The 40 Elections to Watch This April
We’re tracking elections across 12 states. Virginia and Wisconsin have statewide contests, school board races test conservative messaging, and parties battle to control cities, counties, and even utility boards.
Two statewide votes are headlining the election calendar in April. First, Wisconsin will choose a new supreme court justice, with major implications for voting rights. Then, Virginia will decide whether to allow the new congressional map proposed by Democrats.
But there are plenty of other storylines to watch. Many school districts are electing new school board members this month—in Alaska, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin—with familiar battles over book bans and the rights of LGBTQ students.
Also on the menu? Voters are filling vacant congressional seats in Georgia and New Jersey. Appointees of Wisconsin’s Democratic governor are fighting to survive against conservative challengers. Some Missourians and Oklahomans are weighing in on important tax referendums. And voters will decide who controls Anchorage, Alaska, Rio Rancho, New Mexico, Waukesha, Wisconsin, and other cities.
Enter Bolts’ guide to the 40 elections to watch in April.
The guide starts with a busy April 7, when voters will head to the polls in Wisconsin, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, and Oklahoma. On April 14, watch municipal races in California and New Mexico, followed by a New Jersey congressional race on April 16. On April 21, we’re tracking ballot measures in Virginia and Florida, and on April 28 a local race in New York.
As always, this guide is just our selection of key races to monitor, and not an exhaustive list of all elections in April. Some cities in Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas are electing city council members, for instance; plus, voters in several small towns have the opportunity to recall local officials, and some Missourians and Oklahomans are mulling tax and levy measures.
Return on and after each Election Day; we’ll update this page as the results are known.
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Jump to the races you are interested in, or explore below:
Statewide or Federal elections
Statewide elections
April 7: Wisconsin
State Supreme Court
| Few state supreme courts have drawn as much partisan fervor as Wisconsin’s, partly due to the extreme hostility between the factions on this court, but also because of how it is directly shaping major issues from abortion to gerrymandering. After flipping the court in 2023, liberals have a chance this spring to expand their majority: Conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley is retiring, and either liberal Chris Taylor or conservative Maria Lazar will replace her. Bolts reports their face-off could have major ramifications for election law in this swing state, with the 2028 presidential race and GOP efforts to change voting looming. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 21: Virginia
Redistricting referendum
| Virginia Democrats devised a plan to shift four congressional seats their way, an answer to the barrage of new maps the GOP has adopted in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Missouri. (So far, California is the only state with a new Democratic-drawn map.) A constitutional amendment put forward by the legislature must still be ratified by voters to go into effect, however. The result could go a long way toward helping determine the battle for control of Congress this fall. Virginians will settle several other referendums in November, including measures to codify abortion access and to end the state’s harsh lifetime felony disenfranchisement rules. |
| Result: Check after April 21. |
Special elections for Congress
April 7: Georgia
14th Congressional District
| Marjorie Taylor Green’s shock decision in November to resign from her House seat sparked a special election in Georgia’s northwest corner. While Kamala Harris received just 31.5 percent of the vote here in 2024, making this the state’s reddest district, Democrats combined for 40 percent in the first round of the election in March. Shawn Harris, a Democratic veteran, finished first and advanced to the runoff with 37 percent. He’ll face Republican Clayton Fuller, who retired from his job as a local DA to run and received 35 percent. While Clayton should be able to rely on voters who chose other GOP candidates, his party has braced for a tighter margin than the district’s usual lean would suggest and they rushed to emphasize unity after the first round’s result. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 16: New Jersey
11th Congressional District
| Analilia Mejia’s victory in February in the Democratic primary to replace Mikie Sherrill, who became governor, was a coup for the left: She is a former director of the state’s Working Families Party who ran with the endorsements of leading left-wing figures like U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. In the general election, Mejia faces GOP nominee Joe Hathaway, a city councilor in Randolph. Hathaway is hoping for Democratic divisions over Mejia’s politics to stage an upset, but he has his work cut out for him in a district that voted against Trump by nine points. |
| Result: Check after April 16. |
School boards
April 7: Missouri
St. Charles County
| When conservatives earlier this decade took control of the Francis Howell school board, a large district in the St. Louis suburbs, they worked to restrict policies inclusive of LGBTQ students. They then suffered losses in 2024, as they have elsewhere in the country. The remaining conservative on the board, Jane Puszkar, is running for reelection. Just last month, she spoke up for banning a Toni Morrison book from the school libraries. The local GOP and other conservatives support Puszkar alongside Lauren Greenwood and David Jaworski for the three seats on the ballot. Meanwhile, the public teachers’ union, which has helped fight book bans and conservative school policies, has endorsed Jason Adams, Sara Dillard, and Kevin McGuire. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 7: Missouri
Three Boards Across Jackson County
| There are similar dynamics on the other side of the state, in Jackson County (Kansas City). In races for the Lee’s Summit School District, the Independence School District, and the Blue Spring District, slates endorsed by the teacher’s union are going head-to-head against slates endorsed by a local organization that aims to promote “Biblical Principles.” The candidates disagree on the desirability of inclusive policies and charter schools, but also on how much schools should be collaborating with ICE—with conservative-backed contenders telling the Kansas City Beacon they’d maximize cooperation. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 7: Wisconsin
Kenosha School District
| The Kenosha school board, like other boards on which conservatives have gained a foothold this decade, has banned books that touch on LGBTQ themes, and has been the site of wider confrontations over inclusive policies in public education. But liberals secured a strong majority on the board in the 2024 elections, and this spring they could oust the last remaining conservative school board member. Conservative incumbent Bob Tierney and liberal incumbent Yolanda Santos Adams are both running for reelection against two challengers, GOP-endorsed Patrick Juliana and Democratic-endorsed Robin Cullen. (The four candidates will appear on one ballot, and the two with the most votes will win seats on the board.) |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 7: Wisconsin
Ten districts across Waukesha County
| School boards across Waukesha County, the populous conservative suburb of Milwaukee, have been a hotbed for right-wing organizing against inclusive school policies. School boards in the area have removed hundreds of books, especially ones with LGBTQ themes. This year, the local GOP has endorsed school board candidates across the county, as has Blue Sky Waukesha, an organization that promotes liberal candidates. Bolts is tracking races for 17 seats across 10 school boards in the county where the two slates are going head-to-head; they include the districts of Menomonee Falls, Waukesha, and Elmbrook, which faced pushback from the ACLU for acquiescing to right-wing efforts to remove books from libraries. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 7: Alaska
Anchorage School District
| Alexander Rosales, a school board candidate who has drawn scrutiny for posting “ban trans kids” on social media, among other statements against LGBTQ rights, and about the positive impact of Adolf Hitler’s economic policies, failed to oust incumbent Margo Bellamy last spring. He is running again, this time for an open seat; he faces Rachel Blakeslee, a former teacher who is running with the support of Bellamy and local unions. Blakeslee is highlighting Rosales’ past statements, which he says are taken out of context, as part of her campaign. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 7: Oklahoma
Tulsa Public Schools District
| E’Lana Ashley, a member of the Tulsa school board, has drawn scrutiny for an array of actions during her tenure—including suggesting that immigrant students endanger the safety of other children, leading a prayer during a high school graduation ceremony, and criticizing local public schools for being overly focused on promoting inclusion. She is facing a challenge from Tulsa City Councilor Connie Dodson, who has the backing of local Democrats while Ashley is drawing support from conservative groups. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
City governments: Mayors and city councils
April 7: Wisconsin
Mayors of Waukesha and Brookfield
| Shawn Reilly, the mayor of Waukesha, the largest city in conservative Waukesha County, drew national attention in 2021 when he left the GOP in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He is retiring and will be replaced by either Rick Allen, a Republican lawmaker, or Alicia Halvensleben, a local official backed by Democrats. Allen had a very different response to Jan. 6 than Reilly, spreading the false allegations that the 2020 elections were marred by voter fraud, calling for an audit of the results, cheering Republicans who pursued local investigations of “the fraud that occurred,” and later co-authoring a resolution calling for the impeachment of the state’s elections chief—who became a prominent punching bag for conservative purveyors of Trump’s lies about the 2020 results. The mayoral race is also unusually heated in Brookfield, the county’s second largest city: Mike Hallquist, a Democratic member of the city council, is challenging Mayor Steve Ponto, focusing on issues of housing affordability. Wisconsin journalist Dan Shafer reports on how unusual a sight that is in this conservative area. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 7: Missouri
Mayors of Independence and Lee’s Summit
| The fifth and sixth largest cities in Missouri, both Kansas City suburbs, are electing their mayors in nonpartisan races. In Lee’s Summit, candidates Beto Lopez and Cynda Rader are starkly split on housing policy. Rader is criticizing outgoing Mayor Bill Baird’s approach of pursuing apartment complexes and denser development, and wants to focus on single-family housing; Lopez, who is backed by local Democrats, has largely been aligned with Baird’s policies. (Lopez and Rader are both current members of the city council.) In Independence, where Mayor Rory Rowland, a Democrat, is retiring, the city’s decision to award a massive tax break to a company looking to build a data center have sparked grassroots opposition and a lawsuit. But both candidates say they support the center. Bridget McCandless, a city council member, helped promote Medicaid expansion in the state over Republican opposition as the former CEO of a health care foundation; she faces Kevin King, a union leader. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 7: Alaska
Anchorage City Assembly
| Anchorage elected Democrat Suzanne LaFrance as mayor in 2024, and she has governed with a left-leaning majority in the Anchorage Assembly (the local equivalent of a city council). This spring, six of the 12 seats are up for grabs, and conservatives are hoping to make gains. Bolts is watching all six races. Three liberal incumbents (Anne Brawley, George Martinez, and Zac Johnson) face conservative challengers. The other races are open; conservative-backed newcomer Donald Handerland is defending the second district for the right, and liberal-backed newcomers Sydney Scout and Janice Park are defending the first and fourth districts for the left. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 14: New Mexico
Rio Rancho Mayor
| Gregg Hull, the Republican mayor of Rio Rancho, New Mexico’s third largest city, is running for governor, and City Councilor Paul Wymer is favored to replace him since he received 45 percent in the March election, nearly avoiding a runoff. He will face Alexandria Piland, a former community college teacher who received 27 percent in March. The race is nonpartisan but Piland used to chair the local Democratic Party and Wymer identifies as a Republican, per local reporting, and he is endorsed by Hull. Bolts reached out to both to ask what policies they’d adopt toward ICE, as local officials elsewhere in New Mexico have taken action to curtail collaboration, but neither replied. |
| Result: Check after April 14. |
April 14: California
Whittier Mayor and City Council
| The city of Whittier leans right by the standards of Los Angeles County, where it is located, but it has shifted and now votes Democratic in national elections. \ Local politics are still dominated by the GOP, however, in part thanks to the very low turnout that decides spring elections. Mayor John Vinatieri is a Republican who has been criticized by local immigrants rights’ activists for failing to stand up to ICE, as has the GOP-controlled city council. This spring, Vinatieri faces James Becerra, who is proposing a more confrontational approach to ICE. Also, GOP councilors Octacvio Martinez and Fernando Dutra are seeking reelection against crowded fields. (The elections will appear as nonpartisan on the ballot.) |
| Result: Check after April 14. |
April 28: New York
New York City council
| With Council Member Erik Bottcher’s election to the state Senate, Lower Manhattan is hosting a special election to replace him. Candidates include Lindsay Boylan, the former Andrew Cuomo aide whose sexual harassment accusations eventually led to Cuomo’s resignation as governor; Boylan is endorsed by the progressive Working Families Party and local left figures such as Zephyr Teachout and Julia Salazar. Her opponent Carl Wilson, an aide to Bottcher, has the backing of Speaker Julie Menin, who leads the city council’s more moderate wing, and by two former Speakers (Christine Quinn and Corey Johnson) who both used to represent this district. |
| Result: Check after April 28. |
Regional governments: County and utility commissions
April 7: Wisconsin
Kenosha County Commission
| Voters all over Wisconsin are electing their county commissions—though in some places there isn’t much to see. In Milwaukee County, just three of 21 races drew multiple candidates; that’s somehow better than in Racine County, where just two of the 21 races are contested. But watch Kenosha County, a competitive area that has swung back and forth. GOP-aligned candidates scored big wins in 2022 and pursued conservative goals like lifting restrictions on guns; but Democratic-aligned candidates gained back seats in 2024 and hope to win a clear majority this year. Here, too, the elections are nonpartisan. But the local Democratic and Republican parties are going head-to-head with recommendations in seven of 23 seats. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 7: Wisconsin
Brown County (Green Bay) Commission
| In Brown County (Green Bay), one of the more competitive in the state, the parties are going head to head with battling endorsements in 16 districts. Notably, in the 23rd District, incumbent Dixon Wolfe, an ardent Trump supporter who recently proposed to upend a local museum in what critics say was retaliation for an LGBTQ-themed exhibit, faces Democratic-endorsed Jonathan Zamaites. In the second district, Democrats have endorsed Rachel Maes, a local prosecutor who faced aggressive transphobic attacks when she ran for a judicial seat in 2021; she faces a GOP-endorsed pastor, Luke Farwell. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 7: Arizona
Salt River Project governance
| With electricity rates spiking, utility commissions have emerged as key battlegrounds nationwide. (See our coverage of Georgia in 2025.) In Arizona, two slates are battling for control of the Salt River Project (SRP), the utility that oversees energy policy in a Phoenix region with more than 1 million residents. |
| A conservative slate, backed by MAGA organizations like Turning Point Action, is looking to take over the boards that make up the SRP. It faces a more liberal slate, keen on championing clean energy, that won many seats back in the 2024 cycle. There are over a dozen seats on the ballot, though the marquee race is for SRP president, between incumbent Sanda Kennedy, a former Democratic lawmaker, and her conservative challenger Chris Dobson. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
Local ballot measures
April 7: Missouri
St. Louis
| People who live or work in St. Louis must pay an income tax of 1 percent, which has been generating more than $200 million a year—a large chunk of the city’s revenue. Voters are deciding whether to renew this earnings tax for the next five years. (Note that a new state law, passed in 2025, requires that the city spend 25 percent of its general budget on policing.) |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 7: Missouri
St. Charles County
| Voters in this populous county are deciding whether to freeze property taxes for homeowners. The proposal, backed by local Republicans, would spark a big shortfall in local revenue that some residents warn would endanger funding for public schools and other public services. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 7: Oklahoma
Tulsa School District
| Voters are deciding dozens of measures all over the country to fund schools via taxes, levies, or bonds; there are many such referendums all over Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. A bond proposal in Tulsa stands out for its size: It would unlock roughly $600 million for school costs and renovations; large chunks of money would go to instructional materials and new digital tools for students. (Voters have generally approved such measures this year; in February, all 11 measures in Washington state that provided at least $250 million for schools passed.) |
| Result: Check after April 7. |
April 21: Florida
Coral Gables
| Voters in Coral Gables, in Miami-Dade County, are deciding whether to move local elections from the spring to November, where they would coincide with higher-turnout races. As Bolts has reported, many cities nationwide have been changing their local election schedules to sync up with state or federal races, as off-year contests draw far lower turnout. But New York City bucked that trend last fall when voters rejected a measure to reschedule local elections. |
| Result: Check after April 21. |
Local judges
April 7: Wisconsin
Three Circuit court judges
| Notwithstanding another high-stakes supreme court election, most of Wisconsin’s judge races are uncontested. But a trio of circuit court elections are worth watching, each involving a judge who was first appointed by Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, and now is seeking a full term. The first race is in blue Dane County (Madison): Ben Jones, the interim judge, and challenger Huma Ahsan areboth positioning themselves as liberals. Ahsan is trying toappeal to local progressives byrunning on her work as an immigration attorney, and stressing that she’d be the first Muslim judge elected in the state. |
| The other two races are very different, taking place in red counties where the GOP is intent on ousting Evers-appointed officials. In Washington County, in the Milwaukee suburbs, Judge Gordon Leech is challenged by Grant Scaife, a prosecutor who has the endorsement of the local Republican Party and the support of prominent conservatives like Scott Walker. Finally, in Wood County, Evers appointed Emily Nolan-Plutchak, a longtime public defender; she faces Elizabeth Gebert, a former Republican DA. |
| Result: Check after April 7. |