Vince Fong, a California congressman and former aide to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, won a special election Tuesday to fill his seat. He represents the state’s most conservative district, which is heavily Democratic. Mr. Fung will replace Mr. McCarthy, who was removed from the Speaker’s position and resigned from Congress.
Fong will serve until his term expires in January, when he will face off against his Republican opponent, longtime Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreau, again in the fall.
Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky and Oregon also held primaries on Tuesday, with Kentucky and Oregon’s presidential primaries drawing significant protest votes against President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.
Here are a few points to keep in mind:
Biden faced significant resistance in the Kentucky primary and protest votes against him in Oregon were weak.
In Kentucky’s Democratic primary, nearly 30% of voters supported an option other than Biden, with the president performing significantly worse among Democrats in the state. There were nearly double the protest votes against Biden than against Trump, who won about 85% of the vote in the Republican primary. Turnout in the Democratic primary was also significantly lower, at about 184,000 votes compared to the more than 537,000 recorded in 2020.
In Oregon, a write-in campaign protesting Biden’s handling of the Gaza war underperformed, with less than 5% of the total votes in the Democratic primary going to write-ins. In neighboring Washington state, a non-committal ballot option won nearly 10% of the vote in the Democratic primary in late March. Trump was unopposed in Oregon’s Republican primary.
Fani T. Willis, the top prosecutor in Mr. Trump’s Georgia criminal case, won a landslide primary victory.
The Democratic primary for District Attorney in Fulton County, Georgia ended in a stunning disaster. Fani Willis, who is prosecuting Trump and others seeking to overturn the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election, defeated her opponent Christian Wise Smith by a landslide, winning with 87% of the vote.
Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over Trump’s case in Georgia, was also re-elected by a landslide, receiving 83% of the vote. Both McAfee and Willis were considered the favorites in their respective elections.
Willis’ victory signaled confidence in her performance among Democrats after her romantic relationship with the lawyer she hired to handle the prosecution came to light in January. Trump’s lawyers had asked Judge McAfee to remove Willis from the case, saying the relationship represented a serious conflict of interest. The Georgia Court of Appeals will review Judge McAfee’s decision to keep her in the case.
A progressive candidate in Oregon has lost a high-profile Democratic primary.
Jamie McLeod-Skinner, a progressive candidate in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, lost the Democratic primary to Janelle Bynum, two years after narrowly losing to a Republican candidate for the 2022 up-front seat. Bynum, who was endorsed by Gov. Tina Kotek, will face U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez Delemer, who ran unopposed in the Republican primary, in one of the most-watched House races this year.
Mike Schmidt, the progressive district attorney for Multnomah County, which includes Portland, was pursuing a challenger to Nathan Vasquez, a prosecutor in his own office.
Vazquez, who was previously a registered Republican, blamed Schmidt for Portland’s recent drug and crime problems. As homicides, homelessness and overdose deaths rose during Schmidt’s tenure, Vazquez vowed to prosecute even misdemeanors.
Schmidt previously campaigned in 2020 to deprioritize low-level crimes, but in response to voters’ concerns, he recently toughened his stance on drugs and increased staff to prosecute more violent crimes. changed.
