For a state that’s home to Hollywood, there isn’t much star power in California’s gubernatorial race. It’s a somewhat different story in Los Angeles, where a reality television personality is running for mayor as the city prepares to host the Olympics.
More primaries are being held on Tuesday as well. Democrats are banking on a rare chance to regain ground in Iowa, a rural state that has repeatedly eluded them in recent years. Republicans, meanwhile, are grappling with a New Jersey congressman whose unexplained absence could put their already slim majority at risk.
— California: Voters are weighing in on who should lead the nation’s most populous state, where there is no clear leader among candidates vying to advance in the race to succeed Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. Plus, U.S. House races are on the ballot, along with the Los Angeles mayor’s race.
— New Mexico: Contests in the state include primaries for congressional seats, a U.S. Senate seat and a long list of statewide offices, but the governor’s race is the main attraction. Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is running for the Democratic nomination, which could put her on a historic path for Native American leaders.
— New Jersey: One of this year’s most closely watched House midterms will take place in the battleground district represented by Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who has drawn public scrutiny and concern after missing more than 100 House votes due to an undisclosed medical issue. Voters are deciding which Democrat will run against him in November.
— Read more about races in Iowa, Montana and South Dakota.
Here's the latest:
Supporters of the state senator were awaiting returns for the Democratic U.S. Senate primary at Reunion Bar, just off of the University of Iowa’s pedestrian mall.
Televisions in the campus area bar carried CNN and MSNBC broadcasts of primary night analysis, while supporters of the Iowa City lawmaker chatted over wine and beer.
Chants of “Flip that seat!” broke out when CNN’s John King noted Iowa’s 1st District Democratic primary, where the party has hopes of ousting three-term Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
Local Democratic activists from eastern Iowa and the capital Des Moines milled through the brick-walled upstairs room, as polls were closing.
Wahls is competing with state Rep. Josh Turek for the Democratic nomination to compete for the seat being vacated by two-term Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, who is not seeking a third term.
New Mexico has the highest share of Hispanic or Latino voters among U.S. states and the second-highest share of American Indian or Alaska Native voters, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Despite Indigenous people accounting for nearly a tenth of New Mexico’s voting-eligible population, New Mexico did not elect its first Native American member of Congress until Deb Haaland’s historic victory in 2018.
After serving as U.S. secretary of the interior under former President Joe Biden, Haaland is running in tonight’s Democratic gubernatorial primary.
In-person Election Day voting in Iowa, New Mexico and South Dakota concluded at 9 p.m. ET. Polls closed an hour earlier in the parts of South Dakota that are in Central time.
Comparable primaries from past elections can offer clues about when to expect the first vote results and how long the vote count might take.
In the last contested Iowa state primary in 2022, the AP first reported results at 9:12 p.m. ET, or 12 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 2:29 a.m. ET, with more than 99% of total votes counted.
In the 2022 New Mexico gubernatorial primary, the AP first reported results at 9:11 p.m. ET, or 11 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 2:50 a.m. ET, with more than 99% of total votes counted.
In South Dakota’s most recent U.S. Senate primary in 2022, the AP first reported results at 9:02 p.m. ET, or two minutes after the last polls closed. The final vote update of the night was at 3:22 a.m. ET, with more than 99% of total votes counted.
Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, will take on Rep. Tom Kean Jr. this fall. Her win over three other Democrats in the closely-watched district sets up the state’s premier contest for November, when the party hopes they can flip the seat.
Winning in districts like the 7th, which includes bedroom communities and farm towns as well as Trump’s Bedminster golf club, will be key to Democratic hopes of gaining control of the narrowly divided House.
The win comes as Kean has missed more than 100 votes in the House because of a medical issue that his office has declined to specify.
Rosamaria Cerezo, a 57-year-old substitute teacher, said Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, have failed to make California more affordable.
“Both my husband and I have two jobs each just to make ends meet,” Cerezo said outside a polling location in Elk Grove.
She planned to vote for Republican Steve Hilton, a conservative commentator, in the crowded race to replace Newsom. She wanted to back the GOP candidate she thought had the best chance of advancing to the general election in November.
Outside a polling location in Elk Grove, Tamara Alton, a 65-year-old marriage and family therapist, said she was voting for incumbent Rep. Doris Matsui in the 7th District.
Alton said she’s more familiar with Matsui than her younger challenger, Democrat Mai Vang, a Sacramento City Council member.
“I’m going with who I know,” she said.
Democrat Khydeeja Alam, 42, a small farmer who also works for the state, said she planned to vote for Vang.
Alam, who is Muslim, said Matsui didn’t do enough to engage with Muslim Americans after the war in Gaza began.
“She’s not been accessible, which has been a really big disappointment,” Alam said.
New Jersey’s 7th District remains one of the most competitive U.S. House districts in the country. In 2018, former Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski unseated longtime Republican incumbent Leonard Lance, flipping the seat after decades of GOP control.
Malinowski managed to hold off now-Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in 2020, but following redistricting, the district seesawed back to Republicans in 2022 when Kean won by 2.8 points.
In 2024, Kean expanded his margin to 5.4 points, but Trump won the district by only 1.1 points that same year, making the race for this seat anyone’s game.
John Sileo, a 65-year-old business owner, said he voted for candidates who would put a check on Trump and also California’s liberal government.
The self-described moderate Republican said he never liked Trump and voted for Democrat Joe Kerr for Congress rather than the two Republican contenders.
“Trump has a monopoly now and you’ve got to at least turn the House,” he said outside a vote center in Orange.
Sileo said he refused to vote for Steve Hilton for California’s governor because he is backed by Trump, and wouldn’t vote for Xavier Becerra because he sees him as a continuation of Democrats’ policies in the state.
“I voted for Tom Steyer because at least he’s a disruptor,” he said. “He was the best of poor choices.”
Deanna Crane, 33, said “anyone with a pulse other than Spencer Pratt” would suffice for mayor.
She ultimately went with Nithya Raman because she was unhappy with the way Karen Bass handled the wildfires last January as well as her progress on addressing homelessness.
She said the main issue on her mind was broadly “community,” making sure the people around her were cared for and could afford to live. She went with Tom Steyer in the governor’s race because she felt like he was the most progressive candidate.
“I don’t particularly love voting for a billionaire,” she said. “That was a rough one.”
Frank Coit is a retired orthopedic shoe store owner and Democratic voter from Somerville, where he said he voted for Rebecca Bennett for U.S. House.
A Vietnam War Army veteran, Coit said he liked and appreciated her military service. Bennett served about 15 years in the Navy, working as a helicopter pilot.
“I think every politician going should have some military service,” he said.
Vanessa Rosella, a 47-year-old teacher, said she focused her pick for California’s next governor on the candidate she felt would best defend the state against the president.
“We need someone to stand up,” said Rosella, who cast her ballot for Xavier Becerra.
She said she considered voting for Tom Steyer, but she felt the state didn’t need a billionaire in charge when affordability has become such a critical issue.
In-person Election Day voting concluded in New Jersey at 8 p.m.
Comparable primaries from past elections can offer clues about when to expect the first vote results and how long the vote count might take.
In the New Jersey gubernatorial primaries last year, the AP first reported results at 8:03 p.m. or three minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 11:43 p.m. with about 93% of total votes counted.
Although South Dakota spans two time zones and some polls close at 8 p.m. ET, state law requires that no results are released until the final polls have closed at 9 p.m. ET.
While a Democrat is favored to win the governor’s job in New Mexico, many voters on the outskirts of Albuquerque cast ballots in the Republican primary.
The fire station serving Edgewood is the town’s only polling place. Registered Republican A. J. Rodriguez voted for Gregg Hull, who he says is most likely to be elected, and be in a position to rein in violent crime and government spending.
“The state keeps voting blue, and we’re getting hammered by policies that aren’t working,” said Rodriguez, a retired sheriff’s office lieutenant. “We need someone who can actually put up a good fight.”
Sophia Brown was voting in her first primary in part because she sees Iowa’s 1st District as within reach for Democrats in November.
“I’ve seen the races be so close, so getting out here earlier feels like it might have an impact,” said Brown, a pharmacist for University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
Brown voted for Christina Bohannan, who is seeking her third chance against Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a Republican elected in 2020 and reelected twice by narrow margins.
The 25-year-old resident of Coralville, just outside the University of Iowa’s home in Iowa City, said she often encounters people in her work without health insurance and unable to pay for prescribed medication.
“I see people every day who can’t get discharged from the hospital with the medicine they need,” she said. “That’s something that bothers me, and we need someone who is more acutely aware of that.”
Brett Christensen, a 55-year-old school safety monitor from Orange, said he voted for Republican Ken Calvert for Congress because he feels he is more aligned with the president than his Republican opponent Young Kim.
“Young Kim’s voting record has not been consistent,” Christensen said outside a vote center on Tuesday.
He said he isn’t registered to any political party but finds himself voting more and more Republican, feeling Democrats have shifted too far to the political left. In California’s governor race, he said he voted for the Republican he thought had the best shot of making it to the November ballot: Steve Hilton.
“He’s the only viable Republican candidate that can make it to the runoff,” he said.
Araz Shahinian, 49, went to vote at the Somerville Civic Center in New Jersey’s 7th District. A systems developer, he said he cast his vote in the Democratic primary for Rebecca Bennett, the former Navy chopper pilot.
“She had the more centrist views,” he said. “It’s important to have people who think reasonably about what we need to do.”
Shahinian said he hadn’t been very politically active before, but he’s worried about the state of politics and rising prices. He doesn’t see the GOP as putting forward the right policies. “I don’t think they have answers,” he said.
Iowa wasn’t always a Republican stronghold.
Before Trump reshaped American politics, this was the state the lifted the political career of Barack Obama and sent Tom Harkin to the Senate for five terms.
The party is particularly excited about Rob Sand, who is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination for governor. A native of Decorah, Iowa, he has the rural roots that have become rare among Democrats. Perhaps most importantly, he’s a proven winner in a Republican-leaning state, having been elected twice as auditor.
Republicans head into the primary with five candidates. Trump jumped in last week to endorse Rep. Randy Feenstra.
This is the first open contest for the governor’s seat since 2006. Democrats are hoping that a combination of the economic fallout from Trump’s tariff policies, rising gas prices stemming from the Iran war and the lack of a Republican incumbent could give them their best opportunity in years. Sand also has a fundraising advantage over the Republicans, including Feenstra.
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Spencer Pratt rose to fame on “The Hills,” a show about young people living in Los Angeles. Now he wants to be the city’s mayor.
Pratt’s home was destroyed in the Palisades Fire, and he blames Mayor Karen Bass for the widespread destruction. He is campaigning on a promise to clean up Los Angeles, but faces long odds in a city that hasn’t elected a Republican as mayor since 1997.
His campaign has drawn attention with videos generated by artificial intelligence. One of them casts Pratt as Batman, saving a dystopian city from Bass, portrayed as the Joker.
The Republican has been absent from Congress for months because of an unspecified medical issue.
He issued a statement saying “I will continue putting our constituents first” and “I am optimistic about the road ahead.”
“Right now I am focused on my recovery and under the advice of healthcare professionals. I will transition from virtual work to in person work within a matter of weeks,” said Kean, who is seeking a third term in November. “I look forward to sharing my experience with the public.”
Kean told a local political blog nearly two weeks ago that he expected to be back “in the next couple of weeks.”
If she wins her party’s nomination, Haaland will be on a path to become the first Native American woman elected as a governor in the U.S.
In 2018, the member of Laguna Pueblo became one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress. Under President Joe Biden, she became the first Native American Cabinet secretary.
New Mexico has trended increasingly blue in recent years, with Democrats winning every statewide elected office since 2017.
Haaland leads her challenger Sam Bregman in fundraising by a significant margin.
Democrats convinced California voters to let them redraw the state’s congressional map to counter the five-seat gain Republicans hoped to earn in Texas when they revised that state’s map at the president’s urging.
But one of the seats Democrats are counting on picking up, a new district outside San Diego that replaces a conservative seat, could end up out of their reach on primary night.
That’s because California’s primary awards spots on the November ballot to the top two vote-getters, regardless of political party. Nine Democrats are on the ballot in the 48th District, so many that some in the party worry the two Republicans will nab the top two slots while the Democrats split the majority of the vote and get locked out of the general election.
Other Democrats are confident their voters will coalesce around one of the most prominent candidates — former Obama administration official Ammar Campa-Najjar or San Diego City Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert.
Democrats in New Jersey's 7th District, where incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. has been absent for months, are picking their nominee to take him on in the fall.
Kean’s team has said he’s dealing with a personal medical issue and he plans to return soon, but they haven’t disclosed any details about what’s made him more than 100 votes in Congress.
Bruce Paterson, 75, a self-described “regular Democrat” who has been supportive of Kean, said at a recent state legislative town hall that he’s been tracking Kean’s absence.
“He has been out for months. Nobody knows where he is,” he said.
Competing for the Democratic nomination are Rebecca Bennett, Michael Roth, Tina Shah and Brian Varela.
The district, which has New York suburbs and rural areas and includes Trump’s Bedminster golf course, has flipped parties in midterms in 2018 and 2022.
Democrats redrew the 40th District southeast of Los Angeles to create a solidly conservative district that was bound to eliminate one of two Republicans they have struggled to defeat over the years: Rep. Ken Calvert or Rep. Young Kim.
Both incumbents are now stuck in the same district and have launched a monthslong slugfest over who is more conservative and more loyal to Trump. Both might make it through to the general election. But if one doesn’t, their political career will end — at least for now.
Polls are open across New Mexico, where voters will decide primaries in three congressional seats, a U.S. Senate seat and a long list of statewide offices. The governor’s race is the main attraction as the state grapples with high rates of violent crime, underperforming schools and cuts to federal programs that are key safety nets for residents.
Two Democrats and three Republicans are vying for their parties’ nominations to replace Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat who is term-limited. The winner of November’s general election is all but likely to be a Democrat, given the party’s dominance in recent years. A Republican candidate has not won statewide election in New Mexico in 10 years.
Despite the state’s persistent challenges, the primary election comes at a time of promise for the next governor, as elevated global oil prices from the Iran war have translated into increased tax revenue for state coffers.
Leo Blain, 24, likes Raman’s progressive agenda and believes she can be effective at building coalitions.
“I think she has a really good understanding about how the city of LA works and would be a really effective mayor,” Blain said Tuesday outside his polling place.
But Blain found it hard to get excited about any of the candidates for governor.
He voted for billionaire Tom Steyer because he believes the Democrat has the best shot to win in the November general election.
Most of the campaign has focused on issues like rebuilding from the Palisades Fire, affordable housing and persistent homelessness. But there are other, more existential concerns as well.
Hollywood jobs have been decamping for years for cheaper filming locations. A downtown renaissance was crushed by extended pandemic closures, and many office buildings remain desperate for tenants.
The city has long struggled to provide basic services, whether paving buckled streets and sidewalks or keeping streetlights on. The restaurant industry has witnessed a long string of high-profile closures. The city’s notorious gridlock continues unabated.
All of this has increased pressure on city leadership as it prepares to host the Olympics in 2028.
Wallace McCracken was taking time during his lunch break as an energy company safety manager to vote in Newton, the seat of Jasper County in central Iowa.
The 43-year-old registered Democrat said the nation is at a turning point in 2026, and that he wanted to be part of the direction it turns.
“We’re at a precipice and a changing point,” he said, declining to say for whom he voted in Iowa’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary. “If people want change to occur, they’ve got to do something about it.”
The married father of a middle-school student described the course of the nation as “struggling,” in part because he believes government is too tied to corporate interests.
“I would like to see a government did not funnel so much money to private corporations and bend over to lobbyists,” he said, “and, instead, do more for the people directly."
Zach Wahls and Josh Turek are both state lawmakers running for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by the retiring Republican Ernst.
They agree on a lot. But they each say they’re the better pick to win a state that’s dominated by Republicans.
Iowa hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Tom Harkin won his last term in 2008.
GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson is endorsed by Trump and Ernst for the Republican nomination. Hinson faces former state Sen. Jim Carlin in the GOP primary.
A sign directs voters to a polling place for the New Jersey primary election in Cherry Hill township, N.J., Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
A person walks from a polling place for the New Jersey primary election in Oaklyn, N.J., Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
