2019.
Both maps are interactive - click/tap a map to use it as a starting point to create your own 2018 House forecast.
Consensus Forecast: This first map is based on a calculated average rating of the three forecasters except that the darkest red/blue color is only used for those districts rated safe by all three forecasters. This gives us a broader view of the universe of seats that may be competitive on Election Day. Currently, 321 seats are seen as safe for the incumbent party, with 114 having various levels of competitiveness. Of those, about 95 are currently in GOP hands.
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Most Competitive: This next map categorizes a district as competitive if at least one of the three forecasters gives it a rating of toss-up, tilt, or leans. It is a broader view of the more competitive races than one would get by looking at a single forecast. Absent a real wave election, these are the seats where control is likely to be won or lost. Republicans hold 60 of these 70 districts.
Note that the above narrative is as of August 17th. As the forecasts evolve in the months ahead, the images in this article will update to reflect the then-current outlook.
Before we dive into this week's primaries, an update from last week. On Tuesday, Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer conceded the GOP primary to Secretary of State Kris Kobach. This sets up a general election race between Kobach, Democrat Laura Kelly and independent Greg Orman. Colyer is the first governor to lose a bid for renomination this year.
Four states held primaries on Tuesday. All results can be found via the links above. A recap of each primary follows.
Minnesota
In the race to replace retiring Gov. Mark Dayton, limited polling hinted at one outcome, but the voters went in a different direction. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty lost the GOP primary to County Commissioner Jeff Johnson. Pawlenty has been a critic of President Trump, a positioning that has not worked out well for many Republicans in primaries thus far in 2018. On the Democratic side, Rep. Tim Walz (MN-01) won a three-way race against Erin Murphy and Lori Swanson. Rep. Rick Nolan (MN-08) ran as Swanson's running mate. He becomes the 7th current member of the House to lose an election for another office in 2018. This result shifts the general election outlook slightly in the Democrats favor.
No surprises in the Senate primaries, as incumbent Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith easily won their races. They are both likely to hold their seats in November.
Rep. Keith Ellison won his primary to become Minnesota's Attorney General, overcoming - for now - recent allegations of domestic violence. Ilhan Omar won the Democratic primary in Ellison's 5th district, and should coast to victory in this deep blue district. Omar will become the first Somali American elected to Congress.
Gov. Scott Walker was easily renominated for a third term. He'll meet the state's education chief, Democrat Tony Evers in November. Evers emerged from a field of eight candidates to win the nomination. The general election should be highly competitive.
State Sen. Leah Vukmir got by Kevin Nicholson for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination. She will face Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in November. Baldwin is favored to win a 2nd term.
Speaker Paul Ryan endorsed his former aide, Bryan Steil to replace him in the state's first congressional district. Steil easily won the GOP primary. He'll meet Randy Bryce, aka 'Iron Stache' who defeated Cathy Myers for the Democratic nomination.
Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowski won their respective party nominations to replace termed-out Gov. Dannel Malloy. Stefanowski's win was a bit of an upset, as he bested the party-endorsed candidate, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton.
Matthew Corey won the Republican U.S. Senate nomination. He faces long odds against incumbent Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy.
Gov. Phil Scott was renominated, fending off a challenge from the right that arose after Scott signed gun control legislation earlier this year. On the Democratic side, Christine Hallquist was victorious; she will attempt to become the first transgender governor in U.S. history. Scott is strongly favored to win a 2nd two-year term.
Sen. Bernie Sanders easily won the Democratic nomination, which he is expected to decline to run as an independent. Separately, Sanders told Stephen Colbert on Tuesday that he had not ruled out another presidential bid in 2020. The Republican nomination was not decided as of this writing, but it is of little consequence as Sanders is an overwhelming favorite to win a third term this fall.
Voters go to the polls in four states Tuesday. Select a state for an overview of key races. After the polls close, those same pages will have live results from all contested House, Senate and gubernatorial primaries.
