The 25 Elections to Watch This May
Big cities are deciding their mayors and a swath of ballot measures, while battles keep raging over school boards. Follow along as Bolts tracks May elections across eight states.
Plenty of what’s on the ballot this May ties into national politics: JD Vance’s half-brother; a prosecutor who clashed with Elon Musk over the 2024 elections; the latest chapter in the countrywide conservative effort to take over school boards; and even more special elections that’ll test voters’ partisan sentiments.
Still, the stakes for May elections are decisively local. There are no federal elections on the ballot, and barely any statewide races. Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Texas are electing their city and county offices, with voters deciding countless little-known roles from water commissioners to fire district officials. Plus, voters will weigh in on hundreds of school board seats and billions of dollars in bonds and levies for school projects and infrastructure spending.
Standing out this month are mayoral races in some of the nation’s most populous cities—San Antonio, Fort Worth, Omaha, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh. Also, these and other cities are holding important ballot measures that could change local policies around housing and jails.
And one of the nation’s highest-profile reform prosecutors, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, faces a contested Democratic primary as he seeks a third term.
Also on the menu in May: A trio of special elections for state legislative seats, some statewide primaries for judgeships in Pennsylvania, and school board races in districts that have seen major battles over censorship and the rights of LGBTQ+ students in recent years.
Below, Bolts guides you through the 25 elections to watch this month.
The guide starts this Saturday, May 3, in Texas. The following two Tuesdays, May 6 and May 13, we’ll be watching Nebraska and Ohio, plus legislative specials in Massachusetts and Oklahoma. Then comes May 20, when more than half of the elections on this guide occur,. with contests across Pennsylvania, alongside a few notable races in Oregon and New York.
As always, this guide is not an exhaustive list of all elections in May, but our selection of races to monitor. Return on and after each Election Day as we will update this page as the results are known.
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Ballot measures
May 6: Ohio | On infrastructure spending: Issue 2
| If Issue 2 passes, Ohio could issue $2.5 billion in bonds for infrastructure projects, from road improvements to stormwater collection. The proposal, one of the only statewide elections anywhere in the country in May, has bipartisan support and would renew a program that has existed since the 1980s. All over Ohio, voters will also be deciding local levies and bonds. |
| Result: The measure easily passes. |
May 6: Lincoln, Nebraska | On Housing discrimination
| Lincoln residents are voting on a ballot measure that would ban landlords from discriminating against prospective tenants based on the source of their income. Without such protections, people who pay their rent via Section 8 vouchers or Social Security benefits can struggle to find housing. |
| Result: The measure easily passes. |
May 20: Pittsburgh | On non-discrimination (Question 1)
| The city council advanced this measure after some local activists pushed a separate ballot measure, “Not On Our Dime,” that tried to force the city to cut off any business with companies that have ties with Israel. It would ban Pittsburgh from discriminating between businesses on the basis of their affiliation with a foreign state. (Meanwhile, the “Not on Our Dime” measure did not make it onto the ballot.) This measure also reaffirms prohibitions on other forms of discrimination. |
| Result: The ‘yes’ wins. |
May 20: Pittsburgh | On the water system (Question 2)
| A public authority manages Pittsburgh’s water and sewer system, and this measure intends to keep it that way, WESA reports. (See also: New reporting from Inside Climate News.) If approved, it would ban city leaders from privatizing the system in the future by selling or leasing it to a private entity. |
| Result: The ‘yes’ wins. |
May 20: Philadelphia | On homelessness and on housing (Questions 1 and 2)
| Two of Philadelphia’s ballot measures touch on housing affordability. The first would create a new ombudsperson position to exercise oversight over the Office of Homeless Services, and serve as a public advocate for unhoused people. The second would increase the minimal amount of money that the city of Philadelphia has to lock into a “housing trust fund,” a pool of money that is used to fund affordable housing. |
| Result: The ‘yes’ wins both questions. |
May 20: Philadelphia | On a jail board (Question 3)
| Jails in Philadelphia have been plagued by deaths and poor conditions. Championed by an array of local groups, this measure would set up a board that would have the power to conduct investigations into jail conditions and hold monthly meetings; it would require at least one board member who is formerly incarcerated. Learn more about the measure in Bolts. |
| Result: The ‘yes’ wins. |
Mayors
May 3: Fort Worth, Texas
| Republican Mayor Mattie Parker, up for reelection against seven challengers, is clearly favored. The race is officially nonpartisan, and the Democratic Party says it has “approved” several candidates. Some of the candidates are using their bids to talk about the deaths inside Fort Worth’s sheriff-run jail, including Donnell Ballard, founder of the advocacy group United My Justice, and church coordinator Josh Lucas. There’ll be a runoff on June 7 if no one tops 50 percent. Also keep an eye on a city council race in which Deborah Peoples, a Democrat who lost a tight mayoral race to Parker in 2021, is mounting a comeback. |
| Result: Mattie Parker wins reelection. Deborah Peoples wins a seat on city council. |
May 3: San Antonio, Texas
| With incumbent Ron Nirenberg retiring, San Antonio’s mayoral race is wide open: 27 candidates will appear on the ballot. A poll released two weeks ago found that nearly half of likely voters were still undecided, with Gina Ortiz Jones, a former Democratic congressional candidate and Under Secretary of the Air Force under Biden, leading with just around 13 percent. The officially nonpartisan race in this blue-leaning city also includes several current left-leaning city councilors who have varying stances on how to best fight back against conservative state policies—for instance, only one of the council members running for mayor, Melissa Cabello Havrda, voted for the city’s recent decision to earmark funds to help people seeking abortion travel out-of-state. Rolando Pablos, a Republican appointed by Governor Greg Abbott as Texas secretary of state in 2017, is also running with support of Abbott’s PAC. With no candidate likely to top 50 percent, this May primary is effectively a tight race to grab the top two slots and advance to a June 7 runoff. |
| Result: Gina Ortiz Jones (27 percent) and Rolando Pablos (17 percent) move to June runoff. |
May 6: Cincinnati, Ohio
| Cory Bowman, the half-brother of Vice President JD Vance, says he got the idea of running for Cincinnati mayor while flying back from attending Trump and Vance’s inauguration in January. He is one of the two Republicans challenging Democratic Mayor Aftab Pureval. The May 6 election is nonpartisan, so the three candidates will appear on the same ballot and the top two will move on to November’s general election. Pureval is the only Democrat running so he is likely to grab one of those spots, leaving Bowman and Republican Brian Frank to battle for the other. Frank says that he, too, is a Trump ally, and he is campaigning under the slogan “Make Cincinnati Great Again.” |
| Result: Pureval, with 82.5 of the vote, and Bowman, with 12.9 percent of the vote, took the first two spots. |
May 13: Omaha, Nebraska
| Three-term incumbent Mayor Jean Stothert is running for a fourth term against John Ewing Jr., the local county treasurer. The race is technically nonpartisan, but Stothert is a Republican—one of relatively few Republicans serving as big-city mayors in the U.S.—and Ewing is a Democrat. Stothert and Ewing were the top vote-getters in a five-way primary last month that eliminated candidates running to their left and right, somewhat muting the runoff’s contrasts. On policing, Ewing, a former deputy chief in the Omaha Police Department, has criticized Stothert’s recruitment strategy and vows to hire dozens of new officers. In the runoff campaign, Stothert stoked fears over the use of bathrooms and aired ads attacked Ewing over trans rights. |
| Result: Ewing wins. |
May 20: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
| Democrat Wanda Williams faces four primary opponents as she seeks a second term: City Treasurer Dan Miller, City Councilor Lamont Jones, non-profit founder Tone Cook, and citizen activist Lewis Butts Jr. No Republicans are running in this race. Normally, that would mean that the Democratic primary will decide the race, but Williams has already vowed to run as an independent in November if she loses the primary. Issues of police accountability are front and center. Harrisburg has some of Pennsylvania’s highest incarceration rates and, as Bolts has reported, a deadly local jail. Notably, two of the candidates—Jones and Cook—previously served time in prison and they’ve stressed goals like preventing gun violence and more reentry support for people leaving prison; Bolts covered Jones’ work on erasing jail debt earlier this year. |
| Result: Wanda Williams wins. |
May 20: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
| Democrat Ed Gainey, Pittsburgh’s first Black mayor, is seeking a second term in office, and facing a stiff primary challenge from Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor. Recent elections in this area, including Gainey’s upset victory in 2021, have often been referendums on progressive policies—Bolts has covered that dynamic closely—and this mayoral primary is no different. Gainey is endorsed by local progressive leaders, such as Congressmember Summer Lee, while, O’Connor, the son of a former mayor, is running with heavy support from real estate developers. O’Connor also eked out an endorsement from the county Democratic party in a recent, very narrow vote indicative of tensions within the local party. (Watch Bolts in coming weeks for more on the candidates and their different approaches.) |
| Result: Corey O’Connor wins. |
Prosecutors
May 20: Philadelphia (Democratic primary)
| Larry Krasner has been a leading figure in the reform prosecutor movement since he became Philadelphia’s DA in early 2018. He has ramped up exonerations and diversion programs, and fought the death penalty, but has also backtracked on some reforms, as the Philadelphia Inquirer recently reported. He has also survived an impeachment effort by state Republicans, clashes with police unions, and a reelection battle that drew national headlines in 2021. As he now seeks a third term, Krasner faces Patrick Dugan, a former municipal court judge, in the Democratic primary. (No one filed as a Republican.) Dugan says Krasner is not tough enough on retail theft cases and should be prosecuting such cases more harshly. Dugan also promises to develop better relationships with the police department. Krasner clashed with Elon Musk last fall and he is now highlighting his opposition to Trump, while Dugan has stressed his own opposition to Trump. |
| Result: Larry Krasner wins; learn more. |
May 20: Lebanon and Schuylkill Counties (GOP primaries)
| In two neighboring counties in eastern Pennsylvania, Republican DAs face heated primaries. In Schuylkill County, DA Michael O’Pake quit the Democratic Party in January, attacking his former party over “open borders, sweeping gun control, increased taxes and other similar issues.” O’Pake faces a Republican primary challenge from John Urbanski, a former police officer who wants to ramp up support for local police and collaboration with ICE. In neighboring Lebanon County, PennLive reported last fall how the DA’s office prosecutes shockingly few of the sex crimes that are reported, even by Pennsylvania’s low standards; DA Pier Hess Graf reportedly responded by saying she hopes the writer “burns in a fire.” Her opponent in the GOP primary, Michael Light, is now stressing this issue to say he’d be more attentive to alleged victims. Light, a public defender since 2023, has faulted the DA’s office of being hostile toward public defenders—he told Bolts in a follow-up email he thinks prosecutors should “be nicer” and more polite to defense attorneys, but did not specify new policies he’d implement toward defendants. He says he’ll ask ICE to let him prosecute defendants whom ICE wants to deport before they’re actually deported. |
| Result: Both incumbents win. |
Judges
May 20: Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court (GOP primary)
| Joshua Prince, a conservative lawyer whose work involves suing Pennsylvania jurisdictions over gun control as the chief counsel for the Firearms Industry Consulting Group, is looking to join the Commonwealth Court, the Pennsylvania appeals court that oversees most of the state’s civil cases, including cases over gun restrictions and those that touch on election law. Prince first faces Matthew Wolford, a former prosecutor who is now in private practice, in this GOP primary. Stella Tsai, a local judge in Philadelphia, is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. |
| Result: Wolford wins against Prince. |
May 20: Allegheny County Judges, Pennsylvania (Dem primary)
| Four years ago, progressives made real gains on the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, which handles a wide range of local cases in Pittsburgh and the surrounding suburbs, by assembling a slate of candidates who won five of the nine seats up for grabs in 2021. Progressive groups are looking for a repeat performance this year, having endorsed a “Slate of Eight” who, broadly speaking, say they’ll push for alternatives to incarceration and reduce sentence severity. Learn more in Bolts about this election. First, these eight candidates will face off against 14 others in the Democratic primary; the top eight will advance to the November election. |
| Result: Four of the eight candidates on this progressive slate won the Democratic primary. |
Special elections for legislative seats
May 13: Massachusetts and Oklahoma
| This month hosts three legislative specials, according to Ballotpedia, and the first two are happening on May 13: The GOP is defending the 8th Senate District in Oklahoma, a staunchly red area. Democrats are defending the deeply blue 6th House district in Essex County. Neither seat is likely to flip, but watch the margins; Democrats have enjoyed large swings in their favor in the legislative races that have taken place in 2025, as The Downballot has tracked, and they hope to keep up the pattern. |
| Result: Democrats defend the Massachusetts seat. The GOP defends the Oklahoma seat. |
May 20: New York
| New Yorkers will replace Simcha Felder in the 22nd Senate District, which is in South Brooklyn. This is a very unusual dynamic: Felder is a conservative Democrat who in the past caucused with the GOP for years, and now represents a district in which Trump received over 70 percent of the vote. He rode strong support in the orthodox Jewish community to secure reelection in the district last year, and then last month won a seat on New York City’s council, which left this Senate seat vacant. Republicans, who have yet to choose a candidate, have a shot to flip the seat. |
| Result: Democrat Sam Sutton wins seat. |
School boards
May 3: Fort Bend and Katy School Districts, Texas
| There are clashes all around Texas involving the conservative activists who’ve targeted inclusive policies. Bolts reviewed the school districts with at least 50,000 enrolled students, and two in the Houston area stand out for having closely divided school boards where the majority may shift this month. In Katy, the school board passed a policy restricting the rights of trans students on a 4-3 vote in 2023, prompting a federal investigation. Board president Victor Perez, a driving force behind the policy and behind book removals, is seeking a second term. |
| In Fort Bend, a book-banning policy that the school board adopted last year has been described as among Texas’ most restrictive. It passed on a 5-2 vote, and this spring two seats are up for grabs, both occupied by members in that majority. Conservatives will keep their working majority if one of their two candidates wins. These dynamics are playing out across Texas. Frank Strong, an educator opposed to conservative takeovers, has identified other hotspots, such as Frisco, Humble, Dripping Springs, Mansfield. In some bluer areas, the stakes are different, involving teachers’ unions, and concerns for public schools amid a new vouchers law. |
| Results: Perez lost in Katy. Conservative candidates lost both seats in Fort Bend. Conservatives also lost ground in other school boards at play; in Mansfield, for instance, three incumbents lost reelection. |
May 20: Salem-Keizer school district, Oregon
| In Oregon, conservative takeovers largely failed in past cycles, but dozens of districts are now holding elections again. Groups like Basic Rights Oregon, which two years ago stepped up its programs to help local candidates who back LGBTQ+ rights, are issuing new endorsements. One battleground to watch is the Salem-Keizer school district, one of Oregon’s biggest, and the site of many tense battles and polarized elections in the past. In recent years, the board has rejected efforts to ban books about racism or with LGBTQ+ themes. Once again, this election pits conservative-backed and progressive-backed slates, as laid out in The Salem Reporter. |
| Result: Stay tuned after the May 20 election. |
May 20: York County, Pennsylvania (GOP primary)
| Pennsylvania conservatives, who suffered losses in 2023 in school boards they previously controlled, are organized again in areas like Bucks and York counties. These primaries will not actually decide most of these contests: In Pennsylvania, candidates get to run simultaneously in both parties, which will delay final outcomes until November. One hotspot that’ll play out on May 20 is the Southern York School Board, which just last fall passed several policies against LGBTQ+ students. Four conservatives, aligned with the current majority, are running only as Republicans, while the candidates opposing them have filed in both parties. So the latter have the opportunity to knock out some or all of the conservatives entirely if they win in the GOP primary; if they lose, they may still have another shot in the general election. |
| Result: Stay tuned after the May 20 election. |