The proxy battle over the future of the GOP between Trump and Pence continues with a high-profile gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin

Charity Clark will be the Democratic nominee in Vermont’s attorney general race, CNN projects.

Clark defeated challenger Rory Thibault.

Becca Balint will win the Democratic nomination for Vermont’s at-large House seat, CNN projects, putting her on a path to become the first woman to represent the state in Congress.  

She is running to fill the seat of Rep. Peter Welch, who is running to replace retiring Sen. Patrick Leahy in the Senate.

Vermont is the only state that has never sent a woman to Congress, so Balint would make history if elected in November.

The candidate, a former schoolteacher currently serving as the president pro tempore in the state Senate, defeated Lt. Gov. Molly Gray and physician Louis Meyers.

Balint entered primary day with the support of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other leading progressive politicians and groups. She got a boost during the campaign when state Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale dropped out and endorsed her, consolidating the progressive vote. Balint also benefited from significant outside spending from the LGBTQ Victory Fund (Balint is gay), which poured about $1 million into the race, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ campaign arm. 

Gray attracted support from more moderate state leaders, including retiring Sen. Leahy, who, while he stopped short of issuing a formal endorsement, said he voted for Gray and, through his PAC, donated $5,000 to her cause. Former Vermont Govs. Howard Dean and Madeleine Kunin also backed Gray.

But in a contest that provided few notable policy distinctions between the leading candidates, Balint’s success in claiming the progressive mantle – she was also endorsed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of neighboring Massachusetts – likely helped her among primary voters, who tend to lean even further left than even the average Vermont Democrat.

“A high turnout for us has been about 25%, so we’re not talking about a real representation of the Democratic party in Vermont,” said Rich Clark, a professor at Castleton University and Vermont pollster, on the eve of the primary. “It’ll be the most engaged (voters deciding the winner) and they’ll tend to be on the progressive side.”

Balint will enter the November general election as the overwhelming favorite to win the seat being vacated by Rep. Welch. This was the first Democratic House primary in Vermont with no incumbent on the ballot since 2006, when Sanders gave up his seat to run for the Senate.

State Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint and Lt. Gov. Molly Gray are the front-runners in a three-candidate race for the nomination to replace Rep. Peter Welch in the House.

If elected in the fall, either one could become the first woman elected to Congress from Vermont, which is the only state that has never sent a woman to Congress.

Little separates Balint and Gray on the major issues, but their candidacies have split the loyalties of Vermont Sens. Bernie Sanders and Leahy. Sanders and leading progressives from around the country have endorsed Balint. Gray has the support of Leahy, who has donated to her cause and said he voted for her, though not formally endorsed in the race. Former Vermont Govs. Howard Dean and Madeleine Kunin are also backing Gray.

But in a race that has seen the candidates themselves about level on fundraising, a flood of outside spending for Balint could help tip the scales. The LGBTQ Victory Fund has invested about $1 million into the race for Balint, who is gay. She has also benefited from spending by the campaign arm of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whose chair, Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, along with the progressive senators from neighboring Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, have all endorsed Balint.

Brenda Siegel will win Vermont’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, CNN projects, and face incumbent GOP Gov. Phil Scott in November.

Siegel ran unopposed.

It’s 8 p.m. ET and polls are closing in Connecticut.

Connecticut’s Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Gov. Ned Lamont are up for reelection but are unopposed in their primaries. In November, Lamont will face Republican Bob Stefanowski, who he defeated in 2018 by roughly 3 percentage points.

Three Republicans are vying for the nomination to face Blumenthal. There will also be a Republican primary in the 5th Congressional District and primaries on both sides for secretary of the state. 

Connecticut primaries are only open to registered party members.

Rep. Peter Welch will win Vermont’s Democratic Senate primary, CNN projects.  

Welch, who currently serves as the state’s only House member, is running to fill retiring Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy’s seat.  

He defeated organizer Isaac Evans-Frantz and emergency room physician Niki Thran.

Welch, who has held the state’s at large congressional seat since 2006, announced his run for Senate last year after Leahy said he would be retiring at the end of the term. 

Welch is a chief deputy whip of the House Democratic Caucus and has pushed for energy reform.

Former President Donald Trump’s clout with Republican voters in a key swing state will be tested again on Tuesday as the fallout from the FBI search of his Florida resort mushrooms across the political landscape.

Wisconsin, where Republicans are selecting their nominee to take on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in a crucial November election, is providing the headline contests, but three other states — Minnesota, Vermont and Connecticut — are also going to the polls, with races up and down the ballot poised to provide a clearer picture of an increasingly high-stakes midterm election season.

Wisconsin is the third state in which Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence have backed opposing GOP candidates for governor. Pence has backed former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who, at the outset, appeared to be the party favorite in the primary. But Kleefisch, who served two terms as former Gov. Scott Walker’s second-in-command, is locked in a tight race with Tim Michels, a construction company owner who was endorsed by Trump and has gone further in embracing his 2020 election lies — mostly by indulging efforts to decertify President Joe Biden’s victory in the state. Kleefisch has been more circumspect, triggering attacks from Trump.

Trump and Pence each have mixed records: Trump’s choice in Arizona, Kari Lake, a conservative commentator and election denier, narrowly won the nomination, while Pence’s pick in Georgia, incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, defeated Trump-backed primary challenger David Perdue, a former senator, in a landslide.

The rubber match between the former running mates will settle the Republican Party’s slate of nominees for governor in the states that flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden four years later — Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania. All five are expected to be fiercely contested again in 2024, and GOP victories in those political battlegrounds this fall could help ease Trump’s path back to the White House if he runs again.

Wisconsin is also home to a critical GOP primary in the state legislature, where longtime Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, an arch conservative who has mostly gone along with Trump’s 2020 election claims, is being challenged by Adam Steen, who picked up a Trump endorsement because Vos, in the former President’s estimation, has been insufficiently bullish about right-wing efforts to have the state decertify his defeat.

Democrats, meanwhile, are very much enjoying the anticlimactic finish to what many expected to be a closely-contested Senate primary. After polls showed Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes pulling away from the field, his top rivals all dropped out in a span of a few days, effectively handing him the nomination and a November showdown with Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, one of Trump’s leading defenders in Washington and a top target for Democrats hoping to preserve or potentially expand their Senate majority.

Also in the Upper Midwest on Tuesday, Republicans in Minnesota will pick their candidate to face Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who is seeking a second term.

Scott Jensen, a doctor and former state lawmaker, all but clinched the nomination after winning the support of the state party. He faces Joyce Lynne Lacey and Bob “Again” Carney Jr., both heavy underdogs, in the primary. Jensen is a longtime critic of Walz, mostly railing against statewide lockdowns during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. But he also suggested hospitals inflated their counts of the sick and questioned the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, which Jensen has said he did not receive.

The race between Walz and Jensen could also help determine the fate of abortion rights in Minnesota. Jensen told Minnesota Public Radio in March that he would “try to ban abortion” if elected, a remark Walz and other Democrats have already seized on. Jensen, late last month, backed off his more aggressive language in remarks, saying he supports exceptions to allow abortion in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk.

But Democrats, emboldened by Kansas’ vote last week to preserve abortion rights in a statewide referendum, are expected to make the issue a central piece of their fall campaign.

Read more here.

The contest to become Vermont’s next senator is not a particularly suspenseful affair. Democratic Rep. Peter Welch is the heavy favorite to win his primary today and the general election in the fall. 

The race will, however, end one of the great pieces of political trivia. Retiring Sen. Patrick Leahy has been the only Democratic senator ever elected in Vermont. 

While President Biden won the state by 35 points, the Green Mountain State has historically been quite Republican. Before 1992, Lyndon Johnson was the lone Democrat to win the state in a presidential election. 

No Democratic presidential candidate has lost it since. This traces with the Republican Party becoming more culturally conservative, as the Democratic Party has become more culturally liberal.  

The senators that Vermont elected for much of the 19th and 20th century reflected Vermont’s Republican lean.

Of course, the state hasn’t had a Republican senator in over 20 years. The last Republican senator, Jim Jeffords, became an independent in 2001 and caucused with the Democrats in the Senate. 

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders has done the same since 2007. 

But come next year, Democrats in Vermont will likely be able to claim that they finally elected their second Democrat to the Senate.

It’s 7 p.m. ET and polls are closing in Vermont.

Voters cast ballots in several statewide primary elections, including the Democratic Senate primary election to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy. The frontrunner in the Democratic primary is Rep. Peter Welch, Vermont’s only House member, leaving a competitive Democratic primary election to fill his House seat.

The two leading candidates to replace Welch in the House are Becca Balint, the president pro tempore of the Vermont state Senate, and Lt. Gov. Molly Gray. The race has split Vermont’s senators. Leahy has endorsed Gray, who interned for him before working in Welch’s office. Gray also has the support of former Vermont Govs. Howard Dean and Madeleine Kunin.

Meanwhile, Balint has the backing of Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, and she is also supported by more than $600,000 in advertising from progressive and LGBTQ groups, including the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC and the LGBTQ Victory Fund. 

Vermont is only state that has never sent a woman to Congress, so either Balint or Gray would make history if they win in November, as is expected. 

Read more about this race here.