Primary Election News

Follow Primary Election News to see how political parties choose nominees for president, Congress, governor, and state offices. Get reporting on competing candidates, endorsements, party debates, primary calendars, runoff elections, and state-by-state results ahead of the general election.
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  • news

    Results of Virginia’s Primary Hint at Future for Trump, Sanders Movements
    In one of the first major primary races after the 2016 presidential election, a Republican candidate for governor who campaigned on a pro-Trump platform nearly pulled off an upset, while a Democrat candidate who cast himself in Bernie Sanders’ progressive mold lost.  Candidates perceived by some as establishment won in both the Democratic and Republican primaries…
    Fred Lucas
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  • news

    2 Republicans Battle in Razor-Tight Runoff Primary Ahead of South Carolina June Special Election
    In South Carolina’s hotly-contested primary runoff for Mick Mulvaney’s old seat, it looks like the Republican candidates are headed for a recount. Two GOP candidates, Ralph Norman and Tommy Pope, were running to fill a seat vacated by Mulvaney, who now serves as director of Office of Management and Budget. Norman received 50.3 percent of…
    Rachel del Guidice
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  • opinion

    The Primary Victims of Lawlessness Are Black People
    President Barack Obama and his first attorney general, Eric Holder, called for an honest conversation about race. Holder even called us “a nation of cowards” because we were unwilling to have a “national conversation” about race. The truth of the matter is there’s been more than a half-century of conversations about race. We do not…
    Walter E. Williams
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  • opinion

    The Wall Street Journal’s Skewed Republican Primary Analysis
    The race for the GOP presidential nomination this year has been one of the most interesting in decades. Most candidates on the Republican ticket made a clear effort to cast themselves as outsiders, fed up with Washington’s failure to follow through on promises made in prior elections.   The two finalists with the most electoral votes, Donald…
    Jim DeMint
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  • opinion

    5 Ways To Improve Our Primary Debates
    The fundamental problem with the 2016 primary “debates” among presidential candidates (especially Republicans) is that they are not debates—they are news conferences sanctioned by the Republican National Committee or the Democratic National Committee. As long as the TV and cable networks and other news organizations are in charge, we are going to have “gotcha” questions, arbitrary…
    Lee Edwards
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  • opinion

    North Korea’s Brutal Regime, Not the Weather, Primary Culprit for Nation’s Food Shortage
    In the past Pyongyang blamed its poor crop yield on alternating claims of cataclysmic floods and droughts that left South Korea unaffected. The reality was that North Korea’s disastrous economic system was to blame, combined with the country’s mountainous geography which is not conducive to agricultural self-sufficiency. Historically, the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula…
    Bruce Klingner
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  • news

    Can the GOP Have a ‘Peaceful’ Primary in 2016? Here’s Why the Party Chairman Is Hoping for It
    With six Republicans officially in the presidential race for 2016 and more to join soon, the party’s chairman is gearing up for a busy year. The Daily Signal spoke to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus about the policy issues at the forefront of the debate. “On the policy side, we’re going to have plenty…
    Jamie Jackson
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  • opinion

    How Direct Primary Care Is Serving as a Health Care Solution
    It isn’t often we can see positive, common-sense free-market ideas grab headlines when it comes to health care. But that is what is happening in Michigan. Direct Primary Care in medical practice is the idea on the rise, as Daniel McCorry of The Heritage Foundation pointed out in a comprehensive report on the topic published in…
    Richard A. Armstrong
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  • opinion

    Progressives Are the Primary Impediment to Progress
    Merriam-Webster defines progress as “the process of improving or developing something over a period of time” or the “gradual betterment; especially: the progressive development of humankind.” By that definition, today’s progressives are the primary impediment to progress. Progressive policies reduce incomes, reduce employment, reduce opportunity, reduce entrepreneurship, reduce innovation, reduce economic and social dynamism, reduce productivity…
    David Burton
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  • news

    4 Implications of Eric Cantor’s Primary Defeat
    The defeat of Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the House’s No. 2 Republican, has major ramifications for policy and leadership in Washington. Cantor lost his primary election Tuesday to Randolph-Macon College economics professor Dave Brat in a startling upset in Virginia’s 7th District. Brat credited the tea party and grassroots activists for his victory. Many conservatives see the results…
    Melissa Quinn
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  • news

    House Majority Leader Eric Cantor Loses to Primary Challenger
    Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, lost his primary election race Tuesday to a local economics professor in Virginia’s 7th District. Dave Brat defeated Cantor by 56 percent of the vote to 44 percent, with nearly all precincts of the Richmond-area district reporting. In a concession speech shortly…
    Robert B. Bluey
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