Your Guide to the August 6 Primaries
Both parties are settling divisive primaries for congressional and legislative seats—but it’s a trio of sheriff races that headlines our Bolts guide.
The presidential race is now nearly locked-in, but down ballot primaries continue to chug along. Next up: Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington hold their elections on Tuesday.
Here’s your Bolts guide to two dozen critical elections taking place in each state on Aug. 6.
Several races for county sheriff headline this election day. Two far-right sheriffs who pursued years-long investigations into 2020 election results face primary opponents in rural Michigan and suburban Kansas. In Ann Arbor, meanwhile, a candidate is proposing to take the sheriff’s department in an unusually progressive direction.
Also on the menu, Republicans will once again decide whether to strengthen the ultraconservative faction in Congress; in one Washington district, the result may shape the GOP’s odds of flipping the seat in November. Democrats have a high-profile primary in St. Louis, where Squad member Cori Bush battles for a third term while facing attacks for her criticism of the war in Gaza.
Ideological fault lines abound in legislative races as well. A Kansas Democrat who backed restrictions on trans rights faces challengers who fault him for his votes. Several conservative Republican lawmakers in Kansas and Missouri face more moderate opponents.
Be sure to return to this page on election night: We’ll update this page with results. And note that this guide is not exhaustive; it is Bolts’ selection of important races to monitor.
Sign up and stay up-to-date
Support us
Bolts is a non-profit newsroom that relies on donations, and it takes resources to produce this work. If you appreciate our value, become a monthly donor or make a contribution.
Federal
| Jump to: U.S. Senate, U.S. House |
U.S. Senate
| Result | |
|---|---|
| Michigan (GOP primary) Two former members of Congress are fighting it out for the GOP nomination in one of the nation’s top Senate races. Donald Trump has endorsed Mike Rogers, and that’s often enough in a Republican primary, but Rogers still faces Justin Amash, who drew a national profile during his decade in Congress for his libertarian positions—and ultimately for calling for Trump’s impeachment and quitting the GOP in 2019. (In their race, Democrats have largely coalesced around U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin.) | Rogers |
| Missouri (GOP primary) Republican Josh Hawley is favored to win in his first reelection race, but several Democrats are hoping they can trip him up. Lucas Kunce, a former U.S. Marine who narrowly lost the Democratic nomination for Senate two years ago, faces state Senator Karla May and December Harmon, a community activist. (The biggest moment in the race may have come when Wesley Bell, the St. Louis County prosecutor, decided to drop out and challenge Representative Cori Bush instead.) | Kunce |
U.S. House
| KS-02 (GOP primary) As a former Republican nominee for governor, Derek Schmidt had name recognition going for him when he announced he would run for this open House seat; Trump’s endorsement solidified his frontrunner status. Still, Jeff Kahrs, a staffer with the retiring GOP incumbent, is trying to outflank him to his right with the support of Sam Brownback, the archconservative former governor. | Schmidt |
| MO-01 (Dem primary) U.S. Representative Cori Bush, a pastor and activist who was elected to the U.S. House in 2020 and joined the Congressional Squad, faces a challenge from Wesley Bell, the prosecutor of St. Louis County. Bush’s condemnation of Israel’s war on Gaza has been one of the major splits in the race, with a Super PAC affiliated to AIPAC spending millions to defeat her. | Bell |
| MO-03 (GOP primary) This winner of this crowded open race will help decide the strength of the far-right faction within the GOP caucus next year. Ultraconservative forces, from the Freedom Caucus to Trump, have rallied around Bob Onder, a former state senator. Retiring incumbent Blaine Luetkemeyer, meanwhile, is supporting another former state senator, Kurt Schaefer. | Onder |
| WA-03 (all-party primary) When ultraconservative Republican Joe Kent made it to the general election two years ago, it helped Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez score an upset victory and flip the seat in the fall. Now Kent is mounting a repeat bid and has coalesced establishment support, but fellow Republican Leslie Lewallen is making the case that she’d come across better with the general election electorate. Lewallen has unequivocally said that Biden won the 2020 election, for instance, while Kent has received blowback for trafficking in election conspiracies. | Gluesenkamp Perez vs. Kent |
| WA-05 (all-party primary) With eleven candidates seeking to grab one of the two November spots in this race to replace a retiring GOP incumbent, the primary is unpredictable. Crosscut reports that several GOP candidates in this conservative district have embraced false election conspiracies, insisting at a recent forum that President Biden did not win the 2020 election. | Baumgartner vs Conroy |
Statewide
| Jump to: Referendum, Court, Governor, Other |
Referendums
| Result | |
|---|---|
| Missouri | Amendment 4 Kansas City is the only city in Missouri that does not control its own police force, and Republicans proposed a statewide measure that would raise the minimum level of funding the city has to allocate to policing. | Yes |
| Missouri | Amendment 1 With the goal of alleviating a child care shortage, this constitutional amendment would make it possible for the state to exempt child care providers from property taxes. | No |
Supreme court
| Washington state (all-party primary) An open seat on this supreme court has drawn a field of candidates—only two of whom will move to the general election. Attorney Sal Mungia is the favorite, having drawn a staggering amount of endorsements, including the state’s governor and eight of its justices. Also in the running: Candidate Dave Larson has criticized the current court for issuing decisions that are too progressive and said he wants to help “take back the judiciary.” | Mungia vs Larson |
| Michigan and Missouri also have supreme court races this year—but they will all only be decided in November. See Bolts’ guide to all state supreme court races this year for more information. | |
Governor
| Missouri (GOP primary) Whoever wins the Republican nomination to replace term-limited governor Mike Parson is likely to be very aligned with Trump’s politics: The former president in late July endorsed all three of the most viable candidates in the race: Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, State Senator Bill Eigel, and Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe. | Kehoe |
| Missouri (Dem primary) Democrats have struggled to win statewide elections in Missouri over the last decade, but the governor’s race is open this year. Crystal Quade, the House Minority Leader, has coalesced support from prominent Democrats but one poll showed a tight race against businessman Mike Hamra. | Quade |
| Washington (all-party primary) Governor Jay Inslee is retiring, and the all-party primary will decide which two candidates move on to the November general election. Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, and former U.S. Representative Dave Reichert, a Republican, are the frontrunners according to public polling, but conservative figures in the state are pushing the candidacy of Semi Bird. | Ferguson vs. Reichert |
Other statewide offices
| Missouri | Secretary of state (GOP primary) With the departure of the GOP incumbent, a crowded field of Republicans are fighting to replace him, with the winner of this primary favored in the general election in this red state. To varying degrees, the frontrunners have echoed unfounded fears about rampant fraud—one candidate said in announcing his candidacy that he had stood up to “liberals” trying to “steal our elections”—in making the case for major changes like ending the use of electronic voting machines. | Hoskins |
| Washington | Attorney general (all-party primary) Three candidates are vying for the two general election spots in this open race. With Pete Serrano in a strong position to grab one of the spots as the only Republican in the race, the major question in the primary is which of the two Democrats will join him. Manka Dhingra, a state senator and former prosecutor, and Nicholas Brown, a former U.S. Attorney, have each vowed to be at the frontlines in suing the Trump administration should Trump win a second term. The pair have split the endorsements of their party’s most prominent figures—the governor and secretary of state have each endorsed one of them, for instance. | Serrano vs Brown |
| Washington | Superintendent of public instruction (all-party primary) The four-way election to oversee Washington’s education system is technically nonpartisan, but Democrats have rallied around incumbent Chris Reykdal while the state GOP has endorsed David Olson; also in the running are libertarian John Patterson Blair and the well-funded Reid Saaris, who ran an education nonprofit. (The Aug. 6 primary will decide who grabs the two general election spots.) The candidates differ starkly on whether to expand school vouchers and charter schools, as well as on inclusionary policies toward trans students. | Reykdal vs. Olson |
State and Local
Sheriffs
| Result | |
|---|---|
| Michigan | Barry County (GOP primary) Dar Leaf, a far-right sheriff who has been one of the nation’s most aggressive public officials in investigating claims of voter fraud in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, is running for reelection against opponents who want to stop talking about election conspiracies, Bolts reports in collaboration with The Guardian. | Leaf |
| Michigan | Washtenaw County (Dem primary) The city of Ann Arbor last year adopted a reform to end police stops over some minor traffic infractions, a move meant to reduce unnecessary police encounters. Will the reform now be scaled up the county? One progressive candidate for sheriff is vowing to change how the office patrols the county, but some of her opponents have alternative proposals, Bolts reported. | Dyer |
| Kansas | Johnson County sheriff (GOP primary) Calvin Hayden, the Republican sheriff of one of the only Kansas counties that voted for Joe Biden in 2020, conducted a long investigation into the 2020 elections, echoing false claims of rampant voter fraud; he recently admitted that a search warrant he claimed to have to probe old ballots was invalid. He faces a Republican primary challenger, Doug Bedford, who has faulted Hayden’s investigation and pushed back against Hayden’s claims that elections cannot be trusted. | Bedford |
Legislative primaries
| Kansas | HD 35 (Dem primary) When the GOP-run legislature overrode the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill restricting trans rights last year, it did so with no vote to spare—because Democrat Marvin Robinson sided with the GOP. Robinson also joined Republicans to restrict access to food stamps, and restrict abortion access. Now he faces three primary challengers as he runs for reelection. Wanda Brownlee Paige, a retired teacher challenging him, said: “You lied to us. You told us you were a Democrat.” | Brownlee Paige |
| Kansas | HD 77 (GOP primary) Kristey Williams, the conservative chair of the House Education Committee, has championed steering state money toward unregulated religious private schools. She now faces Doug Law, a more moderate Republican who says he is “committed to keeping public dollars in public education.” | Williams |
| MO | SD 29 (GOP primary) Mike Moon, a Republican incumbent who is one of the capitol’s main champions of socially conservative legislation, faces challenger Susan Haralson, who says he is too focused on social issues, The Missouri Independent reports. | Moon |
| MO | SD 31 (GOP primary) Missouri’s GOP is deeply divided between different ideological factions, with a strong ultraconservative group trying to wield more influence in the legislature. Senator Rick Brattin, who chairs Missouri’s version of the Freedom Caucus, faces two challengers who argue his faction has been too disruptive. | Brattin |
Municipal office
| Washington | Seattle city council (District 8) Moderate candidates have gained ground in Seattle’s city council in recent years. Only one seat is up this year: Tanya Woo, an incumbent councilor who is part of the centrist faction, faces three progressive challengers, Crosscut reports. (The top two will move on to the general election.) | Alexis Mercedes Rinck vs Tanya Woo |