Two free-for-all primaries for governor in Maine and South Carolina are the most competitive races on the ballot in Tuesday’s primaries, while Maine’s Senate race has captured national attention as voters head to the polls in those states, as well as Nevada and North Dakota.
Maine Democrat Graham Platner isn’t facing much of a challenge on the Senate ballot, but how he weathers a slew of controversies looms over one of the most competitive races in the battle for the Senate. While Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is still on the ballot, she suspended her bid weeks ago after she struggled to gain traction and ran out of money, and Platner is expected to prevail.
Meanwhile, open races for governor are on tap in South Carolina and Maine, and both parties will choose nominees in a handful of key battleground House districts, as well as in safe seats where Tuesday’s primaries will all but cement the winners in the fall.
Here’s what to watch across Tuesday’s elections, including where there’s more to glean than just the results — especially in Maine.
It’s all about the margin
The drama in two Senate primaries on the ballot Tuesday, in Maine and in South Carolina, is not about who will win but about whether the primary margins show any signs of weaknesses for the nominees.
Platner had been able to build a significant financial and polling lead over Mills before she suspended her campaign, despite a slew of controversies. They include Reddit posts from 2009 to 2021 in which he made profane, racist and inappropriate sexual comments, as well as ones downplaying sexual assault, and revelations he had a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol. Platner says he wasn’t aware of the significance of the tattoo until late last year, when he decided to cover it up.
Now, his campaign is at an important crossroads amid new revelations — first that Platner had exchanged sexually explicit texts with multiple women early in his marriage and then a report in The New York Times that three of Platner’s former girlfriends described his behavior as “volatile” and “unsettling.”
One of the women, who has worked for Republican groups and campaigns, alleged instances when Platner was physically rough, including once when, she said, he “twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out.” The woman also said Platner knew his tattoo was a Nazi symbol long before last year.
Platner told MS NOW that some of the allegations “are simply not true,” adding, “Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who’s politically motivated.”
It’s not clear whether or how the new revelations could affect Platner’s performance in the primary, since early voting has been underway since May 14. Mills has noted that she is still on the ballot, but there are no signs that she is restarting her bid. But some Democrats are anxious that Platner could endanger the party’s chances in November, and some started researching the process to replace him if he drops out.
While there’s no indication Platner faces a threat at the ballot box Tuesday night, it will be worth watching whether a significant chunk of Democrats lodge a protest vote.
In South Carolina, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has been spending millions of dollars to shore up his right flank in his bid for a fifth term. President Donald Trump endorsed Graham over a year ago, but multiple Republicans filed to run against him, including self-funding businessman Mark Lynch, who has lent his campaign $5 million.
Graham also had another prominent challenger questioning his conservative bona fides: Paul Dans, an architect of Project 2025, who ended his campaign in mid-April and endorsed Lynch.
Graham has never won 70% in a Republican primary as a Senate candidate, but he has nevertheless fended off well-funded primary and general election challenges for years. Still, it’s worth keeping tabs on how much salience Lynch’s primary challenge has with Republican voters as Democrats mount an uphill bid to oppose him. Pediatrician Annie Andrews, who has attacked Graham as a “warmonger” and a “swamp creature,” is the top fundraiser on the Democratic side.
Two crowded fields for governor
The two biggest gubernatorial primaries in Tuesday’s contests feature crowded fields in which it’s likely no candidate will be able to win a majority on the first ballot, with different processes to decide the nominees afterward.
In Maine, the crowded Democratic field includes former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention chief Nirav Shah, former state Senate President Troy Jackson, renewable energy entrepreneur Angus King III (whose father is a former governor and current senator), Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former state House Speaker Hannah Pingree (whose mother is Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree).
Most recent polls show a tight race with no candidate coming close to reaching 50% support, which means Maine’s ranked choice voting process will come into play.
Under this process, if no candidate wins a majority in a primary, votes for the candidate with the fewest votes will be reassigned to those voters’ second choices. That process repeats until there are only two candidates left, and the candidate with the majority of the votes will win.
The top Democrats in the race have largely put their opposition to Trump and his policies, as well as the cost of living, at the center of their campaigns, though some have also distanced themselves from Mills, who was prohibited from running for re-election by term limits. Most recently that included criticism of her veto of a proposed ban on building data centers in the state.
The Republican primary field is also crowded, but polling indicates former State Department official Bobby Charles is leading a group that also includes healthcare technology businessman Jonathan Bush, real estate businessman David Jones, former state legislator Garrett Mason and fitness industry businessman Ben Midgley. If no candidate wins a majority, that primary will be decided by ranked choice, as well.
A lot of candidates also piled into South Carolina’s Republican primary for governor, which has a different fate in store for contenders if no one wins a majority of the vote: a runoff between the top two candidates on June 23.
The competitive race to succeed term-limited Gov. Henry McMaster — the state’s first open race for governor in 15 years — quickly emerged as an all-out fight for Trump’s endorsement.
Trump put that battle to rest in late May when he endorsed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, but it remains to be seen whether it’s enough to tip the scales for her.
Trump’s endorsement of Evette is a blow to the other candidates — notably state Attorney General Alan Wilson and Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman — who fought to position themselves as the most MAGA candidates in the race.
Battleground watch
A handful of House districts in those states could grab attention in the fall, most notably Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, the most competitive battleground House seat holding a primary Tuesday.
The seat is being left open by retiring Democrat Jared Golden, one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress, who has held on to the seat despite Trump’s winning the district by 9 points in 2024. That has made the seat a prime Republican pickup opportunity in the fall, and Democrats’ competitive primary will have significant implications for the general election.
Joe Baldacci, a state senator and son of a former governor, is fashioning himself as the candidate who can best appeal to swing voters. He has been a lackluster fundraiser, but the House Democratic campaign committee added him to its “Red to Blue” program for top candidates, and he is getting fundraising and ad spending boosts from a joint fundraising committee with the party’s top House super PAC.
State Auditor Matt Dunlap is running as a progressive, embracing “Medicare for All” and leaning on his decadeslong political career in the state. He previously sought to challenge Golden before Golden retired.
Jordan Wood, the former chief of staff to then-Rep. Katie Porter of California and a top staffer at End Citizens United, is also running from the progressive wing of the party. He’s the top fundraiser in the race by a large margin and originally launched a Senate campaign before he switched to the House race.
The Republican primary is straightforward: Former Gov. Paul LePage is the only candidate and has Trump’s endorsement. LePage served two terms as governor, and his penchant for making controversial comments has been a double-edged sword in his political career.
Nevada is home to a handful of battleground races, too, with mostly less competitive primaries on the Republican side as the GOP looks to challenge three Democratic incumbents.
The most competitive primary there is in the 3rd District, where Democratic Rep. Susie Lee is looking to defend her seat, which Trump won by less than a point in 2024. She faces self-funding doctor James Lally in the Democratic primary.
In the Republican primary, Trump is backing video game and commercial composer Marty O’Donnell, whose credits include the theme to the Xbox franchise “Halo,” as well as the jingles for Flintstones kids’ vitamins and Mr. Clean. But his controversial associations could be fodder for Democrats in the fall. Jeff Gunter, Trump’s former ambassador to Poland, is also running as “110% pro-Trump,” even though he doesn’t have Trump’s endorsement.
Democratic Reps. Dina Titus and Steven Horsford are also potentially vulnerable, after then-Vice President Kamala Harris carried each of their districts by just 2 points in 2024. Trump-backed state Sen. Carrie Buck is the favorite to face Titus, while businessman Cody Whipple and attorney Ronda Kennedy have lent their campaigns hundreds of thousands of dollars as they look to take on Horsford.
