DDHQ Morning News Spotlight: Election Day in Four States, Trump and Progressives Closely Watch How Their Preferred Candidates Will Fair

Welcome to this morning’s Decision Desk HQ Morning News Spotlight on Elections Daily as part of the Decision Desk HQ News Network.

The midterm primary season continues today with Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia plus the primary runoffs in Texas. Be sure to check out our preview looking at redistricting, important races to follow, and key counties to watch tonight. As always, you can find the most up-to-the-minute election results at results.decisiondeskHQ.com.

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Morning Headlines

• Today is Election Day in four states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Texas. Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia are holding the first round of their primaries today, where candidates must clear a 50% threshold in order to win their party’s nomination for the general election. In Texas, candidates are competing in run-off elections, following up on instances where no candidate reached 50% of the vote in Texas’ March 1st primary. You can follow results at results.decisiondeskhq.com, starting at 7 pm ET when polls close in Georgia.
• Republican Primaries tonight are critical for Donald Trump, who is reeling after losses in the Idaho Governor and NC-11 primaries last Tuesday. Trump will be closely watching the GOP Georgia Governor and Secretary of State primaries tonight, where his endorsed candidates (David Perdue and Jody Hice) hope to defeat incumbents Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, respectively. Arkansas Senator John Boozman and Alabama Governor Kay Ivey hope to defeat even Trumpier challengers tonight, and Marjorie Taylor Greene faces various challengers from the center in her GA-14 Primary.
• Democrats will most closely watch the third showdown between Blue Dog Henry Cuellar and progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros in TX-28 tonight. Cuellar, the final pro-life Democrat left in Congress, holds endorsements from establishment figures Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn, while Cisneros is supported by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The district stretches from the San Antonio metro area in Bexar County (where Cisneros runs well) to the Rio Grande Valley (where Cuellar performs well). Democratic Congresswomen Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bourdeaux are also double-bunked in GA-06. Bourdeaux is also part of the moderate Democratic Blue Dog Caucus, which could potentially see its ranks further shrunk with poor results tonight.
• Republican and Democratic Primaries also take place tonight for the Special Election in MN-01, a race to replace the recently deceased Republican Jim Hagedorn. Trump carried the old and new versions of this district by considerable margins, and both the Special Election and General Election this fall should be safe Republican wins. The primary is a three-way race between Jennifer Carnihan (Hagedorn’s widow), Brad Finstad (a candidate with considerable support from Minnesota’s GOP establishment), and Jeremy Munson (an anti-establishment fiscal and foreign policy hawk endorsed by Ted Cruz and Rand Paul). MN-01 spans the Southern portion of Minnesota, including Rochester and Mankato.
• The Michigan Bureau of Elections determined that two frontrunners for the Michigan GOP Governor Nomination, James Craig and Perry Johnson, did not submit enough valid signatures to make the primary ballot this summer. James and Johnson submitted thousands of signatures that the Bureau of Elections determined to be clear forgeries, ostensibly because the two candidates used the same phony firm to collect signatures. This clears the way for Tudor Dixon to become the GOP’s nominee for Governor in Michigan, who is endorsed by the DeVos family and notably claims that Trump won the state in 2020.
• Progressive Alessandra Biaggi has chosen to run against DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Mahoney in NY-17 instead of running in the open NY-03 Primary, attacking Mahoney for his decision to leave NY-18 in order to run for re-election on safer turf in 2022. Biaggi will attack Mahoney from the left and accuse him of carpetbagging for personal gain. This means Democrats will need to find a nominee in NY-03, a pivotal Biden+7 district, with Incumbent Representative Thomas Suozzi launching a long-shot campaign for governor.

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