Rep. Steven Palazzo will advance to a runoff in Mississippi GOP primary

Mississippi Rep. Steven Palazzo is headed to a Republican primary runoff, CNN projects, putting the incumbent in danger of losing his seat amid a series of ethics controversies. The second spot in the runoff is too early to call.

Palazzo is on track to collect the most votes in a seven-candidate field, but fell significantly short of the majority needed to clinch the nomination, setting up a one-on-one race against one of his fellow candidates on June 28.  

A military veteran, Palazzo was first elected during the tea party wave of 2010. But a report last year from the Office of Congressional Ethics last year found “substantial” evidence he used campaign and congressional funds for personal use, sent staff on personal errands and sought to wield his official power to help his brother reenlist in the Navy.

The report was taken up for review by the House Ethics Committee. 

Palazzo has denied any wrongdoing, but his political vulnerabilities stretched beyond ethics concerns – and made him a prime target for a primary challenge from a number of well-known figures in the Gulf Coast district.

Despite railing against proxy-voting and joining a lawsuit against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi trying to end the practice, Palazzo has frequently taken advantage of the option – leading to charges of hypocrisy from his primary rivals that had already pounced on old nickname coined by some early critics: “No-Show Palazzo.”

Palazzo didn’t help his own case when he skipped out of a candidate forum in May, citing “meetings dealing with national security,” only to post pictures online of him and his son eating at a local restaurant during the event.     

It’s 11 p.m. ET and polls are closing across California.

Here are some of the key races voters are weighing in on:

Republican Mark Ronchetti will win the New Mexico Republican nomination for governor, CNN projects.

Ronchetti, a former weatherman who was the Republican nominee for a US Senate seat in New Mexico in 2020, beat a field of three other contenders vying for the nomination, following the New Mexico Republican party’s pre-primary convention in February.

State Rep. Rebecca Dow, US Army veteran and financial advisor Gregory Zanetti and retired USAF reserve member and Sandoval County Commissioner Jay Block also ran for the GOP nomination.

Ronchetti held a steady fundraising advantage over the other GOP candidates throughout the race, according to local news. 

He will face incumbent Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in the November general election. Republicans view the race as an opportunity to pick up a governor’s seat in a key border state, where immigration is an important issue. 

Lujan Grisham, for her part, became the first Democratic Latina to be elected governor in the US in 2018 and ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination this year.

The Republican Governor’s Association has slammed Lujan Grisham over her response to the situation at the US southern border as well as high inflation and Covid-19. Republicans have also attacked Lujan Grisham for controversy during her first term in office. 

Ronchetti has prioritized border security and crime while running for the GOP nomination.

During his primary campaign, he criticized Lujan Grisham for her stance on the oil and gas industries as well as her spending practices as governor and response to inflation and crime.

New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, the longest-serving member of the state delegation, will win the GOP nomination in the 4th Congressional District, CNN projects. 

Smith, who was first elected in 1980, fended off an array of primary challengers, including conservative talk radio host Mike Crispi, who was endorsed by Trump allies such as Roger Stone and Rudy Guiliani, and former FBI agent Steve Gray. Both had sought to cast the veteran incumbent as too moderate

Smith was one of the few Republicans to vote for President Biden’s infrastructure bill. He is also the co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.

Progressives didn’t invest much in the New Jersey House primaries, but that didn’t mean they weren’t paying attention to Tuesday night’s results.

Results from the 10th Congressional District, where Imani Oakley, the former New Jersey Working Families legislative director, challenged Rep. Donald Payne Jr., were of particular interest. A strong showing from Oakley might have set the stage for another, better-funded and organized effort to oust Payne in two years.

But Payne, a five-term incumbent who took over the seat from his late father, raced out to an early lead and comfortably clinched the nomination.

A new PAC, Team Blue, co-chaired by Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Terri Sewell of Alabama and Cheri Bustos of Illinois, was also paying close attention. Before polls closed on Tuesday, they put out a statement reiterating their support for Payne – with a jab at the left for good measure.

“Rep. Payne, a proven progressive, is facing a primary challenge from the extreme left, mirroring the recent, failed effort to take down Rep. Shontel Brown in Ohio,” the co-chairs said.

Oakley, in a statement, ripped the party establishment in New Jersey’s over what she described as “dirty tricks” and lamented the continued influence of “our state’s corrupt political machine,” but vowed to continue her fight.

Whether national progressives will be there to back her is another question. The larger local progressive organizations, including the New Jersey WFP, almost unanimously backed Payne.

Results from the Garden State’s 8th Congressional District, where Rep. Albio Spires retired to make way for Robert Menendez Jr., son of New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, were also dispiriting for progressives. Menendez Jr. has never held office, but quickly secured key endorsements in a district that might have otherwise invited a competitive contest. 

Menendez Jr. ultimately faced two other candidates, including progressive David Ocampo Garajales, who looks unlikely to crack 15% of the vote.

Democrats faced fresh warning signs Tuesday night in two blue states at a moment when they are trying to get their base voters energized and primed for an intensely competitive election year.

Voter disengagement was most evident in California, where nearly 22 million ballots were mailed out to every eligible voter. Only about 18% of ballots had been returned as of Tuesday even though they were mailed to voters weeks ago, according to ballot tracking data from the California-based firm Political Data Intelligence. This comes despite an array of competitive House races — where the top two vote-getters regardless of party will advance to the general election — and several marquee local contests, including the race for mayor in Los Angeles and an attempted recall of San Francisco’s district attorney.

In New Jersey, few of the state’s voters opted to cast their ballots in the three-day window for in-person early voting, but Secretary of State Tahesha Way noted in an interview with ABC News that the process is new, meaning it could take some time for voters to take advantage of it. Those early indicators, however, stand in sharp contrast with the high turnout during early voting in states like Georgia, where a more restrictive new voting law led activists to redouble their efforts to get voters to cast their ballots ahead of the primary.

The May calendar was dominated by big US Senate contests where former President Donald Trump’s influence was repeatedly tested. But now the focus shifts to these competitive House races that will offer a window into how much voters intend to blame the party in power for their current unease about the state of the economy and the country.

Those dynamics are most apparent in California, where Democrats currently hold all the statewide offices and dominate the congressional delegation. The new map that was drawn by the state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission last year yielded as many as ten competitive House races in California, where Democrats were bullish about the potential for pickups.

But Golden State voters are contending with the highest gas prices in the nation and unnerved by the spike in violent crime, as well as a crushing homelessness crisis that many say seems to be worsening, even though billions of dollars are flowing to build housing for those living on the streets. All those issues have surfaced in the close races in the state, emboldening Republicans who are advancing the notion that things are spiraling out of control.

Read more here.

Retired Navy Adm. Mike Franken will win Iowa’s Senate Democratic primary, CNN projects, and is set to take on longtime Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley in the general election in November.

He was facing off against former Rep. Abby Finkenauer and Glenn Hurst.

Finkenauer had been a favorite to win the race. She served one term in Congress after being elected in 2018 and won a district former President Donald Trump carried in 2016. She became the second youngest women ever to be elected to Congress when she won at 29. She lost her reelection campaign to Ashley Hinson in 2020. 

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled in April that Finkenauer could appear on the 2022 primary ballot after a lower Iowa court said some of the signatures on her nominating petition should be ruled invalid. 

It’s 10 p.m. ET, and the polls are closing in Montana.

Montana is hosting two US House races for the first time in decades after the state gained a second seat in reapportionment following the 2020 census. The newly drawn district favors Republicans.

Ryan Zinke, the former interior secretary under former President Donald Trump, is running for that new seat, covering the western part of the state.

Former state Sen. Al Olszewski is staging the most serious challenge to Zinke’s bid but has raised just a fraction of the campaign cash haul that Zinke’s brought in. 

Incumbent Gov. Kristi Noem will win the South Dakota Republican nomination for governor, CNN projects.

Noem fended off a primary challenge from state Rep. Steve Haugaard. She is seeking a second term leading a red state that backed former President Donald Trump by 26 points in 2020.

Noem, a forceful champion of Trump, has been talked about as a potential running mate for the former President if he were to run again in 2024 and is considered a potential 2024 presidential contender herself. She raised more than $800,000 ahead of the primary, according to campaign finance reports. 

She has been outspoken on a number of issues, including Covid-19 restrictions and gun rights. Earlier this year, she accused President Joe Biden in a speech of projecting weakness on the world stage, saying he had been “wrong on every major foreign policy decision that he has been part of for almost 50 years” and charging that his leadership style has emboldened leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Though she has risen to the national spotlight, in South Dakota, Noem’s ambitions have been clouded by the controversy over a July 2020 meeting that she held with members of her staff, her daughter — who was applying to become a state-certified real estate appraiser at the time — and top state officials who oversaw that program.  

Noem also previously hired her daughter Kennedy Noem in 2018 as a policy analyst as Kennedy was graduating from college.