It’s the day after another Primary Day, and we are still waiting on final results from the major races in California. But contests in other states, from New Jersey to Montana, gave us hints about where the Democratic Party is headed — and set the stage for some major fights to come this fall.
While we wait for more results to come in, here are six big political questions we have coming out of last night’s primaries:
Who’s going to be California’s next governor?
The outcome of the highest-profile race held on Tuesday, the primary election to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, remains unclear, with hundreds of thousands of ballots yet to be counted.
The top two finishers in the nonpartisan primary will advance to the general election in November.
Among the votes that have been tallied, Steve Hilton, a Trump-backed Republican, is leading two Democrats, Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer. Of the three, Steyer appears to have the narrowest path to advance to the general election, but his supporters are holding out hope that uncounted mail-in ballots will lift him into the top two.
Many Democrats waited until the last minute to cast ballots by mail, which could mean that Hilton’s strength in the results so far is a so-called red mirage. Steyer told supporters that he was “going to give democracy time to work.”
The California race has drawn an unusual field.
Becerra is a former Biden administration official who has drawn support from moderates. The London-born Hilton is a former Fox News host who once served in the government of Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain. Steyer is a billionaire who says he wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and has spent more than $200 million on his own campaign.
What does Trump’s setback in Iowa mean?
Lately, President Trump’s endorsement has looked like the ultimate weapon in Republican primaries, powering a series of candidates to victory — sometimes over long-established incumbents.
Trump’s picks helped bring down Senator Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, followed by Representative Thomas Massie in Kentucky and then Senator John Cornyn in Texas.
But the president’s remarkable winning streak came to a screeching halt on Tuesday in Iowa, where Republican primary voters rejected his choice in the governor’s race, Representative Randy Feenstra, and nominated a first-time candidate named Zach Lahn instead.
It may be too soon to say whether the result signals a shift in the political winds in the Republican Party. Trump endorsed Feenstra just a few days before the primary. And the president’s most striking endorsement successes have come in some of the country’s most conservative states.
Meanwhile, another result in Iowa, in the Senate primary, had some Democrats hopeful that their path back to a Senate majority was widening …
Is Iowa really in play?
In many ways, Iowa — the state that once set Barack Obama on the path to the White House — has come to symbolize Democratic decline in the heartland. Republicans now control the entire congressional delegation, the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the State Legislature, and Trump won the state three times.
But national Democrats feel increasingly optimistic about their chances there, especially after Josh Turek, a Paralympic gold medalist and state legislator, won the Senate primary last night. He will face Representative Ashley Hinson in the general election.
Democrats are also giddy about Rob Sand, the Democratic candidate for governor who is making Republicans sweat. He will face Lahn in the general election.
Iowa is still a very tough state for Democrats, especially in federal races. But as the state struggles under Trump’s economic policies, Iowa may become more competitive this year.
Will a Republican advance in Los Angeles?
Spencer Pratt, a Republican reality TV star whose house burned down in the Palisades fire, has taken on Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles with a campaign attacking her leadership during the wildfires last year.
He has seemed to find at least some success with that message in a deep-blue city: Bass, a Democrat, is leading in incomplete results, but she became the city’s first sitting mayor since 2005 to fail to earn the 50 percent of votes required to avoid a runoff. Still, it is unclear if Pratt or Nithya Raman, a progressive city councilwoman, will advance.
Where is Tom Kean?
Our colleague Tracey Tully has been all over the case of the missing congressman.
Representative Thomas Kean Jr., a Republican from New Jersey, has not been seen publicly in nearly three months, she wrote, and Primary Day was no exception. In fact, he suggested in a statement yesterday, it might be several more weeks before he is healthy enough to return to public life.
“At that time,” he wrote, “I will be completely transparent as to the nature of my medical condition.”
We still have more questions than answers, but we do now know who his opponent will be as he seeks re-election in a battleground House district. Rebecca Bennett, a retired Navy helicopter pilot, won the Democratic nomination.
Which wing of the Democratic Party can claim momentum?
Spoiler alert: Both establishment Democrats and progressives will find reasons for hope.
In Iowa, Turek, who won twice in a conservative-leaning statehouse district, beat out the left-leaning Zach Wahls, a state legislator from a deep-blue district who, as our colleague Lisa Lerer noted, tried to “transform the race into a proxy battle over frustrations with national Democratic leadership and a desire for generational change.”
But in Montana, Sam Forstag, a progressive former smokejumper and union leader, defeated a former gun company executive in a competitive House primary.
And in a left-leaning congressional district in New Jersey, Adam Hamawy, who has said that he would be likely to join the progressive “squad,” beat out a large field of Democrats.
For more on the results still arriving in California and other states, follow our live coverage. See you on Friday!
