Voters in six states head to polls with all eyes on Kentucky primary race
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Voters will head to the polls in primaries across six states today, with the contest in Kentucky seen as a test of Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican party.
Trump launched a tirade against the state’s congressman Thomas Massie over the weekend as he looks to remove him from office.
Massie is one of very few senior Republicans who has dared to defy Trump, with the president calling him the “worst and most unreliable Republican Congressman in the history of our Country”. He went on to call on Kentucky voters to “vote the bum out on Tuesday” on social media.
Massie has been a consistent thorn in Trump’s side, voting against his signature tax and spending cuts bill, helping to force the justice department to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, and insisting on congressional oversight over the military actions in Venezuela and Iran. Now he faces a bruising primary against his Trump-endorsed challenger, Ed Gallrein.
Republican voters in Kentucky will also choose their candidate to replace Mitch McConnell, the former Senate GOP leader who is retiring. The frontrunners to succeed McConnell are congressman Andy Barr and former state attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron.
Among Democrats, Charles Booker and Amy McGrath, who lost Senate races in the state in 2022 and 2020, respectively, are vying for their party’s nomination once again.
Meanwhile, voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alabama, Oregon and Idaho will also head to the polls to select candidates ahead of November’s midterm elections.
In other developments:
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Police are investigating a deadly shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego as a hate crime, after three people were killed and two dead suspects were identified near the scene. Democratic leaders from across the country issued statements in the wake of the shooting calling out Islamophobia and advocating for stricter gun laws.
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At a healthcare affordability event, Donald Trump announced that his website TrumpRx.gov will now include a catalog of generic drugs. Trump touted the move as “increasing the number of drugs available on TrumpRx by nearly seven times, adding over 600 affordable generics to the website”.
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Trump moved to dismiss a $10bn lawsuit against the Interal Revenue Service and his administration created a $1.8bn “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate his allies for supposed persecution by the government. Democrats harshly criticized the settlement, saying it amounts to the creation of a “slush fund” for the president’s allies.
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An effort to reshape South Carolina’s congressional districts got its first full airing Monday in the state House. Lawmakers launched a lengthy discussion over the consequences of acceding to Trump’s calls for a US House map that could yield a clean sweep for Republicans.
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Trump also said he is requesting the attorney general and Justice Department investigate mail-in voting in Maryland. In a post on Truth Social, Trump alleged that Maryland had “sent out 500,000 Illegal Mail In Ballots” and blamed “the Corrupt Governor of the State, Wes Moore”, a Democrat, who “allowed this to happen in order to make sure that Democrats win”.
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Nancy Pelosi has endorsed San Francisco supervisor Connie Chan in the race to fill the seat Pelosi will vacate at the end of her term.
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The Trump administration has proposed allowing up to 17,500 white South Africans to enter the United States as refugees, beginning in the new fiscal year, CNN reports, citing an emergency determination letter sent to Congress that it obtained.
Key events
Chris Stein
Voters in Alabama will also come out to pick their candidates today. New congressional maps in the state have cost Democrats a seat in the House of Representatives.
The primary schedule for House districts was rearranged, and thus voters today will nominate candidates for only three of Alabama’s seven House districts, with primaries for the rest set for August.
The state is heavily Republican, and the most closely watched race is the gubernatorial election to replace Kay Ivey, who is term-limited. US senator Tommy Tuberville is the frontrunner in the Republican primary, while former senator Doug Jones is expected to take the Democratic nomination.
Congressman Barry Moore is the leading Republican to replace Tuberville in the Senate, but faces six other candidates in the primary. Trump has endorsed Tuberville and Moore.
Chris Stein
Pennsylvania looms larges in both party’s aspirations for the midterm elections, with Democrats hoping to retake two swing House districts that they lost in 2024, and oust Republicans from two others.
Democratic primary voters in the seventh congressional district around Allentown will choose between firefighter’s union leader Bob Brooks, who has the support of the party’s establishment, Ryan Crosswell, a former federal prosecutor, Lamont McClure, a former county executive, and Carol Obando-Derstine, a former aide to US senator Bob Casey. The winner will take on Republican congressman Ryan Mackenzie, who won his seat from a Democrat two years ago.
In the eighth congressional district in the state’s north-eastern corner, mayor of Scranton Paige Cognetti faces no major challengers in her bid to oust Republican Rob Bresnahan Jr, who also flipped a Democratic-held seat in 2024.
In the Harrisburg-centered 10th district, county commissioner Justin Douglas is vying for the Democratic nomination against former broadcast anchor Janelle Stelson to take on incumbent Republican congressman Scott Perry.
Democrats also hope to oust moderate Republican Brian Fitzpatrick from the first district in suburban Philadelphia, and primary voters will weigh in on whether county commissioner Bob Harvie or former congressional science advisor Lucia Simonelli is a better bet.
And while there’s no doubt a Democrat will represent the third congressional district in Philadelphia, voters will first have to choose from three ideologically distinct candidates to replace retiring representative Dwight Evans.
While the most watched race is in Kentucky, the primary races in Georgia – one for the seat of a senator and another for the governor – have also gathered a lot of interest.
In Georgia, Republican voters will choose who will face off incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter, both congressmen, and Derek Dooley, a former football coach at the University of Tennessee, are three of the main contenders.
So far, the president has not endorsed anybody. Brian Kemp, the outgoing Republican governor, has endorsed Dooley.
Kemp also needs to be replaced as the governor. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, attorney general Chris Carr, healthcare executive Rick Jackson and lieutenant governor Burt Jones are among the Republican candidates. Jones has Trump’s endorsement.
From the Democrats, those vying for the governor’s seat include former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Geoff Duncan, a former Republican who served as lieutenant governor, state representative Derrick Jackson, former state senator Jason Esteves and former county CEO and state representative Mike Thurmond.
Police were investigating a shooting in the US state of California as a hate crime on Tuesday after a pair of teenage gunmen killed three people at a mosque complex.
Tearful women emerged from a center set up to reunite families caught up in the shooting, and yellow police tape blocked access to the Islamic Center of San Diego, where the victims were found on Monday, AFP reported.
Police said emergency response teams found the victims, all men, outside the sprawling complex, before later finding the shooters, aged 17 and 18, dead in a car from apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
Rachel Savage
The US government has said it will increase the number of white South Africans it admits as refugees this year from about 7,500 to 17,500, claiming that “unforeseen developments in South Africa created an emergency refugee situation.”
Since starting his second term in office last year, Donald Trump has repeatedly made false claims that white Afrikaners are racially targeted and face a “white genocide”, which South Africa’s government has furiously rebutted.
His administration also cut aid to South Africa, boycotted the G20 summit in Johannesburg last year and disinvited South Africa from this year’s G20, which will be held at one of Trump’s resorts in Miami.
The US began admitting white South Africans as refugees in May 2025, while suspending the refugee settlement programme for people fleeing war and persecution in countries including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. In the year ending in September 2024, the last full fiscal year before Trump took office, the US admitted more than 100,000 refugees.
On Monday, the US state department sent Congress an emergency notice, stating that it would take up to 17,500 Afrikaners as refugees in the year ending in September. In October, the government had said it would admit just 7,500 refugees in total, mainly white South Africans.
Hegseth breaks tradition to share stage with Massie rival Gallrein
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth visited Kentucky on Monday to support Thomas Massie’s rival Ed Gallrein in a significant a break from tradition.
Hegseth said he was speaking “as a private citizen” and that Gallrein is a “warfighter”.
“President Trump told me, when he first offered me this job, he said, ‘Pete, you’re gonna have to be tough as shit,’” Hegseth said.
“But that’s also what Ed represents, a warfighter, a man forged through service.”
“I’m here in my personal capacity as a private citizen, a fellow American, and a fellow combat veteran here to support Navy Seal Ed Gallrein,” he added.
“President Trump does not need more people in Washington who are trying to make a point, especially from his own party, he needs people willing to help him win to vote with him when it matters the most.”
Voters in six states head to polls with all eyes on Kentucky primary race
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Voters will head to the polls in primaries across six states today, with the contest in Kentucky seen as a test of Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican party.
Trump launched a tirade against the state’s congressman Thomas Massie over the weekend as he looks to remove him from office.
Massie is one of very few senior Republicans who has dared to defy Trump, with the president calling him the “worst and most unreliable Republican Congressman in the history of our Country”. He went on to call on Kentucky voters to “vote the bum out on Tuesday” on social media.
Massie has been a consistent thorn in Trump’s side, voting against his signature tax and spending cuts bill, helping to force the justice department to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, and insisting on congressional oversight over the military actions in Venezuela and Iran. Now he faces a bruising primary against his Trump-endorsed challenger, Ed Gallrein.
Republican voters in Kentucky will also choose their candidate to replace Mitch McConnell, the former Senate GOP leader who is retiring. The frontrunners to succeed McConnell are congressman Andy Barr and former state attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron.
Among Democrats, Charles Booker and Amy McGrath, who lost Senate races in the state in 2022 and 2020, respectively, are vying for their party’s nomination once again.
Meanwhile, voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alabama, Oregon and Idaho will also head to the polls to select candidates ahead of November’s midterm elections.
In other developments:
-
Police are investigating a deadly shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego as a hate crime, after three people were killed and two dead suspects were identified near the scene. Democratic leaders from across the country issued statements in the wake of the shooting calling out Islamophobia and advocating for stricter gun laws.
-
At a healthcare affordability event, Donald Trump announced that his website TrumpRx.gov will now include a catalog of generic drugs. Trump touted the move as “increasing the number of drugs available on TrumpRx by nearly seven times, adding over 600 affordable generics to the website”.
-
Trump moved to dismiss a $10bn lawsuit against the Interal Revenue Service and his administration created a $1.8bn “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate his allies for supposed persecution by the government. Democrats harshly criticized the settlement, saying it amounts to the creation of a “slush fund” for the president’s allies.
-
An effort to reshape South Carolina’s congressional districts got its first full airing Monday in the state House. Lawmakers launched a lengthy discussion over the consequences of acceding to Trump’s calls for a US House map that could yield a clean sweep for Republicans.
-
Trump also said he is requesting the attorney general and Justice Department investigate mail-in voting in Maryland. In a post on Truth Social, Trump alleged that Maryland had “sent out 500,000 Illegal Mail In Ballots” and blamed “the Corrupt Governor of the State, Wes Moore”, a Democrat, who “allowed this to happen in order to make sure that Democrats win”.
-
Nancy Pelosi has endorsed San Francisco supervisor Connie Chan in the race to fill the seat Pelosi will vacate at the end of her term.
-
The Trump administration has proposed allowing up to 17,500 white South Africans to enter the United States as refugees, beginning in the new fiscal year, CNN reports, citing an emergency determination letter sent to Congress that it obtained.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/may/19/donald-trump-primaries-midterms-republicans-kentucky-thomas-massie-pennsylvania-georgia-alabama-oregon-idaho-latest-news-updates
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