Voters in five US states – Kansas, Missouri, Virginia, Michigan, and Washington – are heading to the polls for another key round of midterm primaries, where they will choose the Republican and Democratic candidates to compete in November’s elections.
Several of the contests on Tuesday will help shape the battle for control of the US Congress, where Democrats need to flip four Senate seats and three House of Representatives seats to regain the majority. Others will test President Donald Trump’s influence over the Republican Party, and highlight growing divisions within the Democratic Party over issues including Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
The biggest contest in Kansas is not for Congress but for governor, where both parties are choosing nominees to replace Democrat Laura Kelly, who has already served two terms and cannot run again. Trump has endorsed Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, one of seven Republicans running, including Secretary of State Scott Schwab.
Schwab has emerged as one of Masterson’s highest-profile rivals after gaining national attention for defending the integrity of Kansas’s elections against Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. On the Democratic side, state Senators Ethan Corson and Cindy Holscher are competing against Overland Park Mayor Curt Skoog.
Missouri’s heavily Democratic 1st Congressional District will see Representative Wesley Bell face former Representative Cori Bush, who was part of a group of progressive House members known as The Squad, in a bitter rematch. Bell narrowly unseated Bush in 2024, and the two are now squaring off again in a race that has become an early test of whether Democratic voters are shifting back towards more progressive candidates.
Bush, an early advocate of a Gaza ceasefire and a fierce critic of US military support for Israel, has cast the race as a fight against the Democratic establishment and the influence of pro-Israel money. Bell has taken a more traditional Democratic approach, backing Israel while arguing the US should also press its ally to improve humanitarian conditions. The race has once again attracted millions of dollars in outside spending from AIPAC, which spent about $3.1m in July backing Bell.
While Virginia is unlikely to decide control of the Senate, several of its congressional races could play an outsized role in the fight for the House. In the coastal 2nd District, Republican Representative Jen Kiggans is defending one of the country’s most competitive swing seats against former Democratic Representative Elaine Luria. In the 7th District, Democrats will be defending Representative Eugene Vindman, where he won by under three percentage points in 2024.
Washington state uses a top-two primary system, meaning it’s possible for two candidates from the same party to move on. In the 3rd congressional district, Democratic Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is seeking a third term in a contest that analysts are calling a toss-up. Her strongest Republican opponent is Trump-endorsed John Braun. In the 9th District, longtime Representative Adam Smith faces several challengers, including independent socialist Kshama Sawant, who is campaigning on an explicitly antiwar platform that includes ending US arms transfers to Israel.
These primaries offer a gauge of the Democratic Party’s internal fight over Gaza, defence spending, and whether opposition to the party’s foreign-policy establishment can translate into votes. The results will shape the strategies of both parties ahead of November’s elections.
Source: www.aljazeera.com