Voters in Florida and Arizona head to the polls Tuesday in two of the most anticipated primary elections of 2018.
Florida, Arizona, Oklahoma primary elections: live results, news, and analysis
In Arizona, there’s a contentious Senate primary for retiring Sen. Jeff Flake’s open seat: Rep. Martha McSally is seen as the mainstream choice; Dr. Kelli Ward has aligned herself with President Donald Trump; and infamous former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is making his last stand for public office.
If Democrats have any hope of retaking the Senate in November, this seat is a must-win. The Democrat in the race, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, is running unopposed, and April polling showed her leading in all three potential matchups.
In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott is stepping down to challenge Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. Again, this race is crucial for Democrats’ Senate hopes; Scott poses a serious threat.
The race to succeed Scott in the governor’s mansion is also one of the most important gubernatorial elections in the country. Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Gwen Graham are expected to prevail in Tuesday’s primaries and face off in November. The race will be a referendum on Trump, and right now election forecasters say it’s a toss-up.
Rounding out Tuesday’s primaries is Oklahoma, where Republicans Mick Cornett and Kevin Stitt face off in a runoff primary election for governor.
The Latino vote won’t rescue Bernie Sanders in Florida
Sen. Bernie Sanders addresses a heavily-Latino crowd during a campaign rally in East Los Angeles, California on May 23, 2016. David McNew/Getty ImagesVermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has been courting the Latino vote for months — a strategy that played in his favor in earlier primaries and caucuses but will likely fall flat in Florida, where the primary is proceeding despite coronavirus concerns on Tuesday.
After claiming victory in 16 states so far, former Vice President Joe Biden has narrowed Sanders’s lead among Latino voters in Arizona, which also votes on Tuesday, to 7 percent in a recent Monmouth University poll. But in Florida, where Biden is leading among Latinos, Sanders’s disadvantages go beyond his rival’s recent momentum.
Read Article >Polling got Andrew Gillum’s victory in Florida very wrong. 8 experts on how that happened.
Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum at a get-out-the-vote event on March 10, 2016, in Santa Monica, California. Michael Kovac/Getty ImagesGoing into the Florida governor’s primaries on Wednesday, top-line polls had the eventual Democratic winner Andrew Gillum in fourth place, with most showing him getting just 12 percent of voters’ support on average. Gillum — the state’s first African-American gubernatorial nominee — ended up pulling off a major upset and taking the nomination with more than 34 percent of the vote.
The unexpected outcome led to many observers wondering how exactly the polls — which consistently favored a victory by establishment candidate Gwen Graham — could have gotten it so wrong, again. Polling experts say there are likely a few factors at play, including the heightened volatility of polling in primary elections, when it can be more challenging to identify likely voters.
Read Article >4 winners and 1 loser from primary elections in Florida, Arizona, and Oklahoma
Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum speaking during the third day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 27, 2016. Paul Sancya/APFlorida and Arizona are inextricably linked in Americans’ minds as the lands of baseball spring training and old retirees who hate welfare but depend on big government programs for their standard of living.
But in political terms, the two states have headed in opposite directions in the Trump era. Florida, a classic swing state for the past 20 years, not only landed in the Trump column in November 2016 but appears to have evolved further in a conservative direction since Election Day.
Read Article >Andrew Gillum wins Florida governor primary in upset victory for the left
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Gillum during a campaign rally in Tampa, Florida, on August 17, 2018. Chris O’Meara/APTallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum prevailed in the hotly contested Democratic primary election for Florida governor, giving the left another marquee win in the 2018 midterms.
Gillum is the first black Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Florida history. He won out over Gwen Graham, a former member of Congress, the daughter of a former governor and senator, and the presumed Democratic frontrunner; former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine; and businessman Jeff Greene. He will face Republican Ron DeSantis in November’s general election, a race that election forecasters have rated a toss-up.
Read Article >Martha McSally is the rare Republican woman putting gender at the forefront of her campaign
Chip Somodevilla / Getty ImagesPHOENIX — Rep. Martha McSally, the winner of Arizona’s Republican primary for Senate, is doing something few women in the GOP have done this cycle: putting gender at the forefront of her campaign.
It’s a move that Republican women have by and large shied away from, likely due to concerns about being too closely affiliated with identity politics. This doesn’t seem to be the case for McSally — the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat, who’s up against Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, another woman — in the general election this fall.
Read Article >McCain is hanging over Arizona’s primaries, even though his seat isn’t on the ballot
Rep. Martha McSally speaks on Capitol Hill in June 2017. She’s running to replace Sen. Jeff Flake in Arizona’s US Senate race. Tasos Katopodis/Getty ImagesSen. John McCain died on Saturday at the age of 81, leaving open the United States Senate seat he’s occupied for 30 years.
But McCain’s seat won’t be on the ballot in November or during Tuesday’s Arizona primary — which will pick a nominee for Arizona’s other Senate seat, currently held by Sen. Jeff Flake, who is retiring. Even so, McCain’s death adds extra attention to what was already expected to be a hotly contested race.
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