Voters in Six States Hold Primaries to Set November Field

Voters in six states are casting ballots today in primary elections that will shape the field for November's midterm contests. The states holding primaries are California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.

Californians are deciding House races for the first time under a new congressional map designed to help Democrats pick up additional seats through redistricting. Last year, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure that replaced a map drawn by an independent commission with one drawn by Democrats who control the state's levers of power.

The goal is to help the party flip as many as five GOP seats to offset gains sought by Texas Republicans in that state's redistricting push. Democrats currently control 43 of the state's 52 House seats. One Republican representative who has represented a district hugging California's eastern border with Nevada is now running as an independent in a blue-tinged district in the Sacramento area.

There is no guarantee that Democrats will win all the seats they seek, but today's election offers an early test of whether the party's expensive redistricting gambit might pay off this fall. Five Democrats and two Republicans have pulled ahead to the front of the pack in the race for California governor.

The two top vote-getters in today's non-partisan primary will advance to the general election in November. One candidate who was also a California attorney general and longtime congressman ran on experience leading large agencies. A Republican candidate was propelled to the front of the pack when President Donald Trump endorsed him in April.

The candidate, who moved to California in 2012 after working in British politics, has focused the campaign on affordability concerns, blaming Democratic leadership in the state for high costs and vowing to reduce bureaucracy. A Democratic candidate is a billionaire investor who made a fortune as a hedge fund manager and later became a climate change activist and a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

The candidate ran as a progressive and maintained a competitive edge throughout the race, thanks in part to the ability to self-fund. The candidate left Congress after a failed 2024 U.S. Senate bid. A first-term San Jose mayor entered the race in January and has tried to carve out a lane as a pragmatic moderate.

Among Democrats, the mayor has been the most willing to criticize outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom. During the gubernatorial campaign the candidate ran as a moderate and expressed skepticism toward some Democratic rivals' support for progressive ideas like Medicare for All.

A Republican candidate who is the sheriff of Riverside County is running on reducing the size of government and has sparred with Democrats over how to handle crime and drug addiction in the state. The sheriff has also boosted election fraud claims this year, seizing more than 650,000 Riverside County ballots from the November 2025 redistricting special election.

Iowa voters cast their ballots today as the outlook for the state's November Senate race is starting to take shape. Two candidates are competing in today's primary for the chance to become Iowa's first Democratic senator in more than ten years.

Jersey are selecting a Republican nominee to face Sen. Cory Booker in November. Booker faces no Democratic challengers and is the presumptive nominee. Voters in Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota are also selecting nominees for federal and state offices.