South Carolina, Nevada, North Dakota primaries and Ohio special election 2024: Nancy Mace, Sam Brown win
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June 11 was another packed primary day, as voters in South Carolina, Maine, North Dakota and Nevada weighed in on who will make the ballot this fall. We had our eyes on a slew of Republican primaries on Tuesday, including several competitive contests for U.S. House seats, as well as contests to pick Nevada's GOP Senate nominee and effectively pick the next governor of North Dakota.
In South Carolina, Rep. Nancy Mace's Trumpian pivot didn't cost her, as she handily fended off an establishment-aligned primary challenger. Fellow incumbent Rep. William Timmons, who was looking vulnerable after an infidelity scandal, also came out ahead in a closer race against his right-wing challenger. In North Dakota's At-Large Congressional District, Julie Fedorchak became the first non-incumbent woman this cycle to win a GOP primary for a safely red seat. In Nevada, Republican voters chose Sam Brown as their candidate to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen this fall.
Finally, a special election is set to give House Republicans one more seat of breathing room, as voters in Ohio's 6th District filled the seat vacated by Rep. Bill Johnson's departure in January — though not without some unexpected suspense.
As usual, 538 reporters and contributors broke down the election results as they came in with live updates, analysis and commentary. Read our full live blog below.
Latest Developments
Jun 12, 12:35 AM
That’s a wrap!
Well, it’s unclear when we’re going to know the winners in the last few Nevada races, so we’re going to call it a night. Here’s a roundup of what happened in June 11’s key races:
- In the special election in Ohio’s 6th District, Republican state Sen. Michael Rulli defeated Democratic Air Force veteran Michael Kripchak, but by a shockingly narrow margin (9 points). Trump won this district by 29 points, so Democratic enthusiasm was really high here.
- In South Carolina’s 1st District, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace survived her second straight contested GOP primary as an incumbent, and by a much more comfortable margin than two years ago. Mace will face businessman Michael Moore (no, not that one) in the general election, where she’ll be the heavy favorite.
- In South Carolina’s 3rd District, the Republican primary is going to a runoff, with the top two candidates — Trump-endorsed pastor Mark Burns and Air National Guard Lt. Col. Sheri Biggs, who finished neck-and-neck — facing off again in two weeks.
- In South Carolina’s 4th District, Rep. William Timmons barely beat back a strong primary challenge from tea party Republican state Rep. Adam Morgan.
- Up north in Maine’s 2nd District, former NASCAR driver and current state Rep. Austin Theriault easily clinched the GOP nomination over his colleague Michael Soboleski. Now Theriault will race against Democrat Jared Golden, the Blue Dog who’s held this seat since 2018.
- In North Dakota, the Republican primary for governor was projected early, with Rep. Kelly Armstrong pulling quickly ahead of Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller. And the contested GOP primary for the state’s open at-large congressional district was projected for Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak.
- For U.S. Senate in Nevada, Army veteran Sam Brown scored an easy win in the Republican primary. He’ll face Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen this fall in what will be one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races.
Finally, here’s the status of the three unprojected races in Nevada.
- Nevada’s 1st District looks like it will be a rematch, with 2022 nominee Mark Robertson leading the Republican primary for the right to once again face incumbent Democratic Rep. Dina Titus. However, Flemming Larsen could still win the GOP nomination too.
- In the crowded Republican primary in Nevada’s 3rd, conservative columnist Drew Johnson has a narrow lead over former state Treasurer Dan Schwartz. "Halo" composer Marty O’Donnell, the establishment pick, is in a surprising third place.
- In Nevada’s 4th, former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee appears to have the inside track over Air Force veteran David Flippo.
—Monica Potts, Nathaniel Rakich and Kaleigh Rogers, 538; and Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
Jun 12, 12:26 AM
Final thought: Anti-abortion candidates win in deep-red districts
Tracking anti-abortion candidates again in tonight's primaries, I'm thinking about how some of these races will shape the issue this fall. In deep-red districts, Republican voters often choose from a slate of anti-abortion candidates. But many of their extreme positions are unpopular overall, and that could make a difference in competitive races. That may be why candidates that are less extreme on the issue are winning in primaries like Nevada's Senate race — Brown has championed a more moderate position, and his wife has opened up about an abortion she had when she was younger. Likewise, the anti-abortion candidate in Nevada's battleground 3rd District is far behind. The issue might not always rank at the top for voters in surveys, but the GOP seems willing to be a bit more moderate in races where an extreme anti-abortion candidate could turn voters off.
—Monica Potts, 538
Jun 12, 12:22 AM
Final thought: Did Republican women turn a corner?
As we've been documenting this primary cycle, the GOP is badly trailing Democrats when it comes to endorsing and nominating women in primaries, especially primaries where they can win in November. Tonight marked a milestone for the GOP, with Fedorchak — the projected winner in North Dakota's At-Large Congressional District — becoming the first non-incumbent Republican women to win an open primary for a safe red seat.
GOP women saw another, albeit smaller, victory with Biggs advancing to a runoff in South Carolina's 3rd. That said, her competitor, Burns, has Trump's endorsement, which doesn't bode well for her. All told, tonight's races will do little to add more women to the GOP conference.
—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor
Jun 12, 12:21 AM
Final thought: Dreaming of Appalachia
I'm still struck by what we saw go down in Ohio's 6th District tonight. A sleepy special in such heavily Republican territory — we're talking a very white, rural, blue collar district with vanishingly few college graduates — should not have that kind of result absent something larger going on underneath the surface. I'll be interested to see what Ohio guru Kyle Kondik writes in the coming days about the results we've seen, and as I mentioned earlier, I want to see if Democrats turn in another big overperformance in Colorado later this month. And not for nothing, but Biden's actually been polling decently in Ohio relative to his numbers elsewhere? So perhaps there's something to Scranton Joe's resilience in the Rust Belt. We'll see!
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
Jun 12, 12:20 AM
Final thought: Incumbents still haven’t lost, but there have been many close calls
My takeaway from tonight is that, once again, we saw some close shaves for incumbent members of Congress. Incumbents may be heartened by the fact that, so far, only one of them has lost renomination this cycle, and that was in an incumbent-versus-incumbent race caused by Alabama redistricting, so one of them had to lose. However, they shouldn't get too comfortable. Many incumbents have won renomination with pretty uninspiring vote shares in the 50s or 60s — Timmons is only the latest example. Therefore, I'm pretty confident it's only a matter of time until one of them loses. (In fact, I recommend tuning into our live blog on June 25 to see if Rep. Jamaal Bowman becomes one of them.)
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Jun 12, 12:18 AM
What are your takeaways from tonight?
With only three outstanding House races unprojected in Nevada, we're getting ready to wrap up the old live blog soon. Start thinking those final thoughts, folks, and send 'em here!
—Tia Yang, 538
Jun 12, 12:13 AM
Timmons pulls out a win in South Carolina
We just got the last tranche of votes from Greenville County in South Carolina's 4th District, and they weren't enough to put Morgan over the top. With virtually all of the vote counted, then, per the AP, it's Timmons 52 percent, Morgan 48 percent, and Timmons has been projected as the winner. In the end, his race was much closer than Mace's, despite her getting all the attention!
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Jun 11, 11:57 PM
Don't forget about Yucca Mountain, Jacob
Brown could also find himself in hot water this fall because he used to support using Yucca Mountain, a site in Nevada, as a nuclear waste site. That's a no-no in Nevada politics, and Brown has since backtracked on that position, but expect it to come up in Democratic ads a lot.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Jun 11, 11:56 PM
Is Brown a good candidate?
I'm not yet sold on Brown being a better than average Senate candidate. I think he's done a good job of staying under the radar relative to other GOP nominees in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Arizona, and avoided some of the missteps those candidates have made. (It doesn't hurt that Nevada is the perpetual redheaded stepchild of the Senate battlefield, always there but never paid much attention.) But he's still relatively untested. His political record includes failed bids for Texas state House a decade ago and for Senate two years ago. If he does ultimately win, I think it has a lot more to do with Trump's performance in the state than Brown's special strength.
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
Jun 11, 11:55 PM
Is Rosen vulnerable in November?
Nathaniel mentioned that Rosen's senate seat could be the GOP's best pick-up opportunity outside the Big Three red states (West Virginia, Montana and Ohio). I think that's right. Brown doesn't seem to have any strange local scandals (unlike Sheehy in Montana, for instance)>, so the Nevada GOP didn't Dr. Oz itself here. Although Brown isn't originally from Nevada, he has a compelling personal story as a combat veteran, who suffered third-degree burns from a 2008 roadside bomb explosion in Afghanistan.
Of course, Nevada Democrats have dug up a few possible scandals and will focus on the abortion issue. On his website, Brown mentions that he is personally pro-life, but would not support national abortion ban because it would overturn the decision of Nevadans, so he's trying to thread that needle. Brown's wife has also been telling her abortion story so the Brown campaign must recognize that this will be a salient issue.
—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor
