Closing summary
Our work here is done, for the night. Here are the latest developments:
-
Graham Platner, a Marine veteran, oyster farmer and progressive activist, has scaled a mountain of personal controversies to win the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Maine. In his victory speech, he told Mainers that he loved them.
-
Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican senator, advanced to the general election with the support of Donald Trump, the man he once called “the most unprepared person I’ve ever met to be commander in chief”.
-
The Associated Press projects that Democrat Randy Villegas will advance to the general election for a seat in the US House representing California’s newly redrawn 22nd congressional district in the state’s Central Valley.
-
Kevin Kiley, a former Republican who became an independent earlier this year but still caucuses with his former party, will face off against Democrat Richard Pan, a former state senator, in California’s newly redrawn sixth congressional district in the November general election.
-
Tom Steyer, the hedge fund billionaire turned climate activist, has conceded, in an email to supporters on Tuesday, that spending $216m on his campaign for California governor, which won him 1,927,945 votes, has failed to land him a spot in the November general election.
-
Nancy Mace finished a distant fifth in the race to represent the Republican party in South Carolina’s gubernatorial election.
Updated
Tom Steyer concedes his $216m campaign for California governor has failed and endorses Becerra
Tom Steyer, the hedge fund billionaire turned climate activist, has conceded, in an email to supporters on Tuesday, that spending $216m on his campaign for California governor, which won him 1,927,945 votes, has failed to land him a spot in the November general election.
“It’s now clear that we do not have the votes necessary to advance to the general election in November”, Steyer wrote, after the Associated Press projected that it was impossible for him to catch Republican Steve Hilton, who remained more than 200,000 votes ahead of the billionaire on Tuesday night.
“Donald Trump is the embodiment of the corporations’ craven, soulless, profit-first model of politics, and it is absolutely essential that his handpicked candidate does not hold the keys to California,” he added. “It would be a travesty for Steve Hilton to win the governorship, and Californians must unite behind Xavier Becerra to ensure he does not.”
According an estimate from Rob Pyers, the research director for the nonpartisan California Target Book, which analyzes political races in the state: “Between his run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States and his 2026 run for California governor, Tom Steyer will have spent $557,781,638 for 0 delegates and a 3rd-place primary finish, respectively.”
Graham Platner projected to win Democratic primary, with 75% of the early vote
Graham Platner, a Marine veteran, oyster farmer and progressive activist, has scaled a mountain of personal controversies to win the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Maine.
Victory on Tuesday caps a remarkable rise for a candidate who has never held elected office and whose campaign was shadowed by negative headlines that might have ended a more conventional political career.
Instead, in a result that would have seemed improbable only a year ago, Platner emerged battered but unbroken, convincing Democratic voters that his flaws are forgivable or unimportant in a year dominated by economic anxiety and anger at Donald Trump.
The result sets up one of the most closely watched contests of the 2026 midterm elections. Platner will face the senator Susan Collins, a Republican running for a sixth six-year term, in November. The race is seen as a must-win for Democrats to take control of the Senate, where Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority.
Platner’s primary-night watch party was held in a YMCA gym in Blue Hill, about 30 miles from his home town of Sullivan. A blue banner with a US flag, Maine state flag and the slogan “Graham Platner for US Senate” was erected behind a stage against a blue curtain backdrop. Guests were invited to hold signs that included “Families for Graham”, “Farmers and Fishers for Graham” and “Labor for Graham”.
Nancy Mace a distant fifth in South Carolina Republican primary for governor
Donald Trump-backed Pamela Evette, South Carolina’s lieutenant governor and Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general, have advanced to a runoff in a competitive race to represent the Republican party in South Carolina’s gubernatorial election.
The winner of the Republican primary is favored to win the closely watched general election, given South Carolina’s conservative tilt, although Democrats are hoping to ride a wave of progressive enthusiasm to make political gains across the ticket.
That result also signaled a decisive defeat for Nancy Mace, the controversial Republican congresswoman.
The Republican gubernatorial nominee in South Carolina will face Jermaine Johnson, the Democratic state representative and a former professional basketball player representing a Columbia-area district, who won broad endorsement from party officials before winning the Democratic primary on Tuesday night.
South Carolina changed its election process in 2012 so that the governor and lieutenant governor run on the same ticket in a general election; outgoing governor, Henry McMaster, chose Evette as his running mate in 2018.
Progressive Democrat to face Republican incumbent for seat in Congress representing California's Central Valley
The Associated Press projects that Democrat Randy Villegas will advance to the general election for a seat in the US House representing California’s newly redrawn 22nd congressional district in the state’s Central Valley.
The 31-year-old community college professor and second-generation Mexican immigrant will face the district’s longtime incumbent congressman, Republican David Valadao.
Valadao secured top spot in the primary with 41.8% of the vote, while Villegas, with 31.5% of the vote, edged out another Democrat, Dr Jasmeet Bains, a California assemblywoman who won 26.8% in the three-person primary.
While Bains had the support of the Democratic establishment in the state, Villegas was endorsed by progressive national lawmakers Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the farm labor activist Dolores Huerta.
In a statement earlier on Tuesday, his campaign said:
These primary results make clear that Valadao is more vulnerable than ever after receiving barely 40% of the total votes. Despite an onslaught of outside dark money groups and special interests attacking him, Randy Villegas, the son of working class immigrants who worked in his family’s auto shop, will be running in the general election to be a voice for working families in D.C.
Read our colleague Andrew Gumbel’s report from Bakersfield last month on the race between the two Democrats who split nearly 60% of the vote:
Senator Lindsey Graham wins Republican nomination in South Carolina
Despite some last-minute worries, which seemed to explain a late tele-rally in which Donald Trump pledged his support on Monday, South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham has secured his party’s nomination.
Graham, a former critic of Trump turned stout supporter, will face Democrat Annie Andrews in November as he seeks a fifth term.
In 2016, after he ended his own campaign for the presidency and endorsed Jeb Bush, Graham was asked whether he would prefer Trump or Ted Cruz, then his main rival for the Republican nomination.
“It’s like being shot or poisoned,” Graham said then. “What does it really matter?”
“Donald Trump, I think, is the most unprepared person I’ve ever met to be commander in chief,” Graham added. “When Donald Trump speaks about foreign policy, it scares the hell out of me.”
Updated
California Democrats will have a candidate in state's redrawn sixth congressional district
In California, the Associated Press projects that congressman Kevin Kiley, a former Republican who became an independent earlier this year but still caucuses with his former party, will face off against Democrat Richard Pan, a former state senator, in California’s newly redrawn sixth congressional district in the November general election.
In the latest count, Kiley, with 24.5%, and Pan, with 23.2% are the top-two vote getters.
Pan’s success came after Democrats feared that their party could have been locked out of the general election because too many Democratic candidate ran, splitting the vote.
Elected to the current Congress as a Republican, Kiley switched his party affiliation to independent before this year’s nonpartisan primary.
That left just one candidate on the ballot identified as a Republican: Michael Stansfield, a 50-year-old tech support worker with no campaign staff and no donors. In the early count, Stansfield was in second place, as Pan battled with four other Democrats to get enough votes to overtake him.
Days into the count, that happened, and Stansfield’s share of the vote dropped to 20.1%.
Pan will now look to consolidate the remaining 32.1% of the vote that went to four other Democratic candiates.
In South Carolina, the Associated Press projects that Charleston pediatrician Annie Andrews has won the Democratic primary for US Senate.
Andrews, who lost a race for the US House to Nancy Mace in 2022, could face off against Republican incumbent Lindsey Graham, who has a 30% lead over his nearest rival in the Republican primary with 45% of the votes counted.
No Democrat has represented South Carolina in the US Senate since Fritz Hollings chose not to run for re-election in 2004.
Congressman James Clyburn, the only Democrat in South Carolina’s congressional delegation, has been projected the winner of his primary.
Clyburn, who turns 86 next month, will have the chance to retain his seat in part because South Carolina Republicans defied Donald Trump last month and rejected a late plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts to make it impossible to win through gerrymandering.
Clyburn, whose endorsement of Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary helped resuscitate his flagging campaign by rallying Black voters to his side, was careful to mention the issue of affordability in his statement thanking the Democratic voters of his district.
“Since the beginning of my public service career, as a public school teacher, the director of two youth community development programs, 22 years in executive service to the people of South Carolina, and for the past 34 years in the United States Congress, I have worked to make the greatness of this country accessible and affordable for all of its citizens”, the congressman wrote.
“South Carolina has made tremendous progress, but a lot still needs to be done. The current administration in Washington, the current leadership of the Congress, and a majority of the Supreme Court seem to be hellbent on turning the clock back”, he continued.
“If reelected, I promise to fight against the forces of retrogression, continue standing up for the values and interests that matter most to all South Carolinians, and continue our pursuit towards a more perfect Union.”
Polls close in Maine primary, with all eyes fixed on Graham Platner
The polls have closed in Maine, and we can report that Graham Platner, the Democrat expected to win his party’s nomination for US Senate, has received at least one vote: from Stephen King, who announced on social media that he voted for the candidate.
Platner’s chief competitor, Maine governor Janet Mills, had suspended her campaign citing lack of funds, but there was a late push from some out-of-state Democrats for voters to supports Mills after Platner was accused by a former romantic partner of having been physically abusive to her on two occasions between 2013 and 2015.
As our colleague Shrai Popat wrote last month, if Platner wins the nomination, he will face Republican incumbent Susan Collins who is vying for a sixth term.
Collins, 73, will now face off against the presumptive Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, a 41-year-old marine veteran and oysterman with no national political experience and a controversial past. Despite dredged-up racist, sexist and homophobic online posts – and a now-covered-up tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol – Platner continues to amass a rare kinetic energy that has seen hundreds of Mainers flock to town halls across the state to hear his gravelly voiced excoriation of Washington. His rise ultimately forced the state’s two-term governor, Janet Mills, to suspend her primary bid, citing dwindling financial resources.
Platner’s youth and outsider profile have created a sense that Maine – a state with the oldest and whitest population in the country – may be ready for a change in political leadership. There’s a prevailing sense of “we like her, and she’s been good for Maine, but it’s time for somebody new or younger”, one former state Republican official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the race, said of Collins. The senator’s campaign spokesperson did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment about her performance to date.
The other man causing problems for Collins this midterm election is the president himself. The Pine Tree state is one of four seats that Democrats see as a viable pick-up to regain control of the upper chamber come November. Collins is the only Senate Republican running for re-election in a state that Kamala Harris won in 2024, and this will be the first time she is back on the ballot since Trump’s return to the White House last year – ensuring a nationalized contest shaped by foreign‑policy crises, high gas prices, persistent inflation and a domestic agenda defined by a sweeping immigration crackdown, deep Medicaid cuts and weakened federal agencies.
Updated
In South Carolina, Republican senator Lindsey Graham is building a huge lead early in his party’s primary, with 61% of the vote so far, with nearly 20% of the ballots counted.
In the party’s primary for governor, congresswoman Nancy Mace, who bucked Donald Trump by supporting the release of the Epstein files, is currently in fifth place, with just 10% of the vote.
Republican Steve Hilton advances to general election for California governor
The Associated Press projects that Republican Steve Hilton, the former UK political operative turned Fox News personality, has advanced to the November general election in the race to become California’s next governor, in a match-up against Democrat Xavier Becerra, a former congressman, state attorney general and US health secretary.
Hilton’s success, a remarkable achievement for a recent immigrant, came after he was endorsed by Donald Trump.
The Associated Press projected that Hilton would secure one of the top two spots in the state’s nonpartisan primary election, in which votes had to be cast by last Tuesday. Hilton is in second place behind Becerra, who unexpectedly but steadily consolidated support among Democratic voters very late in the race.
When the first votes were counted last week, Hilton initially led the field, prompting Trump to prematurely declare him the winner. By the next day, as Becerra won more of the votes counted late, Trump, without evidence, accused the state of election rigging. But as California counted millions more ballots sent by mail, Hilton was overtaken by Becerra on 5 June. Hilton still finished ahead of Tom Steyer, the billionaire hedge fund investor running as a progressive, who trailed him by nearly 200,000 votes on Tuesday.
Updated
California, which is still counting late-arriving votes a week after its primary, is crashing tonight’s party with the projection, from the Associated Press that Mai Vang, a 41-year-old member of Sacramento’s city council, will advance to the general election for a seat in Congress, against 81-year-old incumbent Doris Matsui.
Matsui has represented California’s 7th Congressional District on the House since the death of her husband, former congressman Bob, in 2005. Bob Matsui had represented the district since the 1970s.
The polls have closed in South Carolina and a very small number of votes have been counted.
Trump says he is installing unqualified housing official Bill Pulte as acting intelligence director next week
As the rest of us wait for primary election results, Donald Trump is pushing ahead with his widely panned plan to install Bill Pulte, a political loyalist with no intelligence experience at all, acting director of national intelligence.
Writing on social media, Trump announced on Tuesday that Pulte, the head of a federal mortgage agency who has abused his access to private financial information to accuse Trump’s political enemies of mortgage fraud, “is working closely with Tulsi Gabbard, will be taking over as Acting Director of National Intelligence on Friday, June 19th.”
Gabbard, a former congresswoman who served in the military and then on a House subcommittee with oversight of military intelligence, had announced in her resignation letter that she would step down on 30 June.
Trump offered no explanation for Pulte taking over before that date, but the president has suggested in public comments that he expects his political ally to find evidence that the 2020 election was rigged after he gains control of the nation’s intelligence agencies.
Democratic lawmakers immediately said the appointment of Pulte would scuttle a bipartisan agreement to renew section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), which is due to expire on Friday.
The powerful intelligence tool has long attracted controversy, since the program targets foreign nationals whose messages may pass through US servers or involve US contacts, meaning a wide array of domestic communications can be swept up without a warrant ever being sought.
The FBI in 2020 was discovered using section 702 to investigate whether protesters involved with Black Lives Matter had any ties to terrorists, according to a declassified memo released by the office of the director of national intelligence in 2023, a seat that would soon be filled by Pulte.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, said on Tuesday that if Trump installs Pulte, Democrats will not allow the surveillance law to be reauthorized.
“Bill Pulte is deeply unqualified to serve as acting director of national intelligence and is deeply dangerous”, Jeffries told PBS Newshour. “He’s got no national security experience, no military experience and no law enforcement experience. In fact, the statute explicitly requires that any person occupying this position of great sensitivity have national security experience in their professional background. Bill Pulte has zero of that.”
“He’s also someone who has clearly demonstrated a willingness to weaponize the federal government against Donald Trump’s perceived adversaries,” the Democrat who could be the speaker of the House next year said. “So under no circumstances should we trust the privacy interests or national security interests of the American people with Bill Pulte on top of Donald Trump and Kash Patel.”
“Democrats definitively do not trust this administration to responsibly use surveillance authority, which is the reason why from a policy perspective, we need increased protections related to both privacy and the civil liberties of the American people,” he added.
“There were already sensitive negotiations that were on go ing and then Donald Trump chose to elevate this partisan political hack Bill Pulte into this position of great sensitivity effectively tossing a hand grenade in the midst of these negotiations as we approach the deadline to potentially renew surveillance authority,” Jeffries went on.
“Donald Trump needs to withdraw his decision to elevate Bill Pulte. That’s a starting point, not an ending point, and then we can see if we can responsibly get to a place where there are enough reforms built into the law. to provide guardrails and protect the American people,” Jeffries said.
Updated
AOC calls Graham Platner's reported behavior 'hard to stomach', but says he could be a better senator than Susan Collins
As voters went to the polls on Tuesday in Maine’s Democratic primary, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive congresswoman from New York, was asked by CNN about recent allegations that Senate candidate Graham Platner had mistreated former romantic partners and sent sexual messages to other women after his marriage.
“When it comes to the substance of this reporting, obviously there’s a lot in that behavior that’s really challenging; it’s hard to stomach”, Ocasio-Cortez said.
“But, but, at the end of the day, I think that this is a choice”, she continued, between a Democrat and the Republican incumbent Susan Collins, who supported cuts to health care. “If the choice on the ballot is between that and a senator who’s voted to take healthcare away from millions of Americans, that’s the situation that we have to weigh.”
The congresswoman’s comments were quickly clipped and shared on social media by the Republican party, but in a deceptively edited form, to remove her statement that the choie facing Maine voters is between Platner and “a senator who’s voted to take healthcare away from millions of Americans”.
For her part, when Collins was asked by CNN if she believed Platner’s denials of the allegations from a former romantic partner to the New York Times, that he had been physically abusive to her on two occasions, she said: “The allegations against Graham Platner are extremely troubling and serious, and he owes the people of Maine a detailed answer.”
Lyndsey Fifield, who dated Platner between 2013 and 2015, told the New York Times that, during one argument, he had “twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side”. On another occasion, she told the paper, he “yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument”.
Platner’s campaign told the Times he “strongly disputes” any claims of physical intimidation or altercations, and described Fifield as “a lifelong G.O.P. operative”.
Fifield has worked for the far-right Heritage Foundation and is currently a fellow at a Republican women’s group whose leader boasted in 2020 that the organization had written talking points used by Collins to speak in support of the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court despite sexual assault allegations.
Updated
Blue Hill, Maine
There are only a few hours until polls close but national figures continue to weigh in on Graham Platner and the Democratic primary race for US Senate in Maine.
Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California, posted a social media video of himself talking with Platner on a floating dock in Sorrento, Maine. “I am supporting @grahamformaine today because of his passion for opposing war,” Khanna wrote. “An honest conversation about the human toll and his journey.”
Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota also threw her weight behind Platner, posting that he would win “because he has connected with Mainers on what they really care about” and “because he’s not part of the Washington establishment.
Other congressional Democrats are digging in to oppose Platner, however. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey told CNN: “What I would suggest is that Graham Platner get off if he wins today, which I assume he will because there’s no one actively campaigning against him, that he get off the ballot and let another Democrat step in, that the main Democratic Party put somebody else in.
“I mean, if this were in Jersey and you had a candidate who abused women, obviously has a Nazi tattoo – that now it’s clear that he knew was a Nazi tattoo – not to mention many of his other lies and his comments and extremist comments, pro-Hamas, a terrorist organization, other things of that nature, he should get off the ballot. In Jersey, we’d throw him off the ballot or bury him under the Meadowlands. I mean, I don’t understand how somebody like this is going to represent our party. And I think the best action would be for him to leave and get somebody else who’s qualified onto the ballot.”
Gottheimer added: “If you’re a woman and looking at what, how can you accept somebody who abused women? That’s going to affect us in other parts of the country and campaigns and I think really be an issue for the party.”
Platner has said he got the tattoo while drinking as a Marine in 2007 and was unaware of its association with the Nazis until it became a campaign issue; he has since had it covered up. He has vehemently denied physically abusing women.
Jeff Cohen, co-founder of the progressive group RootsAction, told the Guardian: “As an antiwar organization, RootsAction has been impressed by the way Graham Platner has brought his antiwar message to the voters of Maine, offering a powerful contrast to Susan Collins who has a long record of supporting disastrous wars in the Middle East.
“Platner has had some personal problems that are concerning, but we are supporting him in hopes that Collins, at long last, is retired from the Senate.”
And Kyle Kulinski, a progressive and host of the Secular Talk show, told the Politico website: “If we’re convinced you walk the walk on policy, we’ll overlook personal issues. The days of weak apologetic Dems are over. Our tea party is here.”
Updated
South Carolina, North Dakota and Nevada hold primary elections
Outside of Maine, three other states are holding primary elections today: South Carolina, North Dakota and Nevada.
Polls close in South Carolina at 7pm ET.
A political confidant and regular golfing partner of Donald Trump, senator Lindsey Graham has fought off primary challengers over the years. And some of this year’s contenders — including Project 2025 chief architect Paul Dans and former liuentant governor André Bauer — dropped out months ago, the Associated Press reported.
But Mark Lynch, a Greenville businessman, is still running. On social media, Trump has said Lynch “would be a DISASTER for the Republican Party” if elected.
In the governor’s race, Trump backed lieutenant governor Pamela Evette over several opponents, including Maga congresswoman Nancy Mace. The primary will determine whether the endorsement can help Evette win outright or if there will be a runoff on June 23.
Polls finish closing in North Dakota at 9pm ET.
North Dakota’s lone US House member, Julie Fedorchak, faces a partial rematch of her 2024 nomination race in a state primary Tuesday, the AP reported. Also on the ballot is a proposed amendment to the state constitution, while residents of Fargo will elect a new mayor.
Polls close in Nevada at 10pm ET.
No Democrat has held the congressional seat that represents Reno and rural northern Nevada, but Democrats aren’t ruling it out this year after longtime Republican representative Mark Amodei announced his retirement, the AP reported.
Democrats are banking on Trump’s growing unpopularity and the district’s large number of nonpartisan voters. In the Republican primary, they’re hoping that Trump-backed candidate David Flippo will defeat James Settelmeyer, a former lawmaker with the backing of governor Joe Lombardo, believing it would be easier to draw a contrast.
Graham Platner looks to advance in Maine Senate race as four states hold primaries
Maine voters are going to the polls for primary elections that include a crucial Senate race involving the scandal-haunted Graham Platner.
The oysterman and Marine veteran’s string of controversies, ranging from alleged “toxic” behavior toward women to a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, have plunged Democrats into debates about double standards, purity tests and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
There was a final twist came Monday, when Genevieve McDonald, a former political director of Platner’s campaign, published a column denouncing Platner as unfit for office.
“Graham Platner is not someone who would be good for Maine or for the country,” McDonald wrote in the Washington Post. “He exhibits a pattern of dishonest behavior that is impossible to ignore.
“Despite being exposed by a series of scandals beginning last October, he kept assuring voters and the Democratic Party that there were no more skeletons in his closet. Then more emerged – the latest, in recent days, have involved former girlfriends’ serious accusations of physical mistreatment.”
Even so, all the signs on the ground are that most Democratic voters are sticking with Platner. At a campaign event on Sunday, a supporter presented him with a hand-drawn card that included the message “we’ve got your back”.
Polls close in Maine at 8pm ET.
