Tonight, voters in Alabama and Utah will go to the polls in party primaries for two special elections this fall. In Alabama, appointed Sen. Luther Strange is trying to fend off two major GOP primary foes, former State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and Rep. Mo Brooks. If no one takes a majority of the vote, there will be a runoff on Sept. 26 between the top two vote-getters.
In Utah's 3rd Congressional District, three Republicans are competing to succeed former House Oversight Committee chair Jason Chaffetz, who resigned earlier this year: Provo Mayor John Curtis, ex-state Rep. Chris Herrod, and businessman Tanner Ainge. It only takes a plurality to win the GOP nomination here. Both seats are heavily Republican, though special elections have been anything but predictable in the Trump era.
Our guide to both contests can be found here. Polls close at 8 PM ET in Alabama and at 10 PM ET in Utah. Election officials in Utah warn that as many as 15,000 ballots may not be counted for another day or two, so we do not recommend staying up late watching that race. We’ll also be covering the returns closely on Twitter.
Results: AL-Sen: AP (statewide, by county) | UT-03: AP (districtwide, by county)
Wednesday, Aug 16, 2017 · 1:11:05 AM +00:00 · David Nir
Alright! After sitting around for over an hour, we finally have a decent chunk of votes reporting—14% of all precincts. On the GOP side, Moore leads Strange 39-32, with Brooks a distant 21. However, the vote so far could very well be unrepresentative of the state as a whole (meaning that candidates’ pockets of strength might not be reporting evenly), so hang on before declaring Brooks doomed.
Meanwhile, Jones has a huge 64-18 lead over Kennedy—a big relief, because we were worried we could see a Distinguished Gentleman situation play out thanks to Kennedy sharing a famous name with RFK.
Wednesday, Aug 16, 2017 · 1:23:31 AM +00:00
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David Nir
At this point, things are looking pretty awful for Brooks. He can turn around and seek re-election to the House in AL-05, but folks with ties to Mitch McConnell (who has heavily supported Strange) have been backing a primary challenger to Brooks, so running again might not be all that fun. It’s possible, though, that with Brooks out of the way, McConnellworld will no longer make much of an effort to keep supporting that challenger, Army vet Clayton Hinchman.
Wednesday, Aug 16, 2017 · 1:44:21 AM +00:00
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David Nir
The AP has called the Democratic primary for Doug E. Fresh Jones, who currently leads Robert “No Not That” Kennedy 62-19 with 48% of precincts reporting. For Republicans, it’s all but certain we’ll see a runoff between Strange and Moore, but there are no calls yet.