Discussion Thread: Primary Night in Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, Oregon, and Pennsylvania on May 19, 2026

My state better not mess this up again like last time. Been watching the georgia results and some of these margins are way closer than expected.

I have 3 uncontested races and one with no Dem running.

What ever shall I do with the abundant options?

Georgia is going to be the marquee election of the night, since not only are there competitive primaries for Senate and Governor on the GOP side and Governor for Dems, the general election for state supreme court is also going on for two seats. Democrats have outvoted Republicans in the early vote by something like 15 points (Georgia doesn’t have voter registration but keeps records of which ballot someone pulls, along with incredibly detailed information on race, age and gender for voters), which is a 25 point shift from the 2022 partisan breakdown.

That being said, there’s an unusual situation there too where, if the Democrats do end up winning the state supreme court races, the incumbent Republicans are able to “cancel” the elections by prematurely resigning to invalidate the vacancy. Only one of the justices running committed to not doing this if they were to lose, while the other refused to make a commitment and actually was involved in a decision affirming the ability for incumbents to do this:

https://x.com/Taniel/status/2051434398617116718?s=20
https://x.com/Taniel/status/2051434979842785611?s=20

Finally, beating incumbents in state supreme court races tends to be very difficult, especially if they are elected to their positions. Since the races are nonpartisan, Democratic base voters are also sometimes confused about who to vote for. In 2024, former Dem congressman John Barrow lost by 10 points against a Kemp appointee despite vastly outperforming in his old congressional district in now-blood red Southeast Georgia, in no small part because he lost deep blue populous metro Atlanta counties like Cobb (Harris +15), Gwinnett (Harris +16) and Clayton (Harris +70). While there are positive signs for Dems with the way the primary vote has split, it’s still entirely possible that Rs outperform without partisan indicators (unlike the jaw dropping 25 point statewide margins that Dems got for the PSC races last year).

Still, given the stakes in Georgia, both sides are going to be very closely watching the first general election of the year there to see what it could mean for November. Despite Trump carrying Georgia by 2, it technically shifted blue by quite a bit (since it was about 4 points redder than the national popular vote when Biden narrowly carried it in 2020 and only about half a point redder than the national popular vote when Trump carried it in ’24), and metro Atlanta was one of the few areas that saw Harris’ numbers hold up and even improve a little over Biden. Dem chances in ’28 will probably depend quite a bit on flipping Georgia, and the gubernatorial election will be quite important in determining whether there’s federal interference on how the ’28 election runs.