Jamaalcalypse Now? Live Primary Results from NY, UT, CO, SC

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Here we go again! Just because the presidential nominations are secured — until Democrats come up with a Joe Biden switcheroo plan — doesn’t mean the drama has ended yet in elections. Three states have regularly scheduled primaries today, while South Carolina has a House run-off that could displace a Freedom Caucus figure with a Trump-endorsed challenger. 

But of course, the big story tonight will be in New York, where Jamaal “Fire Pull” Bowman may pay the price for his raging anti-Semitism as well as his other idiocies. Jazz wrote an excellent curtain-raiser this morning on the fight in the Democrats’ NY-16 primary, but that’s not the only drama in the Empire State tonight. 

Once again, we are partnering with our friends at Decision Desk HQ to provide real-time vote results after polls close, which will happen at various times tonight. The widgets below will list those times, and will automatically update. Please note: The House primaries are all available in a single widget for each state; you will need to use the drop-down box to choose the race you want.

We’re able to do this, of course, in large part because of the support of our VIP and VIP Gold members. Become a HotAir VIP member today and use promo code 2024 to receive a 50% discount on your membership.

South Carolina

These polls close earliest today, just as this post goes live on the site. South Carolina is among the most efficient states at counting and reporting, so we should get a good sense where this SC-03 showdown between incumbent Andy Biggs and challenger Mark Burns will end up. Both candidates have endorsed Trump, but Trump has embraced Burns over Biggs, who was one of the driving forces behind Matt Gaetz’ uprising against Kevin McCarthy. Burns edged Biggs 33/29 in a wide field in the primary. South Carolina reports fast, but this race is likely to be a nail-biter going all the way down to the wire, so dig in for a long evening of updates. DDHQ has good intel on the precincts, so when they make a call here, it’s likely money in the bank. 

New York

The Empire State holds its congressional and Senate primaries today; its constitutional offices come up in midterm cycles, so all of the focus will be on national politics. And nothing draws more national attention in New York than the paroxysms of anti-Semitism in the Big Apple, from Columbia to CUNY and finally to The Squad. Jamaal Bowman drew a primary challenge from George Latimer in NY-16, where his Westchester base forms a vast majority of the congressional district, and where Bowman has basically torched his previous support. Latimer drew a big and surprising intervention from Hillary Clinton with an endorsement against a Democrat incumbent, which won’t hurt in Westchester either — and may not hurt much in the Bronx, either. As Jazz notes, what little polling we have from NY-16 puts Latimer up 17-20 points, but turnout matters too. Polls don’t close here until 9 ET, and New York is as bad about counting and reporting as South Carolina is good.

That’s not the only race worth watching. GOP incumbent Claudia Tenney drew a primary challenge from Maria Fratto in NY-24 for some reason and got Paul Gosar’s backing. Trump endorsed Tenney, however, so this could be an interesting race to watch — but mainly for the gap on a Tenney win. The only other interesting race to note is the Democrat primary in NY-01, where former CNN analyst John Avlon is running against Nancy Goroff for the right to challenge first-term GOP incumbent Nick LaLota. Avlon has good name recognition but he’s carpet-bagging into NY-01. Goroff ran against Lee Zeldin in 2020 as the Democrat nominee and lost by ten points. NY-01 is an R+3 district, but with Trump at the top of the ticket in a presidential cycle, it’ll be tough for either Democrat in November.

Oh, and there are Senate primaries for both parties, too. I’m including them for amusement purposes only. Mike Sapraicone is unchallenged in the GOP primary, so the November ballot is set … and Kirsten Gillibrand is almost certain to hold the seat. If she loses in November, Republicans would likely have swept the field. 

Colorado

Polls close here at 9 ET too, but only in an academic sense. Colorado conducts its elections by mail, and only 75% of the ballots will be around to be counted at that point. It’ll take a week or so to count the rest, so some primary results may not materialize until Independence Day. 

The biggest story in today’s House primaries is the special election in CO-04 to replace Ken Buck, the Republican who bailed out of Congress in March. Lauren Boebert plans to run for this seat in the general election but didn’t resign her current seat to contend to fill out the rest of Buck’s term. This is an R+13 district, so Greg Lopez should be able to defeat Democrat Trisha Calvarese. CO-04 will hold its normal primary for November at the same time, where Boebert will clash with a wide field of Republicans — but not Lopez! — and Calvarese will do the same against major fundraiser Ike McCorkle. It’s very possible that the top two finishers in the special election won’t even make it onto the November ballot.

Meanwhile, two Republicans will vie for Boebert’s seat in CO-03. That’s an R+7 district, but Boebert barely held it in 2022. The more moderate Jeff Hurd is favored to win this race over conservative state rep Ron Hanks, but keep an eye on this one. For a week, if necessary.

Utah

Everything’s up for grabs in Utah tonight, where the polls will close at 10 ET … but again, Utah does most of its voting by mail. (In-person voting also takes place in Utah.) Final results may be two weeks out, hopefully raising the question again why mail-in voting exists at all. 

Anyway. Utah has two big stories in this election — its gubernatorial election, where incumbent Spencer Cox faces off a GOP challenger, and the big proxy fight in the GOP Senate campaign between Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, and Cox. Let’s start in the Senate, where Rep. John Curtis got Romney’s endorsement and will run against Trent Staggs, who got endorsements from Trump, Rand Paul, and the state GOP. Former Utah House speaker got Cox’s endorsement and has outspent the other two candidates. However, this may not be much of a contest; polling at the moment shows Curtis up by either 18 points (Deseret News/Hinckley) or 20 points (Noble Predictive Insights). 

The gubernatorial race will be more interesting, but perhaps not much more. Phil Lyman may have won the GOP convention endorsement, but Cox is up by double digits in both of the above-linked polls in the last couple of weeks. The Noble poll only has Cox up 55/42, so Lyman has gained strength, but Cox has raised more than five times as much cash and will likely have a strong GOTV effort going. 

Among the House primary races, keep an eye on the GOP’s UT-01. Incumbent Blake Moore supported the J6 committee and Liz Cheney, while challenger Paul Miller is more skeptical of both. Moore still bested Miller at the convention, though, and his AIPAC endorsement may play more strongly after months of rabid anti-Semitism in Academia and within the elite DC cliques.