Your Downballot Primary/Special Cheat Sheet: 5/19/26
On Tuesdays, we do elections
Happy Tuesday!
…by which I mean happy primary/special election day!
I briefly mentioned today’s two specials last week, but because that already feels like forever ago:
One is in deep-red Pennsylvania House District 196, and the other is in fairly-swingy-but-Dem-leaning Georgia Senate District 7.
Both are basically dry runs for this fall’s general elections, which will feature mostly the same candidates, but more on those soon.
And let’s not forget about today’s primary elections, which are in
Alabama
Georgia
Idaho
Kentucky
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Let’s start from the top.
Alabama
All 105 state House seats and 35 state Senate seats are on the ballot this fall, but, frankly, not that many of these contests feature primaries:
Thirteen Democratic incumbents have primary challengers and 20 Republican incumbents have primary challengers.
Alabama’s legislature is and will remain heavily Republican regardless of how the primaries sort out, but the GOP did attempt a Callais play with the state Senate map.
You see, Alabama’s congressional map wasn’t the only one that was redrawn in the first half of the current decade.
In 2025, a federal court determined that Alabama’s 2021 Senate redistricting plan unlawfully diluted Black voting strength in the Montgomery area.
A few months later, a new map was approved.
Fast-forward to a couple of weeks ago, when the GOP secretary of state and attorney general filed an emergency motion to revert to the racist 2021 map in light of Callais.
Alas for the folks eager to do racisms, but the 2025 ruling is already under appeal and, as of yesterday, no movement had been made by the 11th Circuit to address the matter in the immediate future.
This year’s state Senate elections might be the only ones that use the 2025 map, but this year’s elections will, as of this writing, use the 2025 map.
Georgia
In the Peach State, all 180 state House and 56 state Senate seats are on the ballot this fall, making tonight an energetic evening in terms of primary elections.
But the real news in Georgia tonight will be made in its state Supreme Court elections.
SCOGA elections are ostensibly nonpartisan, but two progressive candidates emerged in February to take on two Republican-appointed incumbents.
Miracle Rankin, a personal injury attorney and former president of the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys, and Jen Jordan, a former Democratic state senator, have been endorsed by Barack Obama.
Justice Charlie Bethel, a former Republican state senator, is being challenged by Rankin, while Jordan is running against Justice Sarah Warren.
Both justices were appointed in 2018 by GOP then-Gov. Nathan Deal.
GOP Gov. Brian Kemp is supporting the incumbents, and his leadership PAC has dropped $500,000 on the race.
Over $4 million has reportedly been spent on advertising, split about evenly between support for the incumbents and the challengers.
By the by, Georgia Supreme Court justices serve six-year terms and are often first appointed by governors to fill vacancies. Consequently, eight of the nine current SCOGA justices were appointed by Republican governors.
Idaho
All 35 state Senate seats and 70 state House seats are on the ballot in the Gem State this fall, and a fair number of those seats feature primaries today.
Idaho is also holding state Supreme Court elections today, and neither of the two justices on the ballot has an opponent.
According to the extremely smart folks at Bolts, this extends a pretty noteworthy streak: Not a single Idaho Supreme Court race has been contested since 2018.
So Cynthia Meyer, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Brad Little in 2023, and Gregory Moeller, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Butch Otter in 2019, will coast to reelection tonight.
Kentucky
Nineteen of 38 state Senate seats and all 100 state House seats are on the ballot in the Bluegrass State this fall. Each chamber features a handful of primaries, but the Elephant wars we’ve seen in other majority-GOP legislatures seem mostly absent here.
State Supreme Court Justice Debra Hembree Lambert, who represents the state’s deep-red third judicial district, had no primary opposition and faces no opposition in the general election in November, making her certain to win a new eight-year term.
Oregon
Fifteen of 30 state Senate seats and all 60 of Oregon’s House seats are up this fall. Each chamber has a decent number of primaries. The Beaver State’s mostly vote-by-mail system is humming along as it should, according to reports.
Oregon Supreme Court Justice Chris Garrett, appointed by then-Gov. Kate Brown, is running for another six-year term. He’s unopposed both in today’s primary and in November’s general election.
Pennsylvania
Half of the Pennsylvania Senate’s 50 seats and all of the state House’s 203 seats are on the ballot this fall. A handful of state House districts have primaries tonight, but about 11 of the 25 Senate districts that are up have primaries.
Democrats are mostly focused on keeping their slim House majority this fall, and Republicans are desperate to prevent Team Blue from flipping the two seats needed to tie the chamber (Democratic LG Austin Davis would be able to break ties in his party’s favor).
Happy election-watching!
Ope, one last thing:
Tomorrow, I’m hosting my first ever Substack Live with State Futures’ Gaby Goldstein, who got into state legislative work in the long ago time of 2017 and is absolutely killing it.
We’re chatting at noon ET on Wednesday, May 20, so you can learn about important downballot things while you’re eating lunch! And maybe say hi to my calico, who really enjoys joining video streams for some reason.
