Midterm primaries 2026 live: results and reaction as six states including California and Iowa cast ballots

Although no winners have been named in California’s gubernatorial primary, some candidates have begun issuing statements acknowledging they won’t be moving on to the state’s general election.

Speaking to supporters shortly after polls closed, San Jose mayor Matt Mahan said “our mission has only just begun” while acknowledging he will not be moving forward in the race.

“Tonight didn’t turn out the way we hoped, and I offer my congratulations to the winners and offer my best wishes for the road ahead,” former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in a statement.

Hours before California polls closed, voters in downtown Los Angeles trickled into a line around the corner of the historic Biltmore tower, a building whose lobby had been converted into a primary polling place.

Tyrone Brown, a Chicago native who has lived in Los Angeles for 10 years, waited in the line to cast a ballot for gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra and incumbent mayor Karen Bass.

“No mayor’s job is easy,” Brown, 33, said of Bass’ tenure, referencing in particular the recent presence of federal immigration agents in the city. He regards her as more qualified for the job than her challenger, council member Nithya Raman. “I think she deserves another term.”

Suzette Shaw, a 62-year-old Skid Row resident, has not been “happy” with the Democrats at the state and local level. She backed Bass’ first term, but has since been disillusioned with public safety issues in her neighborhood.

“We have drug dealers on every block and every corner, primarily here in downtown, especially where I live. I take great issue with that,” she said.

At the same time, Shaw does not want to see Republicans come into power in either the mayoral or governor’s race. “I am still undecided,” she said, nearby the entrance of the polling site.

A few blocks away from the tower, sexual health educator Michael Castro, 29, who bore a “I vote” sticker tacked to his shirt, and community health worker Dante Rodriguez, 32, expressed disapproval with Bass’ handling of the wildfire response and track record on homelessness. They voted instead for Raman.

The gubernatorial contest was a harder choice because of the crowded contest, said Rodriguez. “We went with – what was his name?” Rodriguez said, recalling billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer. He has no love for billionaires, but resonated with Steyer’s messaging about the environment.

“I wish it was like New York where it’s ranked voting because then I think we can have more progressive candidates get in,” he added of the state’s top two primary.

Robert Garcia has won the Democratic nomination for California’s 42nd congressional district.

An incumbent two-term Democratic LGBTQ+ congressman, immigrant and Donald Trump critic, Garcia is representing new communities thanks to a successful redistricting effort that redrew California’s voting maps to favor Democrats. If re-elected in November, Garica would now represent the conservative California community of Huntington Beach, known for banning the Pride flag from city property and fighting the state over pandemic and housing policy.

My colleague Dani Anguiano reports:

Results are beginning to pour in from California:

Mark DeSaulnier has won the Democratic nomination for the state’s 10th congressional district

Kevin Mullin has won the party’s nomination in the 15th district.

John Garamendi is the Democratic nominee in the 8th district.

Judy Chu is the party’s nominee in the 28th district.

And Derek Tran has won the Democratic nomination in the 45th district.

As results roll in from primaries across the country, here are some images of the scene at election night parties and events from the newswires:

Jasmeet Bains, a California state assemblywoman running in a competitive primary for the chance to face Republican Representative David Valadao in November, announced on Tuesday that she would cancel her election night event after a man took people hostage at a bank in Bakersfield.

According to local police, a man had barricaded himself inside a Chase bank in the southern California city of Bakersfield with “several community members”.

“Out of an abundance of caution, and to avoid creating a large gathering of people in close proximity to this incident, we will no longer hold an in-person Election Night event in downtown,” Bains said in a statement, issued shortly before polls closed across the state.

She encouraged residents to “avoid downtown Bakersfield at this time”.

“My thoughts are with all of the families impacted by this concerning situation,” she said.

The Democratic Governors Association has congratulated Deb Haaland on winning her race for the Democratic nomination to become New Mexico’s next governor, saying her life story is “one of resilience”.

“She knows the pain New Mexicans are feeling right now, which is why she will never stop fighting to bring down costs and create jobs, strengthen schools, expand affordable health care, and create safer communities,” said association chair and Kentucky governor Andy Beshear.

Haaland celebrated her victory Tuesday evening in Albuquerque’s Old Town, where singers from Laguna Pueblo congratulated her and attendants joined in a Tiwa language prayer and traditional hoop dancing.

Polls have closed in California, where voters are casting ballots on who should lead the nation’s most populous state (and the world’s fourth largest economy). The race for Los Angeles mayor is also on the ballot, along with a series of high-stakes US House contests in the state’s newly redrawn congressional districts – which are set to play an outsized and potentially decisive role in the battle for power in Washington in November’s midterm elections.

Alabama can use a redrawn congressional map that eliminates one of the state’s two majority-Black districts in this year’s midterm elections, the US supreme court ruled in a 6-3 decision today.

My colleague Sam Levine has the full story:

The court’s emergency ruling is the most consequential decision it had issued since its landmark ruling in late April that struck down a critical provision of the Voting Rights Act. In that case, Louisiana v Callais, the court’s majority made it nearly impossible to win Voting Rights Act claims, saying that plaintiffs had to prove intentional discrimination. But on 26 May, a three-judge panel said the map Alabama wants to use for this year’s midterm was enacted with discriminatory intent.

But in an unsigned opinion on Tuesday, the court’s conservative justices said the panel had failed to properly reconsider the case in light of the Callais decision and other recent cases weakening the Voting Rights Act.

Mariannette Miller-Meeks has won the Republican nomination in her bid for re-election to represent Iowa’s 1st congressional district, despite competition from MAGA candidate David Pautch.

Miller-Meeks will face off against Democratic nominee Christina Bohannan in the November general election.

Polls have closed in Montana, where a five-way Democratic fight is under way for the retiring Republican senator’s seat. Independent Seth Bodnar, former president of the University of Montana, is outraising them all at the moment but they’re refusing to step aside, Politico reported this morning.

Christina Bohannan has won the Democratic nomination for Iowa’s 1st congressional district. She will compete against incumbent Republican congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the November general election.

“Representative Miller-Meeks has gone Washington. Her outright corruption is fueling the cost of living crisis. She sides with insurance companies and Big Pharma over affordable, accessible healthcare for her constituents,” Bohannan said in a statement celebrating her nomination. “Miller-Meeks is too beholden to billionaires and special interests to ever address the needs of everyday working people.”

Bohannan is running for congress for the third time. In 2024, she came within about 800 votes of unseating Miller-Meeks.

Iowa state representative Josh Turek has won the Democratic nomination for the state’s open US Senate seat – teeing him up to face off against Trump-endorsed Ashley Hinson in the November general election.

While Hinson has received the president’s endorsement, and Turek has called himself as a “common-sense prairie populist”, both spoke of bipartisanship in statements released after their victories.

“My record is one of delivering bipartisan results for Iowans, and that’s exactly what I’ll do in the United States Senate. I’ll work with anyone, from any party, to get things done for Iowa,” Hinson said.

“This campaign has always been about having a Senator from Iowa fighting for the people of Iowa, not for the billionaires or large corporations. In the U.S. Senate, I will work with anyone to address rising costs, stagnant incomes, and out-of-control corruption in D.C. that continues to hurt working people, and I will be a real fighter for Iowans, the middle class and our working families,” Turek said. If he wins in November, he would become Iowa’s first Democratic senator since 2008.

Adam Hamawy has won the Democratic nomination for New Jersey’s 12th congressional district, teeing the army doctor and political newcomer up to face off against Republican Gregg Mele in November’s general election.

“Dr. Hamawy won this race the old-fashioned way by outworking his opponents, out-organizing the establishment, and building the progressive coalition needed to deliver his people-first vision to New Jersey working families,” said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, a political action committee that supports progressive candidates. “AIPAC, Crypto, and AI wanted to buy this seat and interviewed various candidates, but while they couldn’t choose which corporate shill to back, the left united behind a political outsider with a vision that spoke to the needs and priorities of Jersey voters.”

After returning from a medical mission in Gaza in 2024, Hamawy went to Washington to describe the crisis – which he viewed as a US-funded genocide – to lawmakers, only to encounter “too many doors that were closed, that didn’t even want to listen”, my colleague Joseph Gedeon reports.

One of the few representatives on Capitol Hill who met with him was his own: Bonnie Watson Coleman, who has served New Jersey’s 12th congressional district for more than a decade. When she announced her retirement in November 2025, after six terms, Hamawy decided it was no longer enough to seek the attention of those elected to serve in Washington – and launched his campaign to join them.

Deb Haaland has won the Democratic nomination for governor in New Mexico. If elected in the November general election, Haaland would become the first Native American woman governor elected in the country.

A single, working mother, Haaland came on the national scene in 2018 when she was elected to Congress alongside a wave of freshman, female lawmakers known as “The Squad” who’d run in reaction to Donald Trump’s election in 2016. Haaland resigned from the House of Representatives in 2021 when Joe Biden chose her to lead his interior department, making her the first Native American to serve in the roll, which includes overseeing much of the nation’s public lands and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

During her time in congress, Haaland – who is from Laguna Pueblo – introduced legislation to stem the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, and as interior secretary she oversaw the formation of a new Missing & Murdered Unit (MMU) within the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Last year, New Mexico became the fourth state in the country to create its own law enforcement alert system for missing Indigenous people. Haaland also launched a historic effort to investigate the legacy of Native American boarding schools.

Haaland has campaigned as a fierce critic of Donald Trump, saying in campaign ads that, “Governors are the first line of defense against the horrific policies of the Trump administration.” Since Trump returned to office, New Mexico has been one of few Democratic strongholds in the south-west – with the state working to shore up protections for abortion patients, transgender people and SNAP and Medicaid recipients.

Democratic senator Ben Ray Luján has won his primary in his bid for re-election in New Mexico.

Celebrating her victory in the Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district, Rebecca Bennett called her Republican opposition Tom Kean Jr a “coward”.

“You are failing us, and you do not deserve to represent us in Washington,” Bennett said, addressing Kean who has been away from Congress with an unspecified illness since March.

Ashley Hinson has won the Republican nomination to replace retiring Iowa senator Joni Ernst.

A former television anchor turned state senator, Hinson was endorsed by Donald Trump and Ernst in her race against former state senator Jim Carlin.

Election results are coming in from South Dakota, where Mike Rounds has won the Republican nomination for Senate and Marty Jackley has won the Republican nomination for the state’s 1st congressional district.