Hello and welcome to our live coverage of US politics.
We are still awaiting the full election results from Alaska, where it appears Mary Peltola is leading for the Democrats and Dan S Sullivan is leading for the Republicans in the contest for US Senate.
Incumbent Sullivan is running for a third term while Peltola is fighting to flip the seat and aid Democrats in their quest to retake control of Congress. The Tuesday vote in the non-partisan primary will see four candidates advance to the general election for the seat in November.
Peltola became the first Alaska Native and the first woman to represent Alaska in the House of Representatives when she won her bid for the state’s sole seat in 2022. Sullivan, on the other hand, faces the unique challenge of running against … Dan Sullivan. Dan J Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher and US Forest Service employee. Though Republicans argued that the 70-year-old challenger Dan Sullivan had only filed his candidacy as an interference tactic against Senator Sullivan, the state supreme court ruled in June that was qualified to run for the seat and ordered election officials to place him on the primary ballot.
With 66% of votes counted, Peltola is leading with 46.8% of the vote with the incumbent Sullivan trailing closely behind with 44.4% of the vote. Dan J Sullivan is in third with 2.4% of the vote.
Progressive Aisha Wahab is currently leading with 51% of the vote in the special runoff election to fill former representative Eric Swalwell’s seat in California. This comes after super Pacs tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) spent millions supporting Wahab’s closest competitor, Democrat Melissa Hernandez. According to the Associated Press, 62% of votes have been counted.
In Wyoming, the Trump-backed Harriet Hageman is leading the Republican primary for US Senate. Hageman, a conservative lawyer with a passion for thwarting environmentalists, had previously beat Liz Cheney for the thinly populated western state’s solitary seat in the US House of Representatives.
Byron Donalds won the Republican nomination and David Jolly the Democratic nomination for Florida governor. Donalds was endorsed by Donald Trump and will become Florida’s first Black governor if elected in November. Jolly is a former Republican who joined the Democratic party last year.
Progressive Angie Nixon won the Democratic nomination for Florida’s open Senate seat, defeating the heavily favored Alex Vindman, a retired army lieutenant colonel and an impeachment witness against Trump during the president’s first term of office. If elected in November, Nixon would be the state’s first Black senator. Nixon will compete against Republican Ashley Moody in November for the Senate seat Marco Rubio won in 2022.