Primary elections live updates Tom Rice ousted in S.C. after Trump impeachment vote, and the GOP scores a win in Texas

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) is projected to win the Republican primary against former state lawmaker Katie Arrington, who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump, according to the Associated Press.

Mace was elected in 2020 in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District as an alternative to the growing number of GOP lawmakers who seemed to move in lockstep with Trump. While she backed him and had his support in the general election, she was successful in attracting independents and some Democrats by not being a true believer.

Since then, she’s been attacked by the former president and his allies for not being a faithful supporter of his false claims about the election.

Mace grabbed headlines by seeking to make amends for upsetting Trump by filming a video outside Trump Tower in New York earlier this year to convince her constituents that her support for Trump was solid. She noted that she worked for his campaign in 2016 and had his endorsement in 2020.

Correction: This item was corrected to state that Mace first won election to the House in 2020, not 2018.

Former Maine GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin is projected to win the Republican nomination for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, according to the Associated Press, setting up a rematch in November against Rep. Jared Golden (D) in Poliquin’s quest to win back his old district.

Poliquin was first elected to represent the district in 2014 and served two terms, until he was narrowly defeated in 2018 by Golden in Maine’s first federal race decided by ranked-choice voting.

Poliquin fended off a challenge to the right from Liz Caruso, a selectwoman from the small town of Caratunk, Maine, whose population was 81 in the 2020 census. Both Poliquin and Caruso have suggested without evidence that there were “irregularities” in the 2020 election.

Poliquin and Golden, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, will face off in November, along with independent candidate Tiffany Bond.

Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) is projected to lose the Republican primary to state Rep. Russell Fry in South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District, according to the Associated Press. The race was closely watched because many of his fellow Republicans disapproved of Rice’s vote to impeach former president Donald Trump.

Rice, a five-term lawmaker, found himself at odds with his party’s voters after he aired by his supporters his disapproval of the former president’s role in the attack on the Capitol, meant to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Not long after Rice’s vote to impeach, a half-dozen Republicans signed up to challenge him, arguing that Trump deserved a more loyal Republican holding the seat.

Since then, Rice had tried to convince voters that he is a consistent conservative who was capable of representing their interests in Washington as he has for the past decade. He has a track record of overwhelmingly supporting the former president’s policies. And he argued that his vote was motivated by conscience and conviction, not deep animus against Trump. But his popularity with conservatives in his district began to decline after Trump repeatedly attacked him and endorsed Fry.

Fry will now face Democrat Daryl Scott in the general election in November in a seat that Republicans are hoping to keep.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is projected to win the Republican nomination for governor, according to the Associated Press, setting the incumbent up to potentially serve a full decade in office.

Though South Carolina governors are limited to two four-year terms, in 2017 McMaster, then the lieutenant governor, took office after Gov. Nikki Haley (R) resigned to join President Donald Trump’s administration. McMaster was then elected to his first full term in 2018.

This year, McMaster faced only one primary opponent, Harrison Musselwhite, who campaigned as “Trucker Bob” and vowed to end “medical tyranny” by opposing all vaccine mandates.

McMaster will run against former congressman Joe Cunningham, who beat four other candidates in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, in November.

Rep. Tom Rice (R) is in a precarious position in South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District GOP primary, where challenger Russell Fry is leading the count.

Fry, a state representative, has former president Donald Trump’s endorsement in the race. Rice was one of 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, infuriating the former president.

As of 10 p.m. Eastern, Fry led the race with 50 percent of the vote, against Rice’s 24.8 percent, according to the Associated Press. Fry only needs 50 percent plus one of the total vote to win the primary outright and avoid the runoff.

The AP estimates that about 73 percent of the vote has been counted, and Rice is running behind in all six counties that have reported votes so far.

Even Rice’s own Horry County, which includes Myrtle Beach, has turned out for Fry. The challenger leads the incumbent there 51 to 27 percent.

Rice’s best hope is likely to be keeping Fry from receiving a majority of the vote in the primary, which would force the two Republicans into a June 28 runoff.

Rice, after voting to impeach Trump, said he has no regrets about his decision, saying it was the “conservative” thing to do.

“I campaigned for him and voted for him twice. But this utter failure is inexcusable,” he said at the time.

He could be one of the first pro-impeachment Republicans to lose his reelection as a result.

Republican Mayra Flores and Democrat Dan Sanchez are locked in a tight race in a special election to represent Texas’s 34th Congressional District — at least for a few months. Both are vying to finish the rest of the term of former Democratic congressman Filemon Vela, who resigned in March to work for a consulting firm.

With about 61 percent of the votes counted, Flores leads with 49.5 percent of the vote to Sanchez’s 44.8 percent.

A candidate must win a majority of the vote to win outright on Tuesday. If no one has a majority, the top two candidates will advance to a runoff, likely held in August. Two other candidates, Democrat Rene Coronado and Republican Juana Cantu-Cabrera, are also running in the special election.

Though there will be another election in November to represent Texas’s 34th Congressional District for a full term, Republicans believe an early win in the district could give them momentum heading into the midterm elections.

Because of redistricting, Flores is running in November’s race for a full term against Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez.

Paul LePage, Maine’s former governor, scored the Republican nomination in the race for his old office.

LePage, who ran unopposed, left the governor’s mansion in 2018 after his second term. He moved out of the state but returned and is ready to face Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat seeking a second term.

LePage and Mills have history — she served as Maine’s attorney general during his second term. During that time, he sued her for refusing to defend his administration’s positions over several divisive issues. In one instance, Mills refused to back LePage when he sued local governments for helping undocumented immigrants. In another, Mills joined other attorneys general in an amicus brief opposing the Trump administration’s ban on U.S. entry by citizens from some predominantly Muslim countries, infuriating LePage, who supported Trump’s policy.

Trump has not yet endorsed LePage’s bid, but he does have the backing of the state’s Republican Party. The former governor has described himself as “Trump before Donald Trump became popular” and retains the support of conservative voters in the state.

LePage is known for making combative and offensive comments, often without apology.

In an infamous instance, he blamed Maine’s drug problem on a specific group of people coming from Connecticut or New York.

“The traffickers — these aren’t people who take drugs. These are guys by the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty,” he said in 2016. “These type of guys that come from Connecticut and New York. They come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home.”

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) did not have any serious primary challengers Tuesday, and he will almost certainly be easily reelected in the fall. But one thing we are keeping an eye on is how or if Scott parlays these wins into a more national appeal — say, for a 2024 presidential run.

Scott is the only Black Republican senator, and he routinely makes the lists of potential presidential contenders, including at The Washington Post. Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney named Scott as one of just a few candidates who could beat Trump in a primary. Scott could appeal to the party broadly, where there are mixed feelings about Trump.