Election 2024 updates: GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert wins Colorado primary, progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman loses in N.Y. (2024)

Trump-endorsed candidate loses Utah GOP Senate primary

Bridget Bowman

Ben Kamisar

Bridget Bowman and Ben Kamisar

In Colorado's deep-red 5th Congressional District, Republicans selected political consultant and former radio host Jeff Cranks as their candidate to replace retiring GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn.

Crank’s victory is a blow to Trump’s endorsem*nt record. Trump had endorsed state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, while Crank had support from House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and other congressional Republicans.

Boebert’s decision to run in the neighboring 4th Congressional District also shook up the GOP primary in her more competitive 3rd District. Adam Frisch, a former member of the Aspen City Council who nearly defeated Boebert in the 2022 general election, cleared the field and nabbed the Democratic nomination.

Attorney Jeff Hurd won the GOP primary to face Frisch in the fall, NBC News projects, overcoming a Democratic effort to meddle in the Republican contest and secure an opponent who could be easier to beat in November.

A Democratic outside group launched a TV ad appearing to boost controversial former state Rep Ron Hanks, according to The Colorado Sun. Hanks has denied the 2020 election results, and he marched to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He also ran unsuccessfully in the GOP Senate primary in 2022.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House GOP leadership, countered the effort with its own TV ad targeting Hanks. Frisch also appeared to play in the primary by launching a TV ad aimed at Hurd, potentially damaging Hurd’s standing among conservative voters by suggesting that his positions on abortion and Trump were unclear.

Progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., lost his primary today to a moderate challenger who was backed by pro-Israel groups, NBC News projected, following a bitter and expensive race that exposed the party’s divisions.

The race in New York’s 16th District between Bowman and Westchester County Executive George Latimer drew more ad spending — $25 million, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact — than any other House primary in history. Nearly $15 million of that spending came from the United Democracy Project, a super PAC linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobby, which backed Latimer.

Bowman, 48, one of Congress’ fiercest critics of Israel, is the first incumbent Democratic lawmaker to lose a primary this election cycle and the first member of the “squad” of progressive lawmakers of color to be ousted from power since the group formed after the 2018 elections.Other squad members, including Reps. Ilham Omar, D-Minn., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Summer Lee, D-Pa., have been targeted, but they survived primary challenges.

Read the full story here.

Trump’s endorsem*nt was on the line today in the GOP primary runoff in South Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District, and his candidate came up short.

Trump had endorsed pastor Mark Burns over nurse Sheri Biggs — both advanced to a runoff after none of the candidates vying to replace retiring GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan won a majority of the primary vote this month. Biggs, who also serves in the Air National Guard, ultimately won the GOP nomination, The Associated Press projects.

In the two weeks since the primary, a group called Conservatives for American Excellence spent more than $400,000 attacking Burns, launching an ad that cited media reports that he lied about having served in the military and had supported Democrats in the past. The group is funded by major GOP donors, including Ken Griffin, Paul Singer and Warren Stephens.

In an interview published this week, Trump appeared to acknowledge that he interrupted Biden too much in their first presidential debate in 2020.

Trump was asked by the Washington Examiner about his debate performance during the 2020 cycle and whether he agreed that he interrupted Biden "too much."

After he appeared to acknowledge the interruptions, Trump said that “I was very aggressive in the first one" but contended that the interruptions were tied to Biden’s making false claims.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., won her GOP primary tonight, NBC News projects, after she decided to run in a different district from the one where she narrowly won re-election in 2022.

Boebert defeated five other Republicans for the party’s nomination in Colorado’s 4th District, which opened up after Rep. Ken Buck announced this year that he would resign. She will be heavily favored to win the seat in the general election given the area’s rightward lean.

She eked out a 546-vote victory in the neighboring 3rd District two years ago and faced the prospect of a rematch with Adam Frisch, a well-funded Democrat.

Read the full story here.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez easily won her Democratic primary tonight, NBC News projects, fending off a long-shot challenge from investment banker Marty Dolan.

With 38% of the vote in, Ocasio-Cortez led Dolan 83% to 17%. She will be heavily favored to win a fourth term in New York's solidly Democratic 14th District in the fall.

In the 16th District, Ocasio-Cortez's fellow progressive "squad" member Rep. Jamaal Bowman faces a much tougher Democratic primary fight against Westchester County Executive George Latimer.

Trump was asked this evening in a Newsmax interview where things stand in his vice presidential running mate selection process, but he remained tight-lipped.

“Well, I could take any one of these people,” Trump said. “They’re great. We have a great bench, and even beyond that, we have a great bench, and we’ll make a decision fairly soon."

NBC News reported this afternoon that the Trump campaign is considering announcing his running mate this week.

Trump said this week that he had made up his mind about who his pick would be but had yet to tell anyone whom he has chosen. He also said his running mate would be at Thursday’s debate, even if that person hasn't been announced yet as his pick.

It's 9 p.m. ET, which means poll are closing in New York and Colorado, two states with key congressional primaries.

All eyes are on New York's 16th Congressional District, where Bowman, a member of the House's left-wing "squad" and a vehement critic of Israel, is trying to fend off a challenge from a moderate who has gained traction with establishment liberals.

Meanwhile, in Colorado's 4th Congressional District, Boebert, a firebrand lawmaker aligned with the "MAGA" wing of the GOP, is seeking another term in the House after switching districts.

In an appearance on Newsmax tonight, Trump took a swipe at Biden's debate preparations when he was asked about Thursday's presidential debate.

“I’m not sure you can lock yourself into a room for two weeks or one week or two days and really learn what you have to know," Trump told guest host Corey Lewandowski, who was his campaign manager in 2016.

Trump has previously mocked Biden for doing debate prep at Camp David, Maryland, and he poked fun at him on the campaign trail over the weekend.

Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, published an opinion piece in The New York Times today written from her perspective as "the only person to have debated" both Biden and Trump.

"It is a waste of time to try to refute Mr. Trump’s arguments like in a normal debate," Clinton wrote. "It’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are. He starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather. This has gotten only worse in the years since we debated."

Clinton debated Biden during the 2008 presidential primaries, a contest they both lost to Barack Obama. Clinton faced off against Trump in debates three times before he scored an upset victory in the 2016 presidential election.

Reporting from Erie, Pennsylvania

ERIE, Pa. — Richard Speicher and Mary Gensheimer are lifelong Republicans and lifelong residents of Erie County. A yard sign that was, until recently, on the front lawn of their suburban home displayed the political homelessness they feel in their party and their community.

The couple had put up a “Republican voters against Trump” sign, only to find it missing one evening when they returned from dinner. Speicher and Gensheimer say they aren’t sure whether it was a prank or whether a neighbor was sending a message about their political views. Regardless, they decided to send a message of their own in Pennsylvania’s primary this spring, voting for Nikki Haley — even though she had dropped out of the race weeks before.

“Trump is not a representative candidate of the Republican Party. He might be what they represent now, but as lifelong Republicans, we both come from a much different tradition,” Speicher said. “The only choice available was Nikki Haley.”

Read the full story here.

Trump could announce his running mate choice as early as this week and possibly before Thursday’s first debate with Biden, according to people familiar with the matter.

Ali Vitali

Alex Rhoades

Ali Vitali and Alex Rhoades

Reporting from Mount Vernon, New York

MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. — A fiery Bowman just stopped by a polling place, where he was greeted by supporters and a marching band.

Asked by NBC News about why voters have been skittish to speak publicly about how they voted and about how intense this campaign has gotten, Bowman pointed the finger at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

“It’s intense because AIPAC are bullies ... and my opponent has sided not just with AIPAC but with Republican billionaires. And because [Latimer’s] been in office so long,” he said, “people are afraid.”

Asked whether he would commit not to run as a candidate with the Working Families Party if he loses his Democratic primary today, Bowman sidestepped the question.

“We’re winning, brother! We are winning,” he responded.

Latimer has repeatedly said that if he loses the primary, he will not continue his bid for Congress.

Trump’s campaign vowed legal action and said it would seek a criminal investigation into a super PAC that ran a misleading digital ad in Pennsylvania featuring clips of him discouraging Republicans from voting by mail.

After having condemned mail voting for years, Trump is now embracing it and encouraging his voters to take advantage of the practice in the presidential election.

“MAGA Patriots, listen to our president,” the ad from Pennsylvania Values PAC begins before it splices together sound bites of Trump condemning mail voting.

“Mail-in voting is totally corrupt, get that through your head,” Trump says in one such clip.

Read the full story here.

Reporting from Phoenix

PHOENIX — Maricopa County officials today provided new details at a news conference about the alleged theft of a key and a fob from an election ballot facility last week.

Walter Ringfield Jr. — 27, a temporary election worker — was arrested Friday and accused of stealing keys and a security fob from the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center on Thursday. He was charged with one count of theft and one count of criminal damage.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Ringfield remained in a Phoenix jail as of today.

WASHINGTON — JD Vance has been in the Senate for less than two years. But in that short time, he has already separated himself as the most consistently MAGA-aligned of the three GOP senators on Trump's shortlistfor a running mate.

Vance, an Ohio Republican, has distinguished himself as a harsh critic of American engagement in foreign conflicts and as a populist on most domestic issues. When he splits from the other senators Trump is eyeballing for his ticket — Marco Rubio of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina — it is often by embracing GOP base positions at the expense of establishment priorities such as funding government operations, according to an NBC News analysis of their voting records compiled byCongressional Quarterly.

Read the full story here.

After he failed to qualify for Thursday's presidential debate, independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on X that he will host a livestreamed event that night and answer the same questions posed to Biden and Trump.

“They tried to take away your independent choice for president and I’m not going to let them," he wrote alongside a video message.

In the accompanying video, Kennedy accused Biden and Trump of having "colluded" with CNN to keep him off the debate stage.

“I’m going to be on that debate stage, with or without their permission,” he said.

PHOENIX —In a key Arizona county, the battle over the last two elections is still raging months out from the next one. No one is feeling that more than Stephen Richer.

Richer, one of the most outspoken Republican defenders of the election process in the country, is simultaneously trying to prepare to manage the vote this fall in Maricopa County, the largest in the battleground state of Arizona, while fighting to keep his job.

The typically sleepy race for Maricopa County recorder is heating up, with Richer and his GOP opponents — one of whom is backed by a cadre of MAGA-aligned election deniers — squaring off for their first and only debate yesterday just over a month out from the primary.

“No, the election was not stolen,” said Richer, the only candidate to directly answer the moderator’s question yesterday about whether the 2020 or the 2022 elections were stolen.

Read the full story here.

In the lead-up to the first presidential debate, both Biden and Trump have been urging voters to ask themselves the question Ronald Reagan made famous: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

With the economy among the top issues for voters, each candidate has been using his set of data points to create a favorable economic picture of his time in office. But for many voters, the answer will vary greatly depending on their geography, professions, ages, races and lifestyles — not to mention the political lens they see each candidate through.

Read the full story here.

Trump could announce his vice presidential pick as early as this week, possibly ahead of Thursday’s debate, according to four people familiar with the situation.

Trump has said publicly that he intends to announce his pick shortly before, or at, the Republican convention next month.

Read the full story here.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon indicated toward the end of a hearing in the documents case that she's unlikely to grant the defense’s broad request to suppress all evidence retrieved from the Mar-a-Lago search.

After Trump attorney Emil Bove argued that the defense needed to speak to the FBI agents who conducted the search, Cannon said that the main question before her in determining the validity of the search warrant was whether it was particular enough in what it authorized and that “it seems like it is.”

Cannon also briefly clashed once again with prosecutor David Harbach, whom she'd reprimanded for his "tone" at yesterday's hearing. After she asked him to address a defense argument that the search warrant application misrepresented when the FBI investigation began, Harbach called it a “conspiratorial theory” and challenged the premise of the question. “Don’t put words in my mouth,” Cannon interjected.

Harbach apologized and said his issue was with the defense's argument, not the judge. Cannon has yet to rule on any of the multiple hearings she has held in the case since Friday.

The New York judge who presided over Trump’s hush money trial lifted some of the restrictions from his gag order, allowing him to attack witnesses and jurors.

Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling two days before the first presidential debate preserves restrictions on discussing individual prosecutors, court staff members and their family members.

Read the full story here.

The American Edge Project, a technology and innovation advocacy group, will air a thirty-second TV ad during Thursday's presidential debate promoting American leadership in artificial intelligence.

The ad, shared first with NBC News, is one of eight TV spots that will air during the debate. It features a woman named Sarah who runs her own tech company and tells viewers: "Foreign competitors like China want to surpass America in AI. Our leaders need to protect America's competitive edge."

Trump will be interviewed by his 2016 campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, on Newsmax at 8 p.m., Lewandowski announced in a post on X.

The interview will take place just hours after the New York judge in Trump's hush money case lifted parts of a gag order that prevented the former president from speaking about the witnesses and jurors at the trial. Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the case.

The Trump campaign announced it will hold a roundtable with Black business leaders tomorrow ahead of the presidential debate.

The participants are set to include Ben Carson and Reps. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, and Byron Donalds, R-Fla., the campaign said.

The event, at 1 p.m. tomorrow, comes as Trump has tried to make inroads with the Black voters in battleground states. Trump and Biden will debate on Thursday night.

"Joe Biden's failed economy has left Black Americans behind, burdened with higher prices and lower wages," the campaign said in a release, adding that Trump would "ease the financial pressures placed on Black American households."

Trump's attorneys are back before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon today for a third day of hearings in the former president's criminal case involving classified documents.

The hearing focuses on Trump’s motion to exclude evidence obtained during the Mar-a-Lago search and from his former attorney, Evan Corcoran. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., had allowed prosecutors to question Corcoran despite attorney-client privilege because of the so-called crime-fraud exception.

Cannon said in an order that the first part of the hearing would be held in a sealed session to "protect material to which grand jury secrecy applies and/or as to which Defendant Trump asserts attorney-client privilege." It will then resume in public around 1 p.m. "or as soon as otherwise practicable," the order said.

Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended her criticisms of the moderators for Thursday night's presidential debate on CNN after the network cut her off during a combative interview yesterday.

“I was not attacking the moderators," Leavitt told NBC News when asked whether her criticisms would set up an excuse if the debate doesn't go Trump's way. "What I was doing was pointing out their very long history of anti-Trump statements."

Being cut off during the interview just "proves our point that President Trump is knowingly going into a hostile environment on Thursday, but that’s OK. He’s ready and willing to do it because he believes so strongly in his message, " she said.

With just days to go before the first Biden-Trump debate, the campaigns are preparing differently. Biden prepared with advisers at Camp David, while Trump was holding campaign events and said he has chosen a running mate. NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez reports.

Biden and first lady Jill Biden will hold a post-debate campaign rally Friday at 12 p.m. in Raleigh, N.C., the campaign announced.

Prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith's office said in a new filing yesterday that Trump’s latest effort to dismiss his classified documents case should be denied without holding a hearing on the matter.

The filing included some new photos of the boxes seized during the search of Mar-a-Lago in 2022. They included a photo Walt Nauta took of spilled boxes in a storage room, examples of classified documents photographed next to boxes they were found in and a photo of a leather-bound box retrieved from a closet in Trump's office.

Kelly O'Donnell

Gabe Gutierrez

Kelly O'Donnell and Gabe Gutierrez

Among Biden supporters, there was concern yesterday after CNN’s political director, David Chalian, was quoted in The New York Times saying that Thursday’s debate “is not the ideal arena for live fact-checking.”

Democrats are now increasingly calling for the moderators to take an active role in calling out any false statements Trump makes.

“Trump has been known to steamroll moderators and make false claims on the debate stage, and when he lies, there is a responsibility to call it out,” said Jim Messina, a Democratic strategist and then-President Barack Obama's campaign manager when he won re-election.

“In 2012, there was a controversial moment where the debate moderator challenged a false claim from [GOP nominee Mitt] Romney, and it hurt Romney with voters. Despite the tectonic shift in politics since then brought about by Donald Trump and MAGA extremism, it is still journalists’ responsibility to call out blatant lies,” Messina said.

Kelly O'Donnell

Gabe Gutierrez

Kelly O'Donnell and Gabe Gutierrez

Various officials are moving from the White House to Camp David depending on their primary roles, according to a source familiar with the preparations.

White House deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed has been leading the policy portion of the debate prep, highlighting the administration’s accomplishments and its agenda.

Aides are working in rotation with the president. Some advisers are connecting by Zoom, as well. Former National Economic Council Director Brian Deese is also involved.

After House Republicans have been facing competitive primaries for weeks, it’s now a Democrat who could be in trouble today.

The primary in New York’s 16th District has attracted the most ad spending ever for a House primary, with Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman — a member of the progressive “squad” and a fierce Israel critic — facing scores of attacks.

The historic spending, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact, includes $14.8 million in ads from United Democracy Project, a super PAC tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Pro-Israel groups are backing Bowman’s opponent, Westchester County Executive George Latimer, a centrist who has served in local politics for decades and is an unabashed supporter of Israel.

Read the full story here.

Kelly O'Donnell

Gabe Gutierrez

Kelly O'Donnell and Gabe Gutierrez

Several officials familiar with the debate preparations are incredulous that Trump is mocking Biden for prepping at Camp David.

“He’s sleeping now,” Trump said at a rally Saturday. “Because they want to get him good and strong.”

One source pointed out that Biden traveled to Europe twice over two weeks for international meetings, going straight from the G7 Summit in Italy to a high-profile fundraising event in Los Angeles.The source added that Trump wasn’t as active on the campaign trail as Biden was during the former president's hush money trial in Manhattan this spring.

In six weeks, Trump has gone frommockingBidenas a f*ckless debater who can barely speak to praising his talents ahead of their first debate in the 2024 presidential election.

“Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced — He can’t put two sentences together!”Trump wroteon his social media platform May 15. Two days later, he said in a speech to the Minnesota GOP: “He can’t talk. He can’t walk. Can’t find his way off a stage. Can’t put two sentences together.”

But lately, ahead of the debate Thursday in Atlanta, Trump is singing a different tune, saying he has watched Biden’s vice presidential debate from 2012 and appreciated his rival’s abilities.

Read the full story here.