Voters in four states will head to the polls for the May 21 primaries, while a special election to the US House will be held in California.
Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, and Oregon have their primaries on Tuesday. Two of those states are holding presidential primaries, but with the Biden and Trump campaigns squarely focused on the general election for now, and the slim number of electoral votes it will take to decide it, the real focus should turn to state and local races.
Key Results: May 21 Primary Elections
California
CA-20 Special: Assemblyman Vince Fong (R) has won the special election for Kevin McCarthy’s old seat. He defeated fellow Republican Mike Boudreaux by a margin of 60 to 40 percent. These two will square off again in the November general election.
Georgia
Fulton County District Attorney: Fani Willis wins Democratic primary over Christian Wise Smith, 87 to 13 percent.
Georgia Supreme Court: Conservative justice Andrew Pinson wins over John Barrow, 55 to 45 percent.
GA-02: The Republican primary will head to a runoff between Wayne Johnson (44%) and Chuck Hand (32%).
GA-03: Brian Jack leads Republican primary over Mike Dugan, 47 to 25 percent, but the contest will likely head to a runoff.
GA-06: Lucy McBath easily wins Democratic primary in her new district with 85 percent of the vote.
GA-13: Incumbent David Scott wins the Democratic primary with 57 percent of the vote; the next-closest candidate had 12 percent.
Idaho
ID-02: Mike Simpson wins the Republican primary over Scott Cleveland, 56 to 35 percent.
Kentucky
KY-06: The Democratic primary is too close to call, with Randy Cravens slightly ahead of Todd Kelly. Shauna Rudd is in third place, about two points behind the leader. (26% – 25.4% – 24.1%)
HD-2: Incumbent Richard Heath appears to have lost the Republican primary to Kimberly Holloway by a 52-48 percent margin.
HD-45: Incumbent Republican Killian Timoney lost renomination in a landslide thanks to a primary challenge from his right by Thomas Jefferson; the results were 72 to 28 percent.
Oregon
Secretary of State: Tobias Read won the Democratic primary in a landslide over James Manning, 71 to 21 percent. Read carried every county, based on about three-quarters of the vote counted.
Attorney General: Dan Rayfield (D) and Will Lathrop (R) each easily won their respective primaries.
Multnomah County District Attorney: Nathan Vasquez is on the verge of unseating incumbent Mike Schmidt, who trails 56 to 44 percent.
OR-03: Maxine Dexter won the Democratic primary over Susheela Jayapal, 51 to 29 percent. Eddy Morales finished third on 14 percent, as of the latest count.
OR-05: Janelle Bynum won the Democratic primary, defeating Jamie McLeod Skinner by a margin of 69 to 31 percent.
Georgia May 21 Primaries & Georgia Supreme Court General Election
There are no notable statewide primaries in Georgia, as both Senate seats are idle, there are no state constitutional elections, and the state voted for its presidential nominees in March. Some of Georgia’s primary battles will be at the US House and state legislative levels, but there is also a key general election for the Georgia Supreme Court. Should no candidate reach a simple majority of votes in any race here, a runoff will be held on June 18.
Four Supreme Court seats are up for election in Georgia. In three of them, the incumbents (all of which are officially non-partisan) are unopposed. However, in the fourth seat, Justice Andrew Pinson is running against John Barrow, a former Democratic congressman. Pinson is a conservative who clerked for Clarence Thomas at one time and served as the state’s solicitor general, while Barrow is a Harvard Law-educated attorney who served for a decade in the US House. As one might expect, this election campaign has been dominated by abortion, giving Barrow a wedge issue in a state that has shown some swing tendencies over the last decade. The election will not change the theoretical partisan makeup of the court, which is dominated by Republican appointees.
In GA-02, a field of four Republicans face off to take on long-time Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop of Albany. None are in elected office at present, but several have run for office in the past. Among the GOP candidates is Chuck Hand, a Trump supporter who was convicted in the wake of January 6th activities at the Capitol.
Five Republicans are also contending for GA-03, a safe Republican seat which is open due to the retirement of Rep. Drew Ferguson (R). Brian Jack, who used to work in Trump’s White House, secured the former president’s endorsement as he hopes to edge out the field and perhaps avoid a runoff. Among the contenders facing him is Mike Dugan, a former state senator for the 30th District and the former majority leader of that body.
There has been a district-swap among incumbents in 2024. Rich McCormick (R-6th) and Lucy McBath (D-7th) are going to run in each other’s old districts this year. McBath will face a Democratic primary challenge in GA-06, while McCormick will not on the GOP side in the more conservative GA-07. Georgia’s House map was redrawn due to court order between the previous election and now, and McCormick fled the more Democratic 6th District for an easier time in the 7th.
Finally, after the redistricting shake-up, Rep David Scott (D) is facing a significant primary challenge in GA-13. Scott is one of seven Democrats running in this heavily-Democratic seat.
Idaho Primary
There is very little going on in the Idaho Primary on May 21. Idaho is a solid-red state, and none of its statewide offices are up for election this time. The only remotely interesting race at the federal level is in ID-02, where Rep. Mike Simpson (R) faces two intraparty challengers. He is otherwise expected to win renomination.
Most state legislative primaries in Idaho this year feature either two candidates or someone running unopposed. Republicans have firm control of both houses of the legislature.
Kentucky Primary
Kentucky is another state that has its primary on May 21, and like most of these other states, it has no statewide primaries aside from the essentially-decided presidential nominations. The real action here is at the state level; despite the governor and statewide officers being elected in odd years, the General Assembly elects its members in even years.
None of Kentucky’s six congressional districts are considered competitive in the November election. The closest thing to it is likely Lexington-based KY-06, represented by Rep. Andy Barr (R), which has a current Cook PVI rating of R+9. Five Democrats will face off in the primary, but Barr will be favored in the November election regardless.
Oregon Primary
Oregon is the only state with May 21 primaries where there are statewide offices at stake. Voters will pick their candidates for Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and Attorney General. Since Oregon has no Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary of State is next-in-line to the governorship unless they were appointed to office.
Such is the case for the appointed incumbent secretary, LaVonne Griffin-Valade (D), who is not seeking a full term. The Democratic primary to replace her has drawn a crowd. State Treasurer Tobias Read and State Sen. James Manning are two of the Democratic headliners of the primary ticket. Three Republicans are also running for the seat, but it will be an uphill battle for whomever wins: Just two Republicans have won any statewide elections in Oregon in the 21st Century so far. However, one of them was for Secretary of State.
OR-03 has also drawn a large Democratic field, as long-time Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer is standing down in 2024 from his Portland-based district. The winner of the Democratic primary is virtually guaranteed of victory in November. This district and its previous iterations have been in Democratic hands for the past 70 years, and Portland is considered one of America’s most progressive cities.
Also pay close attention to the OR-05 Democratic primary. The Democrats felt they let this race get away in 2022, with Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R) eking out victory in this new swing seat. This district will be a top target in 2024. Hoping to take the party banner into the election will be Janelle Bynum and Jamie McLeod-Skinner. The former is a state representative, while the latter lost to Chavez-DeRemer in 2022 by about two points, after having defeated incumbent Rep. Kurt Schrader in the Democratic primary. Whomever wins will face a tough fight in November, and OR-05 will be one of the seats on which the House majority hinges.
California-20 Special Election
There will be a special election in CA-20 on Tuesday, where local voters will replace Kevin McCarthy (R), the former House speaker who left Congress after the motion to vacate the chair. The primary took place in March, and since California employs the top-two system, the pair of highest-finishing candidates of any party advance to the general election. In CA-20, both of them were Republicans, so the only competition here is within one party.
Mike Boudreaux and Vince Fong are the candidates in both the May special and November general election, meaning that this campaign will not end with Tuesday’s vote. Boudreaux is the Tulare County sheriff, while Fong is a state assemblyman for AD-32. Fong finished first in the primary with 42 percent of the vote, while Boudreaux narrowly bested Democrat Marisa Wood for second place.
