WASHINGTON \u2014 The landscape for congressional races this November began taking shape Tuesday, as voters in five Super Tuesday states chose their nominees for House and Senate races.<\/p>\n
On a night where the outcomes in the presidential primaries felt largely predetermined \u2014 former President Donald Trump\u2019s near sweep led to rival Nikki Haley\u2019s withdrawal from the race on Wednesday and got Trump the endorsement<\/a> of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell \u2014 the results in primaries for congressional races were less so.<\/p>\n In Alabama, Republican voters picked a House Freedom Caucus member over a member of the Appropriations Committee in a rare member-vs.-member primary. Other incumbents beat primary challengers, although Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, who bucked the GOP on gun legislation after a school shooting in his district, must now compete in a May 28 runoff because he didn\u2019t clear a 50% threshold on Tuesday.<\/p>\n While votes were still being counted in some states on Wednesday, especially in open seats with Solid Democratic ratings in the fall, Republicans appeared to get their preferred candidates in some races that will determine which party wins control of the House in November. But other runoffs could also hone the sharp edges that now divide the House GOP conference.<\/p>\n Senate Democrats saw results that could help them save their resources for November. Texas Rep. Colin Allred won with enough support to avoid a runoff and can start focusing solely on GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in what his party hopes will be a top-tier Senate race. In California, the party will avoid a costly general election featuring two Democrats that could have pulled outside resources away from states where Democrats are on defense, although that also meant two progressive House members were looking at the end of their tenure in the House.<\/p>\n Here are five takeaways from Tuesday night.<\/p>\n The field of competitive House seats is small, so Laurie Buckhout\u2019s primary win in North Carolina\u2019s 1st District is a coup for the GOP campaign arm, which considers Democratic Rep. Don Davis a top target. Buckhout had backing from the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC with ties to House GOP leadership, in her race against Sandy Smith, who lost to Davis two years ago and was dogged by allegations of domestic abuse, which she denied.<\/p>\n \u201cLaurie\u2019s victory makes this race a top pickup opportunity for Republicans, and we look forward to ensuring she makes Don Davis a one-term congressman and flips this seat red in November,\u201d Dan Conston, CLF\u2019s president, said in a statement.<\/p>\n After redistricting, the 1st District is set to be North Carolina\u2019s sole competitive House race this year, and gives Republicans a chance to flip as many as four seats in the state. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race as a Toss-up.<\/p>\n Democrats signaled they\u2019ll attack Buckhout for only recently moving to the district.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter spending a decade in Virginia after retiring from military service, she moved to North Carolina to run for office. Laurie is an anti-abortion extremist, insurrection apologist, and transplant opportunist only looking out for herself,\u201d DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene said in a statement.<\/p>\n CLF\u2019s spending also may have paid off in California, where the super PAC spent $880,000 to support Rep. David Valadao, who was leading in the all-party primary in the 22nd District with 31% of the vote counted on Wednesday afternoon. Democrat Rudy Salas, who lost to Valadao in 2022 and was backed by CLF\u2019s counterpart, House Majority PAC, was running second, which would set up a rematch this fall if those results stand.<\/p>\n On the Senate side, Democrats will avoid messy and expensive intra-party battles in Texas and California. Allred, the Dallas Democrat who is taking on Cruz, had to dip into his campaign war chest to dispatch state Sen. Roland Gutierrez and seven other Democrats in the primary, but he easily avoided a runoff. <\/p>\n In California, Rep. Adam B. Schiff angered fellow Democratic Rep. Katie Porter by running ads that boosted their Republican rival, former Major League Baseball player Steve Garvey. But the gambit paid off: Schiff and Garvey came in first and second and will face one another in November. Last year, it appeared the race was setting up to be a battle between Schiff and Porter that would attract millions of donor dollars but in the end not change the partisan balance in the Senate. Porter and her fellow Democrat in the House, Rep. Barbara Lee, did not make the final ballot and will be out of Congress when their current terms end in January.<\/p>\n In California, progressives lost two standard-bearers. Porter is one of the left\u2019s highest-profile members of Congress and Lee has been advocating for liberal values in the House since 1999. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced a year ago she was giving up her safe blue House seat for the chance to become Houston\u2019s mayor. But after she lost that race, she pivoted back to Congress, declaring in December that she would seek reelection. Her former intern, attorney Amanda Edwards, was already running and had a decisive fundraising advantage. But Jackson Lee easily won Tuesday\u2019s primary.<\/p>\n Arkansas Rep. Steve Womack beat back a Republican primary challenge from state Sen. Clint Penzo, who got into the race after Womack voted against Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan\u2019s bid to be House speaker in October. Womack won by about 8 percentage points, a much closer margin than other primary challenges Womack has faced during his seven terms in the House.<\/p>\n Two House colleagues are set to face off for North Carolina\u2019s attorney general. Republican Dan Bishop was unopposed in his primary Tuesday, while Jeff Jackson won the Democratic primary.<\/p>\n The fields in several key House races remain unsettled and will be decided by runoff elections.<\/p>\n In Texas\u2019 23rd District, Gonzales\u2019 chances of a third term rely on winning a runoff in May against YouTube Second Amendment activist Brandon Herrera. Gonzales topped the five-candidate field with 45% to Herrera\u2019s 25% in ongoing tallies on Wednesday.<\/p>\n And in Texas\u2019 12th District, state Rep. Craig Goldman, chairman of the Republican caucus in the state House, will meet in a runoff against investor John O\u2019Shea, who was endorsed by state Attorney General Ken Paxton. They finished ahead of three rivals in the battle for the Republican nomination to the seat left open by Rep. Kay Granger\u2019s retirement.<\/p>\n In North Carolina\u2019s redrawn 6th District, Addison McDowell, a lobbyist backed by Trump, advanced to a May 14 runoff against former Rep. Mark Walker. Walker, a former three-term congressman who lost a Senate primary in 2022, faced nearly $1 million in opposition spending by the Club for Growth, which backed fourth-place finisher Bo Hines in the race.<\/p>\n Walker said<\/a> in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that he hoped McDowell would debate him ahead of the runoff.<\/p>\n At least one other House race in the Tar Heel State was set to advance to a runoff. Republican attorney Kelly Daughtry won the most votes in the open 13th District, capturing 27% while former federal prosecutor Brad Knott finished second with 19%. The AP made the call for Knott on Wednesday afternoon. <\/p>\n In the 8th District, Republican Mark Harris, who won a 2018 House race that was never certified and was ordered to be run over again<\/a>, just cleared the 30% threshold to avoid a runoff in a six-candidate primary and won the nomination for what is now Bishop\u2019s seat. The Associated Press called the race on Wednesday afternoon. <\/p>\n In Texas, Brandon Gill, who founded a conservative news outlet and helped his father-in-law, right-wing commentator Dinesh D\u2019Souza, make \u201c2000 Mules,\u201d a film that promotes election conspiracies, won the nomination in the 22nd District to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Michael C. Burgess in a Dallas-area district. He edged out 10 other Republicans, including a state legislator and former congressman\u2019s son, to win the GOP nomination for the safe red seat.<\/p>\n Likewise in Alabama, Rep. Barry Moore emphasized his House Freedom Caucus bonafides in his 3-point win over fellow GOP Rep. Jerry Carl. That included Moore campaigning with Jordan, a co-founder of the group, and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former member and Trump ally. In a bright red district, both ran to the right, but that may have been more natural for Moore, who touted his opposition to funding for Ukraine, suggesting in one ad that \u201cif we just put America first, we could have the roads and bridges we need.\u201d <\/p>\n An Auburn University at Montgomery poll<\/a> of likely Alabama Republican voters in the district from late February found that 55% of respondents thought the U.S. had provided \u201ctoo much support\u201d to Ukraine and 15% said the U.S. hadn\u2019t provided enough. Of those who said the U.S. had provided too much support, 43% said they supported Moore, while 37% said they supported Carl. Those who said the U.S. had provided about the right amount of support for Ukraine or not enough were more likely to support Carl.<\/p>\n Some big-spending California candidates saw their dreams stall Tuesday night. In the 49th District, Republican businesswoman Margarita Wilkinson invested nearly $1.5 million of her own money in her bid to secure one of two spots on the November ballot. But with 59% of the vote counted at 4:12 a.m., she was running third behind fellow Republican Matt Gunderson \u2013 who put in $700,000 of his money \u2013 and Democratic Rep. Mike Levin.<\/p>\n In the open 30th District, a deep blue seat currently held by Schiff, \u201cBoy Meets World\u201d actor Ben Savage put more than $1.3 million of his own money into the race as loans and contributions. But tallies of an estimated 61% of the vote Wednesday showed Savage, a Democrat, was running seventh in the field of 15 candidates with just 4%. He trailed the two front-runners, Democrat Laura Friedman and Republican Alex Balekian.<\/p>\n In Northern California, Democrat Peter Dixon, the co-founder of a cybersecurity company, put $1.4 million of his own money into the race to succeed retiring Rep. Anna G. Eshoo. But Dixon lagged behind former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, with 51% of the votes counted at 5:24 a.m.<\/p>\n Haley wasn\u2019t the only candidate to suspend her campaign after Super Tuesday. Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who gave up a safe House seat and a spot as co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee to run for president, ended his campaign Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n Phillips said he ran for president to be an alternative to Trump and that Americans \u201cwere demanding an alternative, and democracy demands options.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is clear that alternative is not me. And it is clear that Joe Biden is OUR candidate and OUR opportunity to demonstrate what type of country America is and intends to be,\u201d he said on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n While voters say they are concerned about Biden\u2019s age, Phillips\u2019 White House campaign failed to gain traction. That included in his home state, where he took less than 8% of the vote on Tuesday, behind Biden and \u201cUncommitted,\u201d which got nearly 27,000 more votes than he did.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\nHappy leaders<\/h3>\n
What happened to incumbents?<\/h3>\n
Runoffs ahead<\/h3>\n
MAGA might<\/h3>\n
Money doesn\u2019t buy happiness<\/h3>\n
Not \u2018Minnesota nice\u2019 for Phillips<\/h3>\n