100 Elections to Watch This June
We’re following primaries and runoffs across 19 states, plus Washington, D.C., so buckle up for the busiest election month of 2026 yet.
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May 27, 2026
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June is full of clashes between flavors of the Democratic Party as the two largest blue states hold primaries, from the race to replace Nancy Pelosi in California to a trio of New York congressmembers facing challengers to their left.
But with key elections in June happening across 19 states, plus D.C., there are plenty more storylines to follow.
Oklahomans are deciding whether to increase the minimum wage for the first time in decades. California Republicans have a chance to flip control of Orange County’s government. Major cities like Los Angeles and Washington are voting for mayor. Incumbent prosecutors face challenges in the Bay Area and in large Maryland suburbs. Progressives are again defying Democratic Party bosses in New Jersey. And archconservatives want to push Montana and Utah even further right by ousting lawmakers they dislike.
Also on the menu? Voters will decide nominees for critical statewide elections, including the governor’s races in Maine and New Mexico, the Senate races in Georgia and Iowa, and the secretary of state race in Nevada, where two high-profile far-right figures are attempting comebacks. In California, both major parties are sweating the possibility of being shut out of November’s runoff for governor.
Enter Bolts’ guide to 100 elections to watch.
The calendar starts with a bang on June 2 with primaries in California, Iowa, Montana, New Mexico, New Jersey, and South Dakota. June 9 has primaries in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Carolina, followed on June 13 by a mayoral race in Texas and June 16 by elections in Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Washington, D.C. Then, Maryland, New York and Utah vote on June 23, a day that will also host possible South Carolina runoffs. Finally, watch Louisiana on June 27 and Colorado on June 30.
Return on and after each Election Day; we’ll update this page as the results are known. (Bolts may add more key races if the stakes become more apparent closer to Election Day.)
As always, this guide is just our selection of races to monitor, those with striking stakes, and not an exhaustive list of all elections in June. All congressional districts across 15 states are holding primaries, for instance, as do hundreds of legislative districts or county commission seats.
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June 2: California, Iowa, Montana, New Mexico, New Jersey, and South Dakota
FEderal Government
U.S. Senate
| Iowa: Democratic primary June 2 As Democrats dream of putting Iowa’s open Senate seat in play, first they must select their nominee against Republican Ashley Hinson. Two state lawmakers, Josh Turek and Zach Wahls, are facing off, with the latter taking a more populist lane. Most notably, they’ve sparred over a 2025 bill that criminalized “illegal reentry” into the country; Turek backed it, Wahls opposed it. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| Montana: Dem primary June 2 Two candidates are all but set to appear on the November ballot: Republican Kurt Alme, who stepped when U.S. Senator Steve Daines retired moments before the filing deadline in a brazen maneuver to box out other GOP candidates, and independent Seth Bodnar, the former president of the University of Montana with support from former U.S. Senator John Tester. Democratic voters in June are deciding who they want to nominate, and the race is seeing a surprising amount of outside funding. The Montana Free Press reports that a political action committee with ties to former Tester staffers is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to boost Alani Bankhead, an otherwise massively underfunded candidate with little campaign infrastructure, prompting allegations that the group is doing so to help Bodnar. Meanwhile, a GOP-aligned group is spending heavily on ads and mailers that ostensibly attack Reilly Neill but may be designed to boost her in a Democratic primary. The Free Press reports that Republicans may be thinking that Neill is most likely to draw votes from Bodnar in the general election. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
U.S. House
| Montana’s 1st District Dem primary A statewide official would traditionally have the upper hand when running for a congressional seat, but Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen is up against a major obstacle as she seeks to replace the retiring Ryan Zinke: Trump has endorsed Aaron Flint, a talk radio host whose campaign tracks the usual MAGA rhetoric of attacks on immigrants and trans people. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California’s 6th District All-party primary Targeted by last year’s Democratic gerrymander, incumbent Kevin Kiley left the Republican Party and is now running as an independent. This primary will determine whether he grabs one of the top two spots to advance to November, plus who among many Democrats moves forward. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California 11th District All-party primary Nancy Pelosi is retiring after four decades in Congress, and the primary will decide which two candidates advance to November. Frontrunners are State Senator Scott Wiener, San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, and Saikat Chakrabarti, former chief of staff of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The primary has largely revolved around who’d be the most progressive, Mission Local reports. This is arguably the most heated of several safely blue districts where a Democratic incumbent is not running for reelection. In each, a June primary will cull a crowded field down to two candidates. Watch the 14th District, which was held by Eric Swalwell until he resigned this spring, and the 26th and 38th districts, where Julia Brownley and Linda Sánchez are retiring. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California’s 22nd District All-party primary Two Democrats hope to take on Republican incumbent David Valadao, whose district was made bluer by state Democrats’ gerrymander last fall, and the party is split between them on familiar ideological lines. Progressives groups and politicians have rallied behind Randy Villegas, while national Democrats have backed Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California’s 48th District June 2 Democrats redrew this district in 2025 to shift it toward their party, and Republican incumbent Darrell Issa dropped out as a result. But some Democrats are now worried they have so many candidates in this race that it could allow two GOP candidates to grab the top two spots and move on to November, which multiple polls suggest is a possibility. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
State Governments
Governors
| California: All-party primary June 2 This race has made Democrats nervous all year, with the large number of Democrats running to replace Gavin Newsom raising the possibility that the party could be entirely shut out of the top-two general election in November. But several dropouts on the Democratic side—including Eric Swallwell, who was looking like a potential frontrunner in the race before he was accused of sexual assault—have changed the equation. The remaining Democratic candidates include former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, Tom Steyer, the billionaire businessman and environmental advocate Tom Steyer who has already spent a record-shattering $200 million of his own money on this race, former U.S. Representative Katie Porter, and San Jose Mayor Matt Meehan, who has been championed by tech interests. The two Republican contenders are Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a critic of California’s immigration protections who earlier this year seized hundreds of thousands of ballots because of baseless election fraud conspiracies by fringe activists, and the Trump-endorsed Steve Hilton. It remains possible that either two Democrats or two Republicans will advance to November. | |||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | |||
| New Mexico: Dem and GOP primaries Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is term-limited, and the Democratic primary to replace her pits Bernalillo County DA Sam Bregman against Deb Haaland, Joe Biden’s Secretary of the Interior. Bregman has championed tougher sentencing and pretrial laws, and has opposed criminal justice reform proposals in a state where these issues have tended to divide the Democratic Party. The GOP is also choosing a nominee in a lower-profile race between Rio Rancho Mayor Greg Hull, businessman Doug Turner, and Duke Rodriguez, a cannabis executive who is spending his own money on the campaign. | |||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | |||
| South Dakota: GOP primary Larry Rhoden became governor when Kristi Noem joined the Trump administration last year, and now he faces U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson and Speaker Jon Hansen as he tries to win a full term in office. Hansen is part of the GOP’s archconservative faction; he is championing huge property tax cuts and helped defeat a proposed pipeline in the name of landowners’ rights. | |||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | |||
Secretary of state
| New Mexico: Dem primary Incumbent Maggie Toulouse Oliver is not seeking reelection, and two county clerks (Santa Fe County’s Katharine Clark and Doña Ana County’s Amanda López Askin) are running for her office. They’re both promising to protect voting rights in the wake of the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, and to fight federal incursions on elections. The winner will face the only GOP candidate, Ramona Goosby. | |||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | |||
State legislatures
| Montana: Four legislative districts GOP primaries Montana conservatives are furious at a group of GOP senators who have been siding with Democrats on key roll calls; they’ve dubbed them the “Nasty Nine.” This year, only one is up for reelection, Senator Shelley Vance in the 34th District, and they want to oust him. Similarly, three House members face primary challengers to their right in the 4th, 7th, and 13th districts, the Flathead Beacon reports. One of these incumbents, Linda Reksten, told the Beacon, “The Republican Party has left many of us behind.” | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| New Mexico: Four House districts Dem primaries Over the last decade, New Mexico progressives have successfully ousted conservative Democratic lawmakers who opposed abortion rights and ballot access reforms. This year, some of those former lawmakers are attempting comebacks. They include Harry Garcia (69th District) and Ambrose Castellano (70th District), who were ousted in 2024 over positions like their opposition to a paid sick leave legislation, as well as Debbie Rodella (41st District), who was ousted back in 2018, in part over her vote to kill automatic voter registration. Progressives have a target of their own in the 40th District: Representative Joseph Sanchez has frequently broken with Democrats, including by voting to keep a law criminalizing abortion. He faces challenger Nancy Jane Wright. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
Local Governments
Prosecutors and sheriffs
| California: Alameda County DA Nonpartisan primary Voters in 2022 elected Pam Price, a civil rights lawyer who ran on a staunchly progressive platform, but then they recalled her last year by a wide margin. Price is seeking her old job back this fall and she faces Ursula Jones Dickson, who was appointed DA by county leaders, and local attorney Gopal Krishan. Oaklandside reports that Jones Dickson rolled back Price’s reforms to limit harsh sentencing and review sentences that may have been marred with prosecutorial misconduct, and also dropped charges against police officers and sheriff’s deputies. The race will head to November if no one tops 50 percent. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: Los Angeles County sheriff Nonpartisan primary The top three candidates who ran for sheriff in 2022 are all back for another round. Alex Villanueva, who lost four years ago after a tenure marked by misconduct allegations, faces Robert Luna, the man who ousted him and has overseen more jail deaths, and Eric Strong, who lost in the 2022 primary after running the most progressive campaign. Bolts reported on the three men at the time; we’re now watching to see which of them grab the top two positions—or if someone wins outright by topping 50 percent. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: Santa Clara County DA Nonpartisan primary In May, a judge removed DA Jeff Rosen from his high-profile case of prosecuting Stanford students with felonies for their actions during pro-Palestine protests. The judge found that Rosen improperly tried to campaign and fundraise off of the case. Bolts reports that this controversy comes just weeks before Rosen faces a rematch against 2022 opponent Daniel Chung, a former prosecutor in Rosen’s office. There are only two candidates on the ballot, so someone is sure to top 50 percent of the vote and win the office in the primary. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
City and county leaders
| California: Los Angeles Nonpartisan primary The stakes in this primary are to learn which two candidates voters will send to the November runoff in the nation’s second biggest city. The frontrunners appear to be Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who is running for a second term, City Councilor Nithya Raman, who is challenging her from her left, and Spencer Pratt, a Republican former reality TV star. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: Los Angeles city council Nonpartisan primary Bolts is watching four council races with clear fault lines between LA’s progressive and moderate factions. Eleventh District incumbent Traci Park, an ally of police unions, faces Faizah Malik, a housing advocate backed by the local DSA and by Mike Bonin, Park’s progressive predecessor. The left is also looking to gain the ninth district via community organizer Estuardo Mazariegos. In the 1st and 13th districts, meanwhile, two of the council’s more left-wing members, Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez, are seeking reelection. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: Los Angeles city attorney Nonpartisan primary Los Angeles progressives have clashed with City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, for instanceover her efforts to lift restrictions on the LAPD using force against journalists. They’ve largely rallied around challenger Marissa Roy, a deputy state attorney general, while Feldstein Soto is running with the support of the region’s moderate Democratic politicians. Also in the running is John McKinney, who is running with support from police unions and DA Nathan Hochman. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: Los Angeles controller Nonpartisan primary Progressive Kenneth Mejia won the controller’s office four years ago by bringing attention to the size of the police budget and has remained a critic of policing practices. Opponent Zach Sokoloff, who works at an asset management firm and is endorsed by prominent Democrats, faults Mejia for antagonizing other city officials and says he opposes shrinking the LAPD. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: Chula Vista Nonpartisan primary Democrats in Southern California are trying to knock the GOP off of its local strongholds. They succeeded in Whittier in April, and now they’re targeting the mayor of Chula Vista, in San Diego County. Voice of San Diego reports that John McCann, a Republican and longtime local politician, has drawn local criticism in part for not standing up for immigrant residents—another echo of Whittier. McCann faces Democrat Francisco Tamayo. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: Orange County board of supervisors Nonpartisan primary Democrats flipped the county board of this longtime conservative bastion in 2022; but all three of their seats on this five-member board are up this year, and they must defend all three to keep control. With the second district likely to stay Democratic, the spotlight this year is on the open fourth district and the fifth district, where incumbent Katrina Foley is seeking reelection. Either race may be decided in the primary if a candidate crosses 50 percent, but the fifth district is the most likely to get there since there are only three candidates running. If the GOP manages to flip it in June, it’d be enough for them to secure the board for the next two years. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: San Francisco school board Special election Voters in 2022 recalled three members of the San Francisco school board in a big setback for the local left. Can progressives turn the table? Board president Phil Kim, an appointee of former moderate Mayor London Breed, faces Virginia Cheung and Brandee Marckmann, two progressive challengers with support from the teachers’ union, Mission Local reports. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: San Francisco board of supervisors Special elections The longstanding fight between San Francisco’s progressive and centrist factions is also playing out in two special elections for the board of supervisors. Stephen Sherrill and Alan Wong, who were each appointed to moderate mayors London Breed and Daniel Lurie, are now seeking a full term and each faces challengers with more left-wing support. Explore these two races in Mission Local’s extensive, issue-by-issue voter guides to the 2nd and 4th districts. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
Local ballot measures
| California: Los Angeles County Measure ER This measure would increase the sales tax to help Los Angeles County counter the massive federal funding cuts to health-care programs, LA Public Press reports. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: Shasta County Measure B June 2 One of the more conservative counties in California is voting on a ballot measure that’d drastically cut early voting and mail voting, and create a voter registration system that’s separate from the statewide databases. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: San Francisco Measure D This labor-backed measure would raise taxes on businesses where the CEO makes 100 more than the company’s median employee compensation. The measure has drawn praise from the left and heavy opposition from large corporations like Uber that have a foothold in the region. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
| California: Contra Costa County Measure G Voters in this Bay Area county will decide whether to approve a large bond that would fund the region’s community colleges; the measure would unlock roughly $920 million. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 2. | ||
June 9: Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Carolina
FEderal Government
U.S. House
| New Jersey’s 12th District Dem primary This Democratic primary to replace the retiring Bonnie Watson Coleman is likely to decide the next member of Congress, since this is a staunchly blue seat in Central Jersey. And the field is as crowded as you’d expect. Left-leaning figures and groups have largely, though not entirely, coalesced around surgeon Adam Hamawy; he faces many established candidates with ties to the influential local party machines, including Somerset County Commissioner Shanel Robinson and Assemblymember Verlina Reynolds-Jackson. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
| Maine’s 2nd District Dem primary This will be one of the hardest seats for Democrats to defend this fall; the district voted for Trump in 2024 and Democratic incumbent Jared Golden is retiring. Republicans are set on Paul LePage, the former Republican governor, while Democratic candidates include Auditor Matt Dunlap, who announced a challenge to Golden from his left before the incumbent even retired, and state Senator Joe Baldacci, a centrist lawmaker who is backed by national Democrats. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
| Nevada’s 2nd District GOP primary This primary to replace the retiring Mark Amodei has become a clash between the different factions of the GOP. Amodei and Governor Lombardo are supporting James Settelmeyer, a former state senator who now heads the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. But as the Nevada Independent reports, Settelmeyer has long faced attacks from the far-right, which has accused him of being too accommodating toward undocumented residents and for voting to fund birth control. MAGA-aligned groups are supporting David Flippo, a veteran. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
State Governments
Governors
| Nevada: Dem primary June 9 Attorney General Aaron Ford is the Democratic frontrunner to take on Republican Governor Joe Lombardo, the Nevada Independent reports, but Washoe County Commissioner Alexis Hill is mounting a primary campaign by highlighting progressive priorities like universal pre-K. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
| Maine: Dem and GOP primaries June 9 Maine has four representatives in Congress—and two have children running for governor this year. Angus King III and Hannah Pingree, the son and daughter of Senator Angus King and Representative Chellie Pingree, are among the Democratic frontrunners to replace the retiring Janet Mills. Others include former state Senator Troy Jackson, who has drawn progressive support including an endorsement from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who drew national attention in 2024 for her effort to keep Donald Trump off the ballot. The GOP primary also includes a dynastic candidate: Jonathan Bush is the nephew of former President George H.W. Bush. His opponents include Robert Charles, a lawyer who worked in the elder Bush’s White House, and former lawmaker Garrett Mason. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
| South Carolina: GOP primary June 9 Many high-profile conservatives are running to replace South Carolina’s retiring governor. They include U.S. Representatives Nancy Mace and Ralph Northam, Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette, and Attorney General Alan Wilson. The candidates largely agree on issues, The State reports, though Northam stands out for his archconservative profile as a member of the House Freedom Caucus. Mance’s up-and-down dynamic with Trump, whom she once denounced but now closely embraces, and her attacks on Wilson for not prosecuting crimes against women, have helped define the race. Evette, meanwhile, is pitching herself as the continuity candidate with outgoing Governor Henry McMaster, who chose her as his running-mate eight years ago. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
Other statewide officials
| Nevada secretary of state GOP primary Jim Marchant, who was part of a nationwide slate of election deniers who tried to take over elections office in 2022, is seeking a rematch against Democratic incumbent Cisco Aguilar. But he has his hands full in the GOP primary. Also running are the archconservative Sharron Angle, who lost to Senator Harry Reid in 2010, repeat candidate Socorro Keenan, and Shirley Folkins-Roberts, who is endorsed by the state’s Republican governor. The Nevada Independent reports that Angle, Keenan, and Marchant are all repeating unsubstantiated claims that Nevada elections are fraudulent, unlike Folkins-Roberts. But Folkins-Roberts still supports measures that would restrict ballot access and mail voting. |
| Nevada AG Dem primary As Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford runs for governor, two prominent Democrats are battling for his office. Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, who also long worked as a prosecutor in Clark County, faces Treasurer Zach Conine. When Democrats controlled the state government between 2019 and 2022, Cannizzaro helped block legislation to abolish the death penalty; Conine says he’d use this office’s bully pulpit to oppose capital punishment. Meanwhile, a crypto tycoon is pouring money to help Conine, and The Intercept reports on how he clashed with Cannizzaro when she opposed his proposals to create a new city. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
| South Carolina AG GOP primary A recent decision by the state supreme court to strike down Alex Murdough’s conviction in a high-profile murder case is a reminder of the power the attorney general holds in deciding whether to seek the death penalty. But the three Republicans looking to become the state’s new attorney general (state Senator Stephen Goldfinch, Solicitor David Pascoe, and Solicitor David Stumbo) are largely aligned; all have spoken in favor of expanding the death penalty or speeding up executions. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
Ballot measure
| North Dakota: Measure 1 State lawmakers are looking to restrict ballot initiatives, and this spring they’re asking voters to adopt a constitutional amendment requiring future initiatives to only cover a single subject. In other states with similar measures, courts have struck down successful measures on the grounds that they were too broad—for instance, a 2025 ruling in neighboring South Dakota in which the state supreme court invalidated marijuana legalization. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
State legislature
| Nevada: 2nd Senate District Dem primary The controversy over a bill to subsidize the film industry looms large over Nevada’s primaries this year as labor groups that supported the subsidies for job creation have vowed revenge against Democratic lawmakers who voted against it. One of them is Senator Edgar Flores, who faces challenger Isaac Barron. The Nevada Independent reports on their positions on issues besides the subsidies, flagging that Flores is more staunchly critical of proposals to increase criminal penalties in Nevada. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
Local Governments
Prosecutors
| Nevada: Washoe County DA GOP primary The longtime DA of Nevada’s second largest county, Republican Chris Hicks, is no progressive; he has sought the death penalty and supported legislative changes to make criminal penalties harsher. Still, police unions are supporting his primary challenger Wes Duncan. The Nevada Independent reports that this is tied to police anger over a recent policy Hicks adopted that required that prosecutors only file charges against defendants when they are confident they can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
City governments
| Nevada: Henderson, North Las Vegas, and Reno Nonpartisan elections Nevada’s second, third, and fourth most populous cities (after Las Vegas) are all voting for mayor, and while the races are nonpartisan, there are clear political fault lines in each. In North Las Vegas, Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown is retiring. The two frontrunners to replace her are Democratic lawmaker Daniele Monroe-Moreno and Scott Black, a local councilmember who is now a Democrat but used to be affiliated to the Republican Party and is running with endorsements from the police union and the local chamber of commerce. In Reno, voters will decide which two candidates will advance to November’s general election to replace Mayor Hillary Schieve, a retiring independent. The nine candidates include former Lieutenant Governor Kate Marshall, a Democrat, City Councilor Devon Reese, also a Democrat, and the GOP-endorsed Eddie Lorton. In Henderson, Mayor Michelle Romero, a Republican, is running for a second term against Adam Price, who chairs the local Democratic Party, and Hollie Chadwick, the city’s former police chief who was ousted earlier this year amid a controversy over police officers covering up a car wreck that involved their on-duty colleague. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
| New Jersey: Broomfield and Piscataway councils Dem primaries New Jersey Democrats have powerful party machines that have historically controlled primaries and local elections, but recently this system has received several blows, including politicians like Senator Andy Kim who ran on defying the preferences of local party bosses and left-wing candidates like Analilia Mejia. These clashes are continuing in some local elections this fall. For instance, Kim and Mejia are now supporting a progressive slate against the party-endorsed candidates in Broomfield. In Piscataway, progressives are championing another slate that’s defying candidates who are backed by the local party and by Governor Mikie Sherrill. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 9. |
June 13: Texas
Local government
Mayor
| Mayor of Frisco, Texas Texas already held its primaries in March and primary runoffs in May. But localities hold elections throughout the year, and this month Bolts is watching one municipal runoff in Frisco, a city of more than 200,000 residents north of Dallas. Both candidates lean to the right. But Rod Vilhauer has echoed baseless rhetoric by other Texas archconservatives this year about efforts to install Shariah Law in the state; he has also compared immigrants to “rats.” A local pastor who supports Vilhauer has called the race a “spiritual battle for the soul of the city” because, he claims, Muslims are looking to gain power locally “by the ballot and eventually by the sword.” Vilhauer’s opponent, Mark Hill, has pushed back against Vilhauer’s statements, saying they will keep people from feeling welcome and moving to the city. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 13. |
June 16: Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Washington, D.C.
FEderal Government
U.S. Senate
| Alabama: GOP runoff U.S. Representative Barry Moore got the endorsements from Trump and the Senate’s GOP leaders to replace Senator Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor. But he received only 39 percent in the May primary. He now faces a runoff against Jared Hudson, a former NAVY Seal and law enforcement officer who received 26 percent after running on MAGA rhetoric against the “woke agenda.” |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. |
| Georgia: GOP runoff A runoff will decide the Republican challenger to Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. Derek Dooley, a former football coach endorsed by Governor Brian Kemp, faces U.S. House member Mike Collins, known for his loyalty to Trump. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. |
U.S. House
| Georgia’s 11th District GOP runoff Barry Loudermilk is retiring from this red district, and the winner of this GOP runoff between John Cowan, a neurosurgeon, and Rob Adkerson, a Loudermilk’s former chief of staff, is likely to be the next member of Congress. Adkerson has positioned himself as a staunch conservative and Trump loyalist, WABE reports, while Cowan is trying to distance himself from past criticism of the president. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. | ||
| Washington, D.C.’s nonvoting delegate Dem primary After representing D.C. in Congress since 1991 as a nonvoting delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton is retiring. The Democratic primary pits two city council members, the more progressive Robert White and the more moderate Brooke Pinto. Among other issues, the two have held differing views on criminal justice, with White clashing with local police groups over reform proposals while Pinto has championed some harsher penalties in recent years. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. | ||
State Governments
Governors
| Georgia: GOP runoff Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor, easily won the Democratic nomination for governor last month, but Republicans still have a runoff. Voters are choosing between Burt Jones, a state lawmaker who tried to help Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and Rick Jackson, a billionaire who has spent tens of millions of his own money to dominate the airwaves. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who rebuffed Trump’s request that he “find” the votes to change the 2020 results, was eliminated in May. | |||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. | |||
| Oklahoma: GOP primary Who will replace term-limited governor Kevin Stitt? Attorney General Gentner Drummond has occasionally broken with the far-right, such as when he resisted the creation of religious charter schools in Oklahoma. But in a high-profile case, he drew scrutiny last year for his decision to retry Richard Glossip for murder after the U.S. Supreme Court threw out Glossip’s conviction and death sentence. His rival Charles McCall, a former state House Speaker, has appealed to the state’s archconservative voters with anti-Islam and anti-trans messaging. | |||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. | |||
Attorney general and secretary of state
| Georgia secretary of state Dem and GOP runoffs Two candidates who have echoed Trump’s rhetoric about voter fraud are facing off in the GOP runoff to replace Brad Raffensperger. State Representative Tim Fleming, who has championed changes that would make it tougher to vote by mail, faces Vernon Jones, a former Democratic lawmaker turned Trump loyalist who has long repeated the president’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. The Democratic runoff features Penny Brown Reynolds, a Fulton County judge, and Dana Barrett, a Fulton County commissioner. They’re both accusing GOP officials in the state of planning to take over election administration in this Atlanta-based county. | |||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. | |||
| Alabama attorney general GOP runoff Jay Mitchell, the Alabama justice who wrote the majority opinion in the blockbuster 2024 ruling that held that embryos are people and threatened in vitro fertilization treatments, finished second in the May primary for attorney general. He advanced to a runoff against Katherine Robertson, chief counsel to outgoing Attorney General Steve Marshall, a conservative official who has endorsed Robertson and whose office has pushed to revive the death penalty and restrict parole. | |||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. | |||
| Washington, D.C., attorney general Dem primary Incumbent Brian Schwalb, who has been at the forefront of local opposition to the Trump administration’s crackdown on local governance, faces a primary challenge from private attorney J.P. Szymkowicz, who is blaming him for being too lax on crime and says he’d ramp up prosecutions of juvenile defendants, The 51st reports. | |||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. | |||
Ballot measure
| Oklahoma: State Question 832 The minimum wage in Oklahoma is set at $7.25, and hasn’t increased since 2009. This ballot measure, which would increase it to $15 by 2029, was put on the ballot by a signature-gathering effort that first got off the ground three years ago. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. | ||
Local Governments
Mayors
| Georgia: Athens Runoff In this runoff, Tim Denson, a democratic socialist who is now a school board member and used to serve on the county commission, will face Dexter Fisher, a county commissioner. One fault line is Athens’ Flock surveillance cameras, which Denson has opposed and Fisher has defended. On housing, Fisher voted against a plan to pursue more rental units for low-income residents as opposed to single-family housing while Denson has called for denser developments. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. | ||
| Washington, D.C. Dem primary To replace the retiring Muriel Bowser, D.C. is holding its first election using ranked-choice voting, and the city has been educating voters on how to use it, Bolts and The 51st report. The perceived frontrunners in this crowded primary, which is likely to decide the election, are Janeese Lewis George, a city councilmember who occupies the left-wing lane, and Kenyan McDuffie, a former councilmember who is closer to business groups. Other candidates include former councilmember Vincent Orange and real estate developer Gary Goodweather. Lewis George and McDuffie, disagree on key issues like the tipped minimum wage or crime policies, such as when Lewis George was the only council member to vote against an ordinance in 2023 that expanded pretrial detention, saying “this is how mass incarceration happens.” And that’s not all! Five seats on the D.C. council are up for grabs, and the races largely mirror the opposition that’s playing out in the mayoral race between the city’s left and center. The 51st’s detailed voter guide lays out the fight for the city’s two at-large seats, in the wide-open first ward, and in the fifth and sixth ward, where progressive Zachary Parker and Charles Allen are seeking new terms. | ||
| Result: Stay tuned after June 16. | ||
June 23: Maryland, New York and Utah, and South Carolina (again)
FEderal Government
U.S. House
| Maryland’s 5th District Dem primary The primary to replace Steny Hoyer, the Democratic caucus’ longtime second in command after Nancy Pelosi, is expensive and crowded with more than 20 candidates. They include several state lawmakers and wealthy contenders who are spending millions of their own money to win. With no rules like runoffs or ranked-choice voting, Hoyer’s successor could make it through with a low percentage of the vote. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
| Maryland’s 6th District Dem primary David Trone, the founder of a major wine retailer, left this House seat in 2024 to spend $62 million of his own money in an unsuccessful Senate race. Now he wants his old job back. He is challenging his successor, April McClain Delaney, and again relying on his personal fortune. A dozen other candidates are running, including Alexis Goldstein, who was fired from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for recording DOGE activities in her agency. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
| New York’s 10th, 13th, and 15th districts Dem primaries In New York City, three incumbents face challengers from the left. In the 10th District, Dan Goldman is up against Brad Lander, the former city comptroller whose cross-endorsement of Zohran Mamdani helped the latter clinch the Democratic nomination for mayor last year. City & State reports Goldman is spending more than $1 million of his own money to win. Michael Blake, another mayoral candidate who cross-endorsed Mamdani, is mounting a run of his own against Richie Torres in the 15th District. Finally, in the 13th District, Adriano Espaillat faces Darializa Avila Chevalier, a DSA-backed community organizer. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
| New York’s 7th and 12th districts Dem primaries Also in New York, Bolts is watching two open seats where the Democratic primaries are virtually guaranteed to determine a new member of Congress. In the 12th District, where Jerry Nadler is retiring, candidates include Jack Schlossberg, an influencer and grandson of President John F. Kennedy; state lawmakers Alex Bores and Micah Lasher; and George Conway, the onetime Republican lawyer who turned into a high-profile anti-Trump commentator. In the 7th District, in the race to replace Democrat Nydia Velázquez, the New York Times reports that Mamdani pressured another left-wing candidate to stay out of the race in order to help Claire Valdez, a state lawmaker who also has support from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. Valdez still faces Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who is backed by other progressives including New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and the Working Families Party. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
| New York’s 21st District GOP primary Trump is clashing with New York’s GOP establishment in the primary to replace Elise Stefanik, the MAGA loyalist and short-lived nominee to be UN ambassador. Trump is supporting businessman Anthony Constantino, while the state Republican party is largely unified behind state lawmaker Robert Smullen. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
| Utah’s 1st District Dem primary After a yearslong saga, Utah courts imposed a new congressional map that restored a blue-leaning district anchored around Salt Lake City. That means that this open primary is likely to decide a new member of Congress. Ben McAdams, a moderate former member of Congress, faces several more progressive opponents, including state Senator Nate Blouin and Liban Mohamed, a 27-year old who prevailed at a party convention this spring. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
| Utah’s 2nd and 3rd districts Two Republican incumbents, Blake Moore and Celeste Maloy, face challengers to their right, Karianne Lisonbee and Phil Lyman. Lisonbee has focused her attacks on Moore’s support for an independent redistricting commission. Lyman is a well-known figure coming off a close loss in the Republican primary for governor two years ago, when he challenged incumbent Spencer Cox; he was convicted for riding an ATV on protected federal land but then pardoned by Trump. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
State Governments
State legislatures
| Maryland: 23rd and 46th Senate districts Dem primaries Bill Ferguson, the Democratic president of the Maryland Senate, angered his party this year by preventing the governor and other Democrats from pushing through a new congressional map to gerrymander the state’s one GOP congressmember out of office. His challenger in the primary for the 46th District, tour boat captain Bobby LaPin, has made this an issue in his campaign. A second vulnerable senator is Ron Watson in the 23rd District; he has proposed rollbacks to youth criminal justice reforms and now faces progressive challenger Raaheela Ahmed. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
| New York: Senate District 13 and Assembly District 38 Dem primaries New York City’s left is targeting several incumbent Democratic lawmakers. State Senator Jessica Ramos was actually allied to New York progressives until she endorsed Andrew Cuomo over Zohran Mamdani last summer. Now her former allies, including U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Working Families Party, are backing a primary challenge from Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas. And state Representative Jenifer Rajkumar, known as an ally of former Mayor Eric Adams, faces David Orkin, an attorney at the immigrants’ rights group Make the Road New York. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
| New York: 12th and 27th Senate districts Dem primaries Several open Senate primaries will also shape the power of balance within the Democratic Party. In the Queens-based 12th District, the DSA is backing Aber Kawas over Assemblymember Steven Raga. In the Manhattan-based 27th District, former lawmaker Yuh-Line Niou is attempting a comeback and faces Assemblymember Grace Lee. Niou was a progressive antagonist to Andrew Cuomo when he was governor and she was still an Assemblymember. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
| New York: 61st Senate District Dem primary Bolts reported last year that Erie County Sheriff John Garcia, a Republican, was running unopposed despite assisting ICE and overseeing a crisis of jail deaths. At the time, the chair of county Democrats, Jeremy Zellner, told local media Garcia was “very successful.” Now, Zellner is running for an open seat in the state Senate, and he has received a sizable donation from Garcia, BTPM reports. He faces David Rivera, a local politician, in this June primary. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
Local Governments
County executive
| Maryland: Baltimore County executive Dem primary Kathy Klausmeier, Baltimore County’s outgoing executive, has signed a deal to collaborate with ICE, but the county will have a new leader come next year—and that’ll likely be the winner of this crowded Democratic primary. Bolts reached out to all candidates to ask whether they’d renew or terminate that agreement. Only two of the five, County Councilmember Izzy Patoka and attorney Nick Stewart, answered; each said they would end it (which Patoka has also said in the past). Patoka sponsored a bill this year to better protect immigrant residents, though the bill did not kill the existing deal; he says he did not have the votes in the council to override Klausmeier’s threatened veto. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
Prosecutors
| Maryland: Baltimore County prosecutor Dem primary Scott Shellenberger, Baltimore County’s longtime prosecutor, has been a vocal opponent of criminal justice reforms, and four years ago he narrowly defeated a progressive public defender. He is running again this year, but this time against two career prosecutors, Sarah David and Lauren Lipscomb, neither of whom has embraced a progressive message like Shellenberger’s 2022 challenger. Still, they’re promising to focus on transparency, and some left-leaning groups like the Working Families Party have endorsed Davis, as has Governor Wes Moore. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
| Maryland: Prince George’s County prosecutor Dem primary Tara Jackson was appointed to fill a vacancy last fall, and the Washington Post reports that she has since shaken up the office’s “second look” unit, which was reviewing incarcerated people’s sentences to give them a shot at release; this may reflect a shift toward a stricter approach to sentencing. She faces County Councilmember Wanika Fisher, a well-connected local Democrat who had already launched a run before Jackson’s appointment, in this primary. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 23. |
June 27: Louisiana
FEderal Government
U.S. Senate
| Louisiana (GOP primary) Republican voters already fulfilled Trump’s wishes in the May primary by getting rid of Senator Bill Cassidy, who had voted to convict him during the Senate trial over Jan. 6. Cassidy came in third, which means he did not move forward to this June runoff. In the runoff, Republicans are now deciding between two MAGA loyalists, U.S. Representative Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming. The winner will be heavily favored in November but Democrats are also choosing their nominee between Jamie Davis, a farmer who came close to winning in May, and Gary Crockett, a veteran and political consultant. Keep in mind that the state of Louisiana was meant to hold its U.S. House primaries in May, with runoffs scheduled for June 27. Instead, the GOP canceled these primaries in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Callais, rescheduling them for the fall, in order to pass a new congressional map that eliminates a seat that was protected by the Voting Rights Act. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 27. |
June 30: Colorado
FEderal Government
U.S. Senate
| Colorado (Dem primary) John Hickenlooper, a moderate Democrat, has long been a fixture in Colorado politics: first as governor from 2011 to 2019, then as senator since 2020. As he seeks a second term, state Senator Julie Gonzales is challenging him from his left; she has been a prime champion of criminal justice reforms in the legislature, including the law that abolished the death penalty. (The winner will face presumptive GOP nominee Mark Baisley, a state senator.) |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 30. |
U.S. House
| Colorado’s 1st district (Dem primary) Longtime Democratic incumbent Diana DeGette almost lost her reelection bid in March when she barely got enough support at a party convention to qualify for the ballot; delegates preferred Melat Kiros, a democratic socialist who is running to her left. Kiros’ criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza, which she says made her lose her legal job, is a major fault line. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 30. |
| Colorado’s 3rd district (GOP primary) In a characteristically bizarre series of events this spring, Donald Trump walked back his effort to oust U.S. Representative Jeff Hurd, a Republican who was criticizing his tariffs policies. The president announced in March he announced he was endorsing Hurd after all, and that the conservative challenger he was supporting, Hope Scheppelman, would be dropping out of this primary. But Hurd still faces a hurdle to renomination: Ron Hanks, a former lawmaker, is still running against the incumbent and making the case that Hurd is insufficiently loyal to Trump. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 30. |
StateWide Offices
Governor
| Colorado (Dem primary) U.S. Senator Michael Bennet is favored in the Democratic primary to replace Jared Polis but he faces Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is making the case that Bennet has spent too much time in Washington. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 30. |
| Colorado governor (GOP primary) On the GOP side, state senator Barbara Kirkmeyer, the more moderate candidate, faces several far-right opponents, state Representative Scott Bottoms and ministry leader Victor Marx. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 30. |
Other executive functions
| Colorado attorney general (Dem primary) This is an open race as the incumbent is running for governor (see above), and the winner of the Democratic primary is likely to have the upper-hand in November. Candidates include Jena Griswold, who as secretary of state has been highly vocal in championing expansions to voter registration and ballot access, Michael Dougherty, the Boulder County DA who is highlighting his experience as a prosecutor and his support among law enforcement, and David Seligman, the head of a labor rights law firm running with the support of progressive politicians. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 30. |
| Colorado secretary of state (Dem primary) Two Democrats who have been staunch supporters of expanding voter access in Colorado are now running to lead the state’s elections system. State Senator Jessie Danielson has pushed for legislation to that effect, such as the bills that set up automatic voter registration in Colorado. Amanda Gonzales, who currently runs elections in populous Jefferson County, is the former executive director of Common Cause Colorado, a voting rights group, a role from which she helped design major elections system changes such as the automatic voter registration bill, and she has championed expansions to the franchise like installing polling places in jail. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 30. |
Other Races
State legislature
| Colorado’s 34th Senate district Dem primary Colorado’s Senate is an obstacle to progressive legislation, especially on criminal justice issues, Bolts has reported in the past. One of the Democratic senators most likely to sponsor criminal justice reforms, Julie Gonzales, is not running for reelection and the race to replace her could determine how viable these bills are in the future. In the primary to replace her, progressives are largely supporting Chela Garcia Irlando, an environmental advocate, while Andrés Carrera, a former staffer for Governor Jared Polis, has amassed more centrist support. |
| Result: Stay tuned after June 30. |