It’s primary night in America! Voters in Arkansas, Georgia, and Kentucky go to the polls for their party primaries, and we also have runoffs in Texas in contests where no candidates took a majority in the March 6 primaries. Note that, like Texas, both Arkansas and Georgia require a runoff for any races where no one wins a majority; Arkansas’ runoff would be June 19, while Georgia's would be July 24.
You can find our guide to all the key primaries right here, and we’re liveblogging the results at Daily Kos Elections. You can also follow along with our coverage on Twitter.
Poll closing times: 6 PM ET in the Eastern time zone portion of Kentucky; 7 PM ET in Georgia and the rest of Kentucky; 8 PM ET in most of Texas; 8:30 PM ET in Arkansas; 9 PM ET in the Mountain time zone portion of Texas.
Results: Arkansas | Georgia | Kentucky | Texas
Wednesday, May 23, 2018 · 12:12:05 AM +00:00
·
Steve Singiser
Here is where we stand roughly two hours into this primary night:
- Polls have closed in Kentucky, Georgia, and Texas. We have results out of Kentucky, but Georgia is still very early in the counting process (only 1 percent reporting) and Texas closed less than 15 minutes ago.
- In Kentucky, however, the Democratic primary in KY-06 is arguably the most watched race of the night. In what would’ve been a mild upset till a week or two ago, Amy McGrath has defeated Lexington Mayor Jim Gray. The Associated Press just called the race, with McGrath up 48-41 with 95 percent of precincts tallied.
- Arkansas, the fourth and final state on deck tonight, closes in less than a half hour.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018 · 12:25:11 AM +00:00
·
Steve Singiser
Texas: We’re starting to get significant numbers of early votes in many of the runoffs here, so here is a blanket update on all the races we care about here:
- TX-02 (R): With 18k votes counted, Dan Crenshaw leads Kevin Roberts 67-33.
- TX-06 (R): With 11k votes counted, Ron Wright leads Jake Ellzey 55-45.
- TX-07 (D): With 8800 votes counted, Lizzie Panill Fletcher leads Laura Moser 69-31.
- TX-21 (R): With 16k votes counted, Chip Roy leads Matt McCall 52-48.
- TX-21 (D): With 12k votes counted, Joseph Kopser leads Mary Wilson 60-40.
- TX-23 (D): With 11k votes counted, Gina Ortiz Jones leads Rick Trevino 69-31.
- TX-32 (D): With 11k votes counted, Colin Allred leads Lillian Salerno 71-29.
Also, with 4 percent of precincts in, it’s a close race to decide who will face Gov. Greg Abbott in November, as the Democratic runoff for Governor has Lupe Valdez up by just a 51-49 margin over Andrew White.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018 · 12:35:36 AM +00:00
·
Steve Singiser
Arkansas: Polls are now closed in Arkansas, where we’ll be watching to see if state legislator Clarke Tucker has any trouble beating three opponents in the Democratic primary in AR-02, which is the only potentially competitive House seat in the state. Also, will incumbent Gov. Asa Hutchinson get any heat from his right, amid a Trumpian challenge from Jan Morgan?
Wednesday, May 23, 2018 · 12:45:31 AM +00:00
·
Steve Singiser
GA-Gov: Man, the vote counting in the Peach State is moseying along, but at least we’re seeing some real numbers now. With 5 percent of precincts reporting, on the Democratic side Stacey Abrams has a clear 69-31 lead over Stacey Evans. On the Republican side, things are considerably closer, as Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has a 41-27 lead over Secretary of State Brian Kemp (former state senator Harlan Hill is a distant third at 16 percent). Worth noting: NYT is not reporting any returns in any of the big urban/suburban counties in the state, save for uber-red Cherokee County to the northwest of Atlanta.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018 · 12:47:41 AM +00:00
·
Steve Singiser
AR-02 (D): We already have quite a few votes tallied here, and it doesn’t look like Clarke Tucker is going to have much trouble. The state legislator who has mounted a well-funded bid at GOP Rep. French Hill is leading this four-way primary with 59 percent of the vote. Gwen Combs is a distant second at 21 percent.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018 · 1:10:57 AM +00:00
·
David Nir
GA-Gov (D): With 21% of Election Day precincts reporting (but an even larger proportion of the total vote calculated because early votes don’t factor into that 21%), Abrams is absolutely crushing Evans by an almost 3-to-1 margin.