At the top of the July 2024 election calendar are two major European powers electing new legislatures.
The United Kingdom and France are both in the midst of general election campaigns which will wrap up this month. In fact, both will conclude within the first seven days of July. As for the rest, where else will we see big elections this month?
July 2024 Election Calendar: United Kingdom (July 4)
It is expected that on 4 July, the United Kingdom will change governments for the first time in 14 years. The ruling Conservative Party is well behind in the opinion polls, and may be on track for their lowest seat total ever since the party was founded in 1834. Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, may well be the new British prime minister by the first weekend in July.
With how dreadful the polling has been for the Tories over the last year or two, it is not so much a question of if they will lose, but by how much. Labour winning fewer than 400 seats would be a surprise at this stage, but how low will the Conservatives go? Some survey outfits see them managing less than 100 seats, which would be an historic disaster for a party which has governed Britain for many of the past 190 years.
Our final election predictions are expected around 2 July, but you can see the current state here.
France, Legislative 2nd Round (July 7)
The first round of France’s National Assembly elections took place on 30 June, and a week later, a decisive second round will be held. All 577 members will be elected by this runoff round. As we went into in the French election preview, the second round’s runoffs may not be two-candidate races. Any candidate who scores at least 12.5 percent of the total enrolled electorate’s vote can advance. On low turnout, this would be very hard to do for a third-place candidate, but the first round had a strong 67 percent turnout.
Final results are still processing on 1 July, but the far-right bloc led by the National Rally is at about 33 percent. The left-wing bloc is at about 28 percent. Meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron’s bloc, Ensemble, is down to about 20 percent.
The far-right is in position to be the largest party, but we have just a few days to find out if other parties will unite to try to stop them. The question will be if they win enough seats to scrape together a majority; at this point, that is not clear or certain.
July 2024 Election Calendar: Other Notable Elections
Arizona Primary (July 30)
July is a quiet month in terms of elections around the world, except for the two big ones. One of the only other notable polls taking place is the Arizona primary on the 30th. The US Senate race is essentially known, but there is still a GOP primary between Kari Lake, 2022 governor nominee, and Mark Lamb, the sheriff of Pinal County. A third candidate, Beth Reye, is also in the running.
Primaries in the 1st, 3rd, and 8th Districts will also be worth watching. AZ-01 was a close call for David Schweikert (R) last time, and the Democrats have six candidates in the race trying to beat him. In AZ-03, three Democrats are running to try to succeed Ruben Gallego (D) in this very blue seat as Gallego runs for Senate. Finally, in AZ-08, Debbie Lesko (R) is running for local office, and there are six GOP candidates in the race to replace her. Among them are ex-Rep. Trent Franks, 2022 Senate nominee Blake Masters, 2022 attorney general nominee Abe Hamadeh, and State House speaker Ben Toma.
