Voters picked their nominees in several key Senate races and two more House members lost to challengers as five states held their primary elections.
Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state all voted Tuesday in an election year upended by the coronavirus pandemic. Three — Arizona, Kansas and Michigan — set the stage for Senate elections this fall that will help to determine whether Democrats can gain a majority in the chamber.
Missouri became the 38th state to approve expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income Americans. The move will allow as many as 250,000 people to opt into government health care during the pandemic, according to The Associated Press.
Here are Tuesday’s key results, based on race calls from the AP:
- Democratic former astronaut Mark Kelly won his Arizona Senate primary and will try to unseat Republican Sen. Martha McSally in a race to fill the remainder of late Sen. John McCain’s term through 2022. McSally is among the most vulnerable senators running this year. Kelly has raised more money than his Republican opponent and has consistently led her in polls.
- Republican Army veteran John James advanced to face Democratic Sen. Gary Peters in Michigan’s Senate race. The fact that President Donald Trump won the state in 2016 makes it one of the GOP’s best pickup opportunities in a challenging year. But recent polls have found a comfortable lead for Peters as Trump loses traction in the state.
- The GOP avoided a potential electoral mess in Kansas, where Rep. Roger Marshall defeated former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in the Republican Senate primary. Republicans see Marshall as a better choice than Kobach, an anti-immigrant candidate who lost the state’s gubernatorial race to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in 2018. State Sen. Barbara Bollier won the Democratic Senate nomination on Tuesday.
- Nurse Cori Bush, who became active in the Black Lives Matter movement following the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, defeated 10-term Rep. Lacy Clay in the Democratic primary for state’s 1st Congressional District. Bush, who supports progressive policies such as “Medicare for All” and a Green New Deal, effectively won the blue St. Louis-based seat by prevailing in the primary.
- Kansas Treasurer Jake LaTurner unseated Rep. Steve Watkins in the GOP primary for the state’s 2nd Congressional District. The first-term congressman was charged in July with voting illegally in 2019, but has denied wrongdoing. LaTurner will face Democratic Topeka Mayor Michelle De La Isla in the general election.
- Missouri, a Republican-leaning state where leaders previously declined to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, voted to boost enrollment in the program. It becomes the second conservative state to vote to expand Medicaid during the coronavirus pandemic, after Oklahoma did so earlier this year.
Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/arizona-michigan-missouri-primary-election-results-cori-bush-beats-lacy-clay.html