What to watch in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington primaries

Four states will hold primary elections for U.S. Congress on Tuesday, with many races expected to be competitive after longtime lawmakers decided to retire and allow a new generation to take their place.

Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington state are holding several high-profile congressional and state office primary contests. Michigan has an open Senate seat on the ballot, with the race drawing national attention after Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) decided she would not seek reelection.

In Missouri, eyes will be on another “Squad” progressive Democrat to see if she will survive the flood of cash from pro-Israel groups, and the governor’s race, where former President Donald Trump has made several endorsements. Kansas’s lone House Democrat, who represents the state’s only swing seat, will discover her Republican challenger, as well.

Michigan

In Michigan, Stabenow’s decision to retire set off a storm on both sides of the aisle as parties rushed to find a strong candidate in a battleground state.

Democrats have mostly coalesced around Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who represents a swing district that she has won by slim margins since her election to Congress in 2018. In the 2022 midterm elections, she won her current 7th Congressional District seat with just 52% of the vote. Slotkin will face actor Hill Harper in the primary.

On the Republican side, former Rep. Mike Rogers is leading the primary field against Justin Amash, a former House Republican-turned-libertarian, and physician Sherry O’Donnell, a former congressional candidate.

Rogers is hoping to become the first Michigan Republican senator in 24 years, a feat that seems closer in reach due to the presidential race being at the top of the ticket. The Cook Political Report shifted the Senate race to a “toss-up” following the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. With Biden stepping aside and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s lead in Michigan is narrowing to just 1% in recent polls.

Polling from The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4) found Slotkin leading Rogers by 5 points, 46% to 41%. The House Democrat is ahead with independent voters by nearly 15 percentage points — an advantage for Slotkin, whose track record maintaining a swing seat makes her attractive to independent voters.

Slotkin has a significant financial advantage in the race against all candidates in the field, with campaign finance records showing she brought in $1.5 million for the first two and a half weeks of July compared to Rogers’s $356,000. She had $8.7 million cash on hand as of July 17 to Rogers’ $2.5 million, per the Detroit News.

Also happening in Michigan is the race to replace Slotkin and Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI), who announced he is not seeking a seventh term. In Slotkin’s district, both Democrat Curtis Hertel and Republican Tom Barrett, former state senators, are running unopposed in their respective primaries. Voters in the 7th District narrowly backed Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, so the seat is likely to follow in Slotkin’s footsteps and remain purple.

Three Democrats and three Republicans are running in the primaries to replace Kildee, whose family has held the seat since the 1970s. The GOP sees Kildee’s district as a pickup opportunity for the party; 2022 redistricting is expected to make it more difficult for Democrats to hold onto the seat.

Missouri

Missouri is holding elections for governor, Senate, attorney general, and U.S. House. Trump waded into the attorney general and governor races by endorsing multiple people, setting up Tuesday as showdown of Trump devotees.

In the governor’s race, Republican primary candidates have spent most of their campaigns attacking one another over their loyalty to Trump. The former president endorsed three of the nine GOP candidates running for the governor’s mansion: Jay Ashcroft, Mike Kehoe and Bill Eigel.

Ashcroft, whose bid for governor was widely anticipated last year, benefits from large coffers and name recognition as the son of John Ashcroft, former Missouri governor and attorney general under George W. Bush. Kehoe benefits from the backing of the American Dream PAC, which is spending more than $8 million on advertising. Eigel, a veteran of the Air Force and state senator, has a PAC spending thousands on ads using Trump’s endorsement as the focal point.

Trump has also endorsed both GOP candidates for attorney general: incumbent Attorney General Andrew Bailey and former Trump attorney Will Scharf. He surprised followers by issuing a dual endorsement on Truth Social, arguing both men are “truly outstanding” and “NEITHER ONE” would let the state down.

On the House Democratic side, eyes will be on Rep. Cori Bush’s (D-MO) primary. She faces a tough challenge from St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell, who has capitalized on Bush’s anti-Israel sentiments and millions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s PAC.

With polls recently showing Bell leading Bush by six points, 48% to 42%, Bush could become the second “Squad” Democrat to lose reelection. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) lost his primary election after AIPAC and its allies dumped millions into the race, making it the most expensive primary in U.S. history.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is running unopposed in his Republican primary. Marine veteran Lucas Kunce and state Sen. Karla May are running for the Democratic nomination to challenge Hawley, with Kunce holding a significant financial advantage over May.

Kansas

The attention is on Kansas’s House races, particularly after Rep. Jake LaTurner (R-KS) announced he would be retiring from Congress after just two terms in office.

Five GOP candidates and two Democrats are running in the primaries for a chance at LaTurner’s seat in the 2nd District. The Cook Political Report rates the seat as solid Republican with an 11-point advantage for the GOP.

Leading Republicans in the primary are Derek Schmidt, former state attorney general who unsuccessfully challenged Gov. Laura Kelly in 2022. Former LaTurner aide Jeff Kahrs and rancher Shawn Tiffany are among those in the race, as well, with Schmidt leading in campaign contributions, per the Associated Press.

On the Democratic side, former U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda and Matt Kleinmann are facing off in the primary. Boyda served in Congress as the 2nd District’s representative from 2007 to 2009, when she lost reelection. Kleinmann is a former University of Kansas basketball player and community health advocate.

Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS), the state’s lone Democratic representative, will find out who her Republican opponent will be in the general election. She received 55% of the vote in her 2022 reelection bid, but the 3rd District is a swing seat — Trump won 48% over Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Biden won with 51% of the vote in 2020.

Running in the 3rd District for the GOP nomination are physician Prasanth Reddy and small business owner Karen Crnkovich. Reddy has almost 10 times the amount of cash as Crnkovich as of mid-July, but both GOP candidates significantly trail Davids in funds.

Washington state

Typically a left-leaning state, a wave of retirements down the ballot in Washington has rewarded voters with a crowded primary field of candidates to choose from.

The governor’s race has drawn 28 challengers after third-term Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) decided to step away. He initially had filed paperwork to run for a fourth term, but decided in May 2023 he would retire.

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson is leading the field, raising $8.6 million — more than double raised by the next-best funded candidate, per the Associated Press. The governor’s race raised eyebrows after two additional Democratic candidates, also named Bob Ferguson, filed to run for governor. It was later discovered a conservative activist recruited the two men, who shortly withdrew from the race after filing.

Reps. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) are both retiring after this term, bringing in a flood of primary candidates. Washington is a top-two primary system, so all candidates, regardless of party, will appear on the same ballot.

Both Kilmer and McMorris Rodgers’s seats are solidly in their party’s hands, so it is likely two Democrats will face off for Kilmer’s district and two Republicans will face each other in the general election for McMorris Rodgers’s.

In Kilmer’s district, Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz and Democratic state Sen. Emily Randall are leading the primary field. Franz has raised about $1.4 million to Randall’s nearly $1 million.

McMorris Rodgers’s retirement came as a surprise to many, as she leads the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee and still had two more years to chair the committee under GOP conference rules. 

In 2021, she became the ranking Republican on the committee — the first woman to assume the top spot for either party on the panel. A wave of House members on both sides of the aisle are exiting from Congress, including a substantial number of Republicans in the wake of infighting and stalling from hard-line conservatives on key issues.

About a dozen candidates have filed to run for McMorris Rodgers’s district, many of whom have elected office experience. Spokane County treasurer and former state Sen. Michael Baumgartner is the race’s top fundraiser, with state Rep. Jacquelin Maycumber also helping to lead the field.