Primary elections are taking place in six U.S. states on Tuesday — Alabama, Connecticut, Minnesota, South Carolina, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Minnesota voters will settle a moderate-versus-progressive Democratic U.S. Senate primary between centrist U.S. Rep. Angie Craig and progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. In the race for governor, Mike Lindell, known as the MyPillow Guy, leads a crowded Republican primary with President Donald Trump’s endorsement, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar faces minimal opposition for the Democratic nomination.
The Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor is another high-profile clash between the party’s establishment and progressive wings, as democratic socialist Francesca Hong tries to rise above establishment candidate David Crowley. In a Republican primary for U.S. House, Trump-backed candidate Michael Alfonso, the 26-year-old son-in-law of U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, is seeking to win Duffy’s former district.
And Republicans in South Carolina are casting ballots in a special primary election to replace the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham on the state’s general election ballot. The crowded race has attracted top party members, including two congressmen and a former governor — but Trump has endorsed Graham’s sister, Sen. Darline Graham, a political unknown appointed to serve out the final months of her late brother’s current term.
Here’s the latest:
Until her brother’s death, not much was known about Darline Graham, aside from their close relationship and hardscrabble upbringing.
Darline Graham was often at her brother’s side for big political moments, like the launch of his 2016 presidential campaign. The late senator often spoke of their difficulties early in life, and how the death of both parents in swift succession, when Darline was still a teen, bonded them together more tightly.
But Darline Graham has otherwise led a relatively quiet life with her husband and daughters in Lexington, South Carolina. She served in state government for years, working with people with disabilities and as agency head of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind.
A dozen hopefuls initially filed their paperwork, but not everyone was certified by the South Carolina Republican Party due to new party rules.
Here’s a look at the names that made it onto Tuesday’s ballots:
— U.S. Russell Fry, a two-term House member and Trump ally
— Sen. Darline Graham, sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham and appointed interim senator
— Mark Lynch, a businessman who ran against Lindsey Graham in the initial June primary
— U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus
— Mark Sanford, a former governor who also served two stints in the U.S. House
Other candidates include Walterboro attorney Duke Buckner, Central farmer Danny Ford II, former Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride, retired Air Force officer Glenda Gail Parker, and biomedical engineer and entrepreneur Sam Shepherd.
The immigration enforcement surge in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area this year has added another schism in the primary between establishment-backed U.S. Rep. Angie Craig and progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, which otherwise echoed many of the other left vs. center divides in the Democratic Party this year.
Flanagan has attacked Craig for voting for tighter enforcement soon after Trump returned to office last year. Craig later expressed regret for her decision after the Republican president sent a surge of immigration enforcement officers into Minneapolis.
Craig says her experience winning tough races in Minnesota and fighting in Washington makes her the best person to take on Trump over immigration.
Former Gov. Mark Sanford has been angling for a political comeback.
But Scott Brown said the Senate wasn’t the right move for Sanford, who became the subject of political jokes in 2009 when he went missing for days.
Staffers said Sanford had been on the Appalachian Trail. But he was actually in Argentina with a woman he was having an affair with, and Sanford spent his remaining months in office apologizing to the state.
“I voted for him when he was governor. I might even vote for him as a governor again,” Brown said when asked if Sanford had been a factor in the Senate primary. “I hate it for him.”
Frank Bohn felt more strongly about denying Sanford another chance at serving South Carolina.
“He was terrible as a governor, and he would be terrible as a senator,” said Bohn, who — like Brown — voted for Sen. Darline Graham in Tuesday’s primary.
President Donald Trump endorsed Sen. Darline Graham’s candidacy even before she said she was running in South Carolina’s special GOP Senate primary. But voters who said they were voting for her seemed split over whether the president’s buy-in mattered.
“He’s the greatest president ever as far as I’m concerned,” Frank Bohn said after casting his ballot early last week for Graham. “President Trump means a lot.”
But for fellow early voter Scott Brown, who also said he was a Trump supporter, Graham’s debate performance won his support and meant more than the president’s endorsement.
“It never does,” Brown said when asked if Trump’s endorsement swayed him toward Graham.
Standing in the afternoon heat outside the western Wisconsin fire hall where she’d voted, Sarah Atkins Hoggatt said she wished she could have voted for Hong.
“I embrace her ideology,” she said, ticking off issues like reproductive rights and “Medicare for All.” “I would have wanted to vote for her.”
But she also believes that Hong’s deeply progressive politics, combined with concerns among some voters with democratic socialist candidates, make a November victory much harder for her.
“I voted for someone who I think has a better chance” to beat Tiffany, said Atkins Hoggatt, 61, who sells construction material and drain systems. She voted for Crowley.
“I didn’t vote my heart,” she said.
A former Democratic fundraiser and small business owner is vying to face the Republican representative for a second time in a competitive Wisconsin congressional district.
Rebecca Cooke faces a primary challenge from former Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge. Berge has run an underdog, insurgent campaign against Cooke, who is more well-known and better financed.
Cooke narrowly lost to Van Orden in 2024. She also ran in 2022 but lost in the Democratic primary.
Van Orden is one of President Donald Trump’s biggest supporters but will face a tough reelection bid in the narrowly divided 3rd Congressional District and in a year where the president’s approval ratings are low in Wisconsin.
Frank Bohn said an interaction with Sen. Darline Graham in a parking lot was part of what tilted the scales in her favor in terms of his vote in South Carolina’s special Senate primary, when he cast his vote early last week in Horry County.
“She’s not a politician, but she was kin to probably one of the greatest senators ever,” Bohn said, reflecting on his impression of the political newcomer and the service of her brother, the late
Sen. Lindsey Graham. “Being not a politician, and just being able to follow the path of her brother … she could do no harm.”
Susan Bohn said her husband’s recollection helped make up her mind to vote for Darline Graham, too.
“I was going to vote for somebody else, but I changed my mind,” said Susan Bohn, who had been considering U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman.
Debra Dowd said she was deciding between two candidates in the South Carolina Senate primary, U.S. Rep. Russell Fry and Sen. Darline Graham, but ended up going with the latter in part because she admired the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s service.
“I just think her brother did a wonderful job for all the time he’s been in the Senate, so I went for her,” Dowd said after casting her ballot for the late senator’s sister in Conway during early voting last week.
It wasn’t all about Lindsey Graham’s service, though. Dowd said she considered President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Darline Graham, as well as her performance earlier this month, in which the candidate voiced strong support for the president’s agenda.
“Watching the debate, I liked her answers,” Dowd said. “Her debate performance was really good.”
The longtime South Carolina Republican lawmaker had been seeking a fifth term when he died suddenly a month ago, and the campaign to pick a new GOP nominee has been a whirlwind.
State law sets out the timeline that officials must follow for a special election when a seat becomes vacant. Candidates had about two weeks to file for the contest, then two weeks to campaign.
Graham’s sister was swiftly appointed to serve out the remaining months of his current term. In a move that surprised many political watchers in the state, Darline Graham also launched a primary bid, something she said came at the urging of President Donald Trump, with whom her late brother had been closely aligned.
Preliminary medical findings note Lindsey Graham died from an aortic tear.
After casting his ballot during early voting in Conway last week, George Mitford said he picked U.S. Rep. Russell Fry in the special Senate GOP primary because he favored the two-term congressman’s experience over current Sen. Darline Graham, appointed last month to serve the rest of her late brother’s current term.
“I just thought he’d probably had more experience in this than she would have had,” Mitford said, adding that he had supported Sen. Lindsey Graham’s tenure in the Senate.
“I’m a conservative and a Republican, and I just think he was the best choice,” said Mitford, who lives in Fry’s district along South Carolina’s northern coastal area.
The Democratic primary features a race between economist Amanda Janoo and Aly Richards, a former child advocacy organization CEO.
Richards, 40, grew up in Newbury, Vermont, and has received endorsements from former Vermont governors Howard Dean and Madeleine Kunin. She previously worked for former Gov. Peter Shumlin and on former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign.
Janoo, 38, was born on a farm in Strafford, Vermont. She began her career working with the United Nations and international development organizations.
Scott, who has served five terms and is one term away from becoming the state’s longest-serving governor, is running unopposed.
Vermont is one of two states, along with neighboring New Hampshire, that hold a gubernatorial election every two years.
Republicans redrew Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District after the U.S. Supreme Court severely weakened the Voting Rights Act earlier this year.
The redraw added a Republican-leaning seat to the state’s congressional map by shifting the boundaries of one represented by a Black Democrat.
The seat is now held by Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures, who was unopposed in his primary and has said he plans to aggressively defend the seat.
Six Republicans are competing in the special congressional primary for the chance to challenge Figures in November.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has placed Figures on its list of “frontline” candidates for extra support in what they consider the most pivotal districts. The National Republican Congressional Committee has similarly put the district on its list of targets for 2026.
In the Wisconsin governor’s race, software engineer Cody Chandler said he didn’t worry about electability when he cast his ballot for Hong.
“In the past I’d think about who could win,” said Chandler. “But this time I’m voting for who I want to win.”
He’s thrilled by Hong and the progressive movement around her.
“She’s probably the most exciting candidate I’ve seen,” said Chandler, 35, who voted in the town of Hudson. He sees himself as a progressive, someone inspired a decade ago by Sen. Bernie Sanders, and volunteered for Hong’s campaign.
“She seems to be like a real working-class person. Sure, she stumbles over her words sometimes — but so do I,” he said, laughing. “She feels like one of us.”
Linda Biles believes Hong’s politics will frighten voters like her — a Republican in a largely rural area who votes Democratic because she dislikes Trump and politicians who back him.
“I think just the word ‘socialism’ is turning off Republicans,” said Biles, a 71-year-old retired home economics teacher, after casting her ballot in the western Wisconsin town of Hudson. “It scares them away.”
Crowley, she said, was an obvious choice: “He’s got more of a chance of beating Tiffany,” she said.
Michele Tafoya is seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.
She strode into a suburban Minneapolis church with a phalanx of reporters and photographers watching. She checked in with poll workers, filled out her ballot and fed it into the counter.
“How are you?” she asked the top election official on site.
“I’ll be glad when you’re done,” the stressed-out official responded with a laugh.
In the parking lot out front, she argued that this will be the year voters end a 20-year losing streak for Republicans running statewide in Minnesota. Voters, she said, are fed up after widespread reports of fraud in public assistance programs.
“Minnesotans are ready. We’ve had a crisis of leadership here,” Tafoya said. “We’ve seen what career politicians have done in this state. They’ve brought us to a place of national embarrassment, and this state is ready for change.”
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