Tuesday brings us our biggest election night until November as three states go to the polls to select their nominees for November, though only Florida is holding its first (and only) primary of the year.
Oklahoma voters already went to the polls on June 28, but the state is now hosting runoffs in primaries where no one took a majority of the vote. New York also held primaries that day for statewide races, the state Assembly, and local office, but because the courts redrew the maps for the U.S. House and state Senate, those nomination contests are only taking place now. The Empire State also will carry out special elections in the 19th and 23rd Congressional Districts.
Below you'll find our guide to all of the top contests, arranged chronologically by each state’s poll closing times. When it’s available, we'll tell you about any reliable polling that exists for each race, but if we don't mention any numbers, it means no recent surveys have been made public.
And of course, because this is a redistricting year, every state on the docket has a brand-new congressional map. To help you follow along, you can find interactive maps from Dave's Redistricting App for Florida, New York, and Oklahoma.
Note that the presidential results we include after each district reflect how the 2020 race would have gone under the new lines in place for this fall, except for the special elections in New York’s 19th and 23rd, which are being conducted using the existing boundaries. (The regularly scheduled primaries for both seats are taking place simultaneously, but under the new map.) And if you'd like to know how much of the population in each new district comes from each old district, please check out our redistribution tables.
Our live coverage will begin at 7 PM ET when polls close in most of Florida, a state that is typically one of the fastest to count votes. You can also follow us on Twitter for blow-by-blow updates, and you’ll want to bookmark our primary calendar, which includes the dates for the remaining primaries of the year.
Florida
Polls close at 7 PM ET in the portion of the state located in the Eastern time zone, where most Floridians live. Polls close an hour later in the remainder of the state.
● FL-Gov (D) (51-48 Trump): Rep. Charlie Crist and state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried are the chief Democratic contenders to take on Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who will enter the general election with a massive $135 million war chest.
Crist, who was elected governor in 2006 as a Republican and narrowly lost the 2014 general election to reclaim his prior post following his party switch, has outspent Fried and earned endorsements from several prominent labor groups. Fried, though, has used the last weeks of the campaign to highlight her opponent’s political past, including Crist's appointment of an anti-abortion judge to the state’s highest court. Almost every poll, including a Fried internal from early August, has shown Crist ahead, though an independent survey from the final days put Fried up 47-43.
● FL-01 (R) (65-33 Trump): Rep. Matt Gaetz, the far-right icon who remains under federal investigation for sex trafficking of a minor and other alleged offenses, faces a challenge from self-funder Mark Lombardo. The other Republican candidate in the running is Greg Merk, who took 9% in Gaetz’s uncompetitive 2020 primary. This constituency in the Pensacola area barely changed under the new map.
Lombardo has used his personal wealth to run an ad blitz highlighting Gaetz’s travails; one ad during the final week even speculated, without evidence, that Gaetz might be the government informant who prompted the FBI's raid of Mar-a-Lago. The congressman, though, has outspent Lombardo, whom he’s accused of being a “liberal.”
● FL-04 (R) (53-46 Trump): Three Republicans are campaigning for an open seat that includes part of Jacksonville and its western suburbs, though state Senate President Pro Tempore Aaron Bean very much looks like the frontrunner.
Bean, who has the backing of Sen. Marco Rubio and Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, posted a huge 59-16 lead over Navy veteran Erick Aguilar in an independent poll from early August, with underfunded rival Jon Chuba at 6%. That survey was taken weeks after Aguilar was thrown off the GOP fundraising platform WinRed for sending out deceptive appeals that appeared to be from better-known Republicans. Former state Sen. Tony Hill and businesswoman LaShonda Holloway are campaigning on the Democratic side, but both have struggled to bring in cash.
● FL-07 (R) (52-47 Trump): Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy announced her retirement months before Republicans transformed her suburban Orlando district from a 55-44 Biden constituency to one that supported Trump by 5 points, and eight Republicans are in the running to replace her. Four Democrats are also on the ballot, but none of them have raised much money.
The only sitting elected official in the race is state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, a far-right zealot who has a terrible relationship with his chamber's leadership. Sabatini has been on the receiving end of heavy spending from outside groups that fault him for voting against Gov. Ron DeSantis’ budget and for having once been a registered Democrat.
The other two candidates who have brought in serious sums are Army veteran Cory Mills and Navy veteran Brady Duke, who have each run ads implicitly threatening violence against liberals. The field also includes former DeBary City Commissioner Erika Benfield, who lost a competitive state House primary in 2020; former Orange County Commissioner Ted Edwards, who is campaigning as a moderate; former congressional staffer Rusty Roberts; and businessman Scott Sturgill, who lost the 2018 primary for the old 7th.
● FL-10 (D) (65-33 Biden): Ten Democrats are campaigning to succeed Rep. Val Demings, who is running for the Senate, in this safely blue Orlando constituency, including two former House members who jumped in just before filing closed in June.
One of them is former 9th District Rep. Alan Grayson, a bombastic frequent candidate who decided to end his little-noticed Senate bid to run here. The other relatively recent arrival is former 5th District Rep. Corrine Brown, whose launch came about a month after she accepted a deal with federal prosecutors that saw her plead guilty to tax fraud. Brown represented part of the Orlando area during her tenure from 1993 to 2017 even though her longtime Jacksonville base is located well to the north, but she’s raised little for her comeback campaign.
The top fundraiser by far is gun safety activist Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who has also benefited from about $1 million in support from the crypto-aligned Protect Our Future PAC. State Sen. Randolph Bracy, meanwhile, is the one current elected official in the race. The field also features pastor Terence Gray and five others. A last-minute poll from the Democratic firm Data for Progress found Frost leading Bracy 34-18, with Grayson at 14% and Brown at 6%; all others were in the low single digits and 15% were undecided.
● FL-11 (R) (55-44 Trump): Six-term Rep. Dan Webster faces Republican primary opposition from far-right activist Laura Loomer, a self-described "proud Islamophobe" who has been banned from numerous social media, rideshare, and payment services for spreading bigotry. One other little-known Republican is also competing here.
Webster only represents 35% of this new constituency in the western Orlando suburbs, which includes the gargantuan retirement community of The Villages. Still, he’s a far more familiar presence here than Loomer, who ran a high-profile but doomed 2020 bid against Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel in South Florida.
● FL-13 (R) (53-46 Trump): Five Republicans are competing to replace Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist in a St. Petersburg-based district the GOP aggressively gerrymandered. The winner will go up against former Department of Defense official Eric Lynn, who is the one Democrat in the running.
The early GOP frontrunner was 2020 nominee Anna Paulina Luna, who sports endorsements from Trump and the Club for Growth. Her two main opponents are Amanda Makki, a former lobbyist who Luna beat in last cycle’s primary, and attorney Kevin Hayslett. Hayslett and his allies have run an aggressive campaign against Luna, an effort that includes a clip of her saying “I always agreed with President Obama's immigration policies.” Luna and the Club in turn have gone after Hayslett for criticizing Trump in 2016. A recent independent poll shows Luna leading Hayslett 37-34, with Makki at 14%.
● FL-15 (R & D) (51-48 Trump): Each party has five candidates running for a brand-new seat in the Tampa suburbs, created because Florida won a new seat in reapportionment. On the GOP side, the two elected officials in the running are state Sen. Kelli Stargel, who is an ardent social conservative, and state Rep. Jackie Toledo, who has prevailed on competitive turf.
Another notable contender is former Secretary of State Laurel Lee, who recently resigned to run and was previously elected as a local judge before DeSantis chose her as Florida's top elections administration official. Rounding out the field are retired Navy Capt. Mac McGovern and Demetrius Grimes, a fellow Navy veteran who lost the 2018 Democratic primary for the old 26th District in South Florida. Outside groups promoting both Stargel and Lee have also been spending plenty of money here, with Stargel’s allies launching a late attack on Lee for not performing a “forensic audit of the 2020 election.”
For the Democrats, the most familiar name is probably Alan Cohn, a former local TV anchor who lost the 2020 general election to Republican Scott Franklin in the previous version of the 15th. (Franklin is seeking the new 18th.) Comedian Eddie Geller, though, has brought in more money for his campaign, while the other three contenders have barely raised anything.
● FL-20 (D) (76-23 Biden): Freshman Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick faces a Democratic primary rematch against former Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness, whom she beat by all of five votes in last year's crowded special election. State Rep. Anika Omphroy is also in, but she hasn’t reported raising anything. About three-quarters of this constituency, which is located in the inland Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach areas, is the same turf that Cherfilus-McCormick and Holness competed for last year.
Cherfilus-McCormick and Holness have attacked one another’s ethics, though they haven’t differed much on policy. The new incumbent has decisively outraised her main opponent, and the SEIU has endorsed her this time after pulling for Holness in the special.
● FL-23 (D) (56-43 Biden): Rep. Ted Deutch is retiring from a Fort Lauderdale-based seat that's very similar to the 22nd District he currently serves, and six fellow Democrats are on the ballot to succeed him.
The frontrunner from the beginning has been Broward County Commissioner Jared Moskowitz, a well-connected former state representative who later served in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration as director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Moskowitz, who has raised considerably more money than the rest of the field, has endorsements from several unions, and he’s also received help from two crypto-aligned PACs. His main rival appears to be Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Ben Sorensen, who has tried to tie Moskowitz to the ultra-conservative governor.
● FL-27 (D) (50-49 Trump): Republican mapmakers did what they could to insulate freshman GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar by shifting her Miami-area seat to the right, but two local Democratic elected officials are still betting she’s beatable. National Democrats, including the DCCC, have consolidated behind state Sen. Annette Taddeo, who dropped out of the governor's race in June to run here. Her main intraparty rival is Miami Commissioner Ken Russell, who abandoned his own long-shot Senate bid, while an underfunded activist named Angel Montalvo rounds out the field.
Oklahoma
Polls close at 8 PM ET/7 PM local time.
● OK-Sen-B (R) (65-32 Trump): Rep. Markwayne Mullin lapped former state House Speaker T.W. Shannon 44-18 in the first round of the special election primary to succeed Sen. Jim Inhofe, whose resignation takes effect at the end of this Congress, and he looks well-positioned for the runoff. Mullin earned Trump’s endorsement in July, while Gov. Kevin Stitt backed him in the final week of the contest. Recent polls have given Mullin double-digit leads.
● OK-02 (R) (76-22 Trump): State Rep. Avery Frix edged out former state Sen. Josh Brecheen 15-14 in an enormous 14-person primary to replace Markwayne Mullin in Eastern Oklahoma's 2nd District, and neither man has a clear edge going into the second round. A PAC affiliated with the Club for Growth has spent heavily to promote Brecheen, who is a former Club fellow, while Frix has support from his own allies. Brecheen also has the backing of four defeated primary candidates who notched a combined 30%.
New York
Polls close at 9 PM ET. Below we lead with New York's two special elections, followed by Tuesday's primaries.
● NY-19 (special) (50-48 Biden): This swing seat in the Hudson Valley unexpectedly became vacant in the spring when Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed Democratic Rep. Antonio Delgado as lieutenant governor, and each party has nominated a different county executive to run here.
The Democrats are fielding Pat Ryan, an Army veteran who was elected to lead Ulster County after losing the 2018 primary to Delgado, while Republicans are going with Marc Molinaro of Dutchess County, who was the GOP's 2018 candidate for governor. Though Molinaro lost that race to then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a 60-36 landslide, he carried the 19th by a wide 53-42. (Ulster, by the way, makes up a quarter of the old 19th, while Dutchess comprises 17% of the district.)
Ryan and his allies have made abortion rights the centerpiece of their campaign; the GOP, in contrast, has focused on tying him to the Biden administration and portraying Ryan as weak on public safety issues. National Republicans have spent far more money here than their Democratic counterparts, and even a recent DCCC internal found Molinaro ahead 46-43.
The two rivals could end up serving together in a few months, as Ryan is the frontrunner in the Democratic primary for the new 18th District while Molinaro faces no intraparty opposition in the redrawn 19th.
● NY-23 (special) (55-43 Trump): A special election is also taking place to succeed Republican Rep. Tom Reed, who resigned to join a lobbying firm a year after he was accused of sexual misconduct, but there it’s attracted little attention. The Republicans have picked Steuben County Party Chair Joe Sempolinski, who isn’t running for a full term anywhere. Democrats, meanwhile, have turned to Air Force veteran Max Della Pia, who is competing for a full term in the revamped 23rd District.
● NY-01 (R) (49.4-49.2 Biden): Three Republicans are facing off to succeed Rep. Lee Zeldin, who is the GOP’s nominee for governor, in an eastern Long Island constituency that moved a few points to the left under the new court-drawn congressional map. For months it looked like this would be an easy win for Nick LaLota, who serves as chief of staff of the Suffolk County Legislature and has the backing of the county’s Republican and conservative parties, but that’s no longer the case.
LaLota’s main adversary is cryptocurrency trader Michelle Bond, who has used her personal wealth to decisively outspend him. Bond has also gotten $1 million in outside help from several groups, including a PAC that just happens to be funded by her boyfriend, crypto notable Ryan Salame. LaLota has pushed back and run ads calling Bond as a “liberal D.C. lobbyist” who lives in a Beltway-area mansion. The third candidate is government relations firm executive Anthony Figliola, though he's attracted little money or attention.
The winner will go up against Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, who has the Democratic primary to herself.
● NY-03 (D) (53-45 Biden): Five fellow Democrats are competing in a pricey battle to succeed Rep. Tom Suozzi, who gave up this northern Nassau County seat to campaign in the primary against Gov. Kathy Hochul only to lose badly, both statewide and at home. The GOP is running 2020 nominee George Santos, whom Suozzi beat 56-43 last time as Biden was carrying the old 3rd 55-44.
Two contenders have considerably more resources than the rest of the field. Nassau County Legislator Josh Lafazan, who is campaigning as a moderate, has Suozzi’s endorsement, and he’s gotten some help from Protect Our Future PAC. The other well-funded candidate is DNC member Robert Zimmerman, a longtime party fundraiser who would be Long Island’s first gay member of Congress.
The field also includes two people who have lost past Democratic primaries to Suozzi. One is Jon Kaiman, a deputy Suffolk County executive who competed in the 2016 open-seat contest and has the support of the influential 32BJ SEIU building workers union. The other familiar name is Melanie D'Arrigo, who challenged the congressman from the left last cycle and lost 66-26. D'Arrigo has the backing of the Working Families Party, which has long been a force in New York progressive politics, but she’s struggled to bring in cash. The final candidate is marketing consultant Reema Rasool, who has raised very little.
● NY-04 (D) (57-42 Biden): Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice unexpectedly decided to retire after four terms, and there’s a five-way Democratic primary to replace her in this southern Nassau County district. Team Blue’s nominee will go up against Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony D'Esposito, who is the only Republican running here.
Rice and 32BJ SEIU are backing Laura Gillen, who was elected as Hempstead's first Democratic supervisor in more than a century in 2017 but lost reelection two years later. The only other well-funded contender is Keith Corbett, who is arguing that his election as mayor of the small and traditionally Republican village of Malverne proves his bipartisan appeal; one of Corbett’s top allies is Jay Jacobs, the controversial head of the state and county parties. Nassau County Legislator Carrié Solages and two other candidates are also in, but none of them have raised much.
● NY-10 (D) (85-15 Biden): Democrats have an expensive and closely watched contest for the dramatically revamped 10th District based in Lower Manhattan and northwestern Brooklyn. Rep. Mondaire Jones, who currently represents the 17th District well to the north of the city in the Hudson Valley, decided to run here in order to avoid a primary against DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney, but he faces a difficult battle nonetheless.
Among the many other major contenders here is former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman, who served as House Democrats' lead counsel during Donald Trump's first impeachment. Goldman, who is an heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune, has pumped $4 million of his own money into his campaign, and he’s dominated the airwaves during the campaign; he also earned an endorsement in the final weeks from The New York Times, which is an influential presence in this district. But Jones, who is the only other candidate who has been able to advertise on TV, has hit his rival over an interview in which Goldman initially seemed open to curtailing abortion rights before reversing himself.
The field also includes New York City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera, who has several notable endorsements of her own. Rivera has the backing of 7th District Rep. Nydia Velazquez, who represents just under half of this new constituency, and the health care workers union 1199 SEIU, which is one of the most powerful labor organizations in city politics. Also in the running are Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, who has the Working Families Party on her side; fellow Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon; and Elizabeth Holtzman, who is trying to return to the House after what would be a record 42-year gap.
There have been a number of polls of the race, but they've generally shown a very jumbled picture, with no candidate breaking out of the teens.
● NY-12 (D) (85-14 Biden): New York's new congressional boundaries have placed Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Upper West Side in the same district for the first time since World War I and resulted in a face-off between two 30-year incumbents, Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler. The primary also includes attorney Suraj Patel, who challenged Maloney in 2018 and 2020, and one little-known contender.
Maloney's existing 12th District in the Upper East Side makes up about 60% of this new seat, while Nadler's 10th in the Upper West Side forms another 40%. However, while Nadler was safe at home before redistricting upended the map, Maloney only held off Patel 43-39 in their last bout.
The candidates haven’t differed on any major policy issues, but Maloney has argued that the end of Roe v. Wade makes it more important than ever to have a woman in office. Nadler, meanwhile, has highlighted how he’s New York’s only remaining Jewish representative, while Patel has campaigned as a generational change agent.
An early August poll for a pro-Patel group had Nadler edging out Maloney 29-27, with Patel at 20%. After that survey was taken, though, Nadler earned endorsements from both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and The New York Times, which joined 1199 SEIU in his corner.
● NY-16 (D) (71-28 Biden): Rep. Jamaal Bowman was elected to represent southern Westchester County two years ago after unseating longtime Rep. Elliot Engel in the primary, and he now faces two members of the county legislature who hope to do the same thing to him.
Bowman’s main adversary looks like Vedat Gashi, who is presenting himself as a more moderate alternative to the progressive incumbent. Gashi has the backing of Engel, who represented 75% of the new iteration of the 16th at the time Bowman beat him, and he’s brought in a notable amount of money for his bid. Gashi’s colleague, Catherine Parker, launched her own bid in late May, but she’s struggled with fundraising. Rounding out the field is Mark Jaffe, who fared badly in a 2020 primary for the Assembly.
● NY-17 (D) (54-44 Biden): Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who heads the DCCC, is locked in a primary duel against state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who is trying to run to his left. Maloney represents only about a quarter of this new constituency in the lower Hudson Valley, and Biaggi has taken him to task for running here rather than defending the more competitive 18th District that’s home to most of his current constituents.
Biaggi, though, currently serves none of this seat, and she doesn’t have anything approaching the incumbent’s resources. Maloney has the endorsement of Bill Clinton, who lives in the new 17th, while 14th District Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Working Families Party are pulling for the challenger. The winner will likely go up against Assemblyman Mike Lawler, who appears to be the leading candidate in the GOP primary.
● NY-19 (D) (51-47 Biden): Two Democrats are campaigning to face Republican Marc Molinaro, who is competing in the aforementioned special election for the old 19th District. A bit under half of the new version of this constituency, which is based in southeastern upstate New York, overlaps with the seat Molinaro is running for on Tuesday. One of the Democratic contenders is attorney Josh Riley, who had been running for the 22nd District in the Syracuse area until May. His opponent is businesswoman Jamie Cheney, who has run ads discussing how she had an abortion a decade ago.
● NY-22 (D & R) (53-45 Biden): Both parties have contested primaries to succeed Republican Rep. John Katko in a seat that contains the Syracuse and Utica areas. The only Democrat who has raised a serious amount of money is Navy veteran Francis Conole, who lost the 2020 primary to take on Katko in the old 24th District. Protect Our Future has also deployed over $500,000 to support Conole, while there has been no outside spending for any of his rivals, who include Air Force veteran Sarah Klee Hood, Syracuse Common Councilor Chol Majok, and former Assemblyman Sam Roberts.
The GOP side pits businessman Steve Wells, who lost the 2016 primary to now-Rep. Claudia Tenney in the old 22nd, against Navy veteran Brandon Williams. National Republicans are very much rooting for the self-funding Wells, as the Congressional Leadership Fund is running commercials to support him.
● NY-23 (R) (58-40 Trump): Freshman GOP Rep. Chris Jacobs abruptly decided to retire in June after coming out in favor of gun safety measures following the mass shooting in Buffalo, and two prominent Republicans are facing off to replace him. The early frontrunner was developer Carl Paladino, the proto-Trump who served as the 2010 Republican nominee for governor and has a long and ongoing history of bigoted outbursts. Paladino’s opponent is Nick Langworthy, who has retained his position as state party chair during the campaign.
Paladino has used his wealth to massively outspend Langworthy, and he released an internal in mid-July that showed him winning by a lopsided 54-24 margin. An independent survey conducted by veteran pollster Barry Zeplowitz weeks later, though, put Langworthy ahead 39-37. Paladino characteristically trashed Zeplowitz for donating $99 to his rival and claimed he had “no credibility,” but he didn’t respond with contrary numbers. The winner will face Democrat Max Della Pia, who as noted above is also running in Tuesday's special election for the old 23rd. (Neither Jacobs nor Paladino sought the GOP nod for the special.)
Bond…Eva Bond is back