New Jersey holds first primaries since the exile of 'ballot Siberia'

Voters go to the polls Tuesday to decide their parties' nominees for downballot offices in five states, including one that's in for a historic primary night.

In March, a federal judge granted Rep. Andy Kim's request to bar New Jersey election officials from printing ballots for the Democratic primary that give certain candidates favorable placement, a practice known as the "county line." The old system allowed parties to give preferential treatment to their endorsed candidates, putting them in a prominent location while relegating others to less visible spots derided as "ballot Siberia." 

That design conferred an extreme advantage: Rutgers professor Julia Sass Rubin concluded that between 2002 and 2022, candidates on the county line enjoyed an average boost of 38 points. Instead, the court ordered the counties to prepare ballots "organized by office sought"—the system used in every other state.

The ruling did not apply to Republican primaries, however, and almost all are sticking with the line. But it likely won't be much of a factor, though, as the GOP doesn't have many competitive primaries this year, and the same legal rationale behind the judge's ruling in the Kim case is likely to wipe out the line for all parties on a permanent basis in the near future.

Below you'll find our guide to the top contests to watch in New Jersey and in the other states that are on tap Tuesday. There's been little reliable polling released in any of these elections, which adds to the uncertainty going into election night.

To help you follow along with all of the House races, you can access interactive maps from Dave's Redistricting App for Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, and New Mexico. South Dakota, which has only one congressional district, is also holding primaries.

You also can find Daily Kos Elections' calculations of the 2020 presidential results for each district here, as well as our geographic descriptions for each seat. And you'll want to bookmark our primary calendar, which includes the dates for primaries in all 50 states.

And one final note: Just because a state might lack any competitive races on Tuesday doesn't mean the same will be true in November. Many will host hotly contested general elections in races where nominations have been all but decided prior to primary night.

New Jersey

Polls close at 8 PM ET.

Note that Democratic Rep. Donald Payne, who died in late April, faces no opponents in the primary for the safely blue 10th District. A primary will take place on Sep. 18 ahead of a November special election for the final two months of Payne's term. Local Democratic leaders will likely pick a nominee for the race for a full term in Congress sometime after the special primary.

• NJ-Sen (D & R) (57-41 Biden): Sen. Bob Menendez, who currently is on trial for corruption, is not competing in the Democratic primary, but he submitted signatures Monday so that he can appear on the November ballot as an independent.

But even if Menendez, who would have until Aug. 16 to withdraw his name, makes the general election a three-way race, the badly damaged incumbent would still have a tough time stopping the Democratic nominee from prevailing in this loyally blue state.

That person is likely to be Rep. Andy Kim, who launched a bid for the upper chamber the day after Menendez was indicted last September. Kim, who would be the nation's first Korean American senator, had faced the prospect of an expensive primary with former financier Tammy Murphy, who serves as the state's first lady. But with Kim leading in the polls, Murphy wound up dropping out in March.

Kim's remaining intra-party rivals are labor leader Patricia Campos-Medina and community organizer Larry Hamm, both of whom have raised little money and barely registered in early polls.

The two main Republicans in the four-person field are businessman Curtis Bashaw and Christine Serrano Glassner, the mayor of the small community of Mendham. Bashaw, who is self-funding much of his bid, has vastly outspent Serrano Glassner, and he also has the support of 13 of the 21 county Republican parties. Those traditional advantages may not matter, though, because Donald Trump endorsed Serrano Glassner at a May rally in the state.

• NJ-03 (D) (56-42 Biden): Five Democrats are competing to succeed Senate candidate Andy Kim in a once-competitive South Jersey seat that became considerably bluer following the most recent round of redistricting.

The two frontrunners are Herb Conaway and Carol Murphy, who represent the same constituency in the state Assembly. (Each of New Jersey's 40 legislative districts elects two Assembly members and one state senator.) Conaway would be South Jersey's first Black congressman, while Murphy would be the first woman to represent the region. The only other candidate who has brought in a notable sum of money is attorney Joe Cohn, though he still trails both lawmakers.

The March decision that prohibits Democrats from using the county line system deprived Conaway, who was endorsed by local Democrats in all three of the district's counties, of a big advantage. (Another candidate, businesswoman Sarah Schoengood, was also a plaintiff in Kim's lawsuit.) The assemblyman, however, has still raised considerably more than Murphy, and he's the only contender who has benefited from outside spending, which has totaled more than $630,000.

A late April poll for one of those groups, the Principled Veterans Fund, showed Conaway leading Murphy 25-11. Conaway, who served as a physician in the Air Force, has also received support from VoteVets and 314 Action, which supports candidates with science backgrounds.

• NJ-08 (D) (72-27 Biden): Freshman Rep. Rob Menendez faces a tough challenge from Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, who is hoping that the ongoing corruption trial of the congressman's father, Sen. Bob Menendez, will weaken his rival.

The younger Menendez has not been implicated in any of his father's alleged crimes, but Bhalla has argued that Democrats in the Jersey City area should still give the boot to the "entitled son of corrupt Bob 'Gold Bars' Menendez."

The congressman has hit back by with ads touting him as an ardent liberal and declaring that Bhalla "wants to run against my father because he's scared to run against me." Many Democratic leaders continue to support Menendez, and even several of his father's critics argue that the congressman shouldn't be punished for the senator's alleged wrongdoing.

Bhalla has outraised Menendez, but outside groups backing the incumbent have outspent Bhalla's allies by a margin of $1.3 million to about $450,000. In Menendez's corner are organizations that promote Latino Democrats as well as the crypto-aligned Protect Progress. The mayor's top third-party ally is America's Promise, which says it wants to "elect qualified Sikh candidates at every level." (Bhalla would be the second Sikh to ever serve in Congress.)

Businessman Kyle Jasey, who is the son of a former state legislator, is also running. He's raised little money and attracted little attention, but his presence could cost Bhalla some votes and make it easier for Menendez to win with just a plurality.

• NJ-09 (D) (59-40 Biden): Veteran Rep. Bill Pascrell is fighting for renomination against Prospect Park Mayor Mohamed Khairullah, who would be the first Muslim to represent New Jersey in Congress. 

Khairullah, who is campaigning for a North Jersey seat that's home to a large Muslim American community, has focused on Pascrell's support for Israel. But Khairullah, who launched his campaign just three months before the primary, faces a huge financial disadvantage, and there has been no notable outside spending to help him pull off an upset.

South Dakota

Polls close at 8 PM ET/7 PM local time in the portion of the state located in the Central Time Zone, which is home to about three-quarters of South Dakota's residents. Polls in the Mountain Time Zone, where the rest of the state lives, close an hour later.

The main contests to watch are at the legislative level, where Republicans enjoy huge majorities in both the state House and Senate. But as the South Dakota Searchlight's Joshua Haiar explains, far-right Republicans are attempting to unseat several incumbents aligned with the party leadership. (South Dakota is one of about a dozen states with an emerging "Freedom Caucus," patterned after the notorious one in Washington, D.C.)

The state requires a runoff in primaries for governor and Congress if no one earns more than 35% of the vote, but this rule does not apply to contests for the legislature. It won't be an issue for Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson, either, as he has no primary opposition, and neither the governorship nor either of South Dakota's U.S. Senate seats are on the ballot this cycle.

Iowa

Polls close at 9 PM ET/8 PM local time. There isn't much to watch in the Hawkeye State on Tuesday, though, as none of the primaries for its four U.S. House seats appear competitive. Democrats, though, are hoping to win back multiple seats that Republicans have reclaimed in recent years.

New Mexico

Polls close at 9 PM ET/7 PM local time.

The major contests to watch in New Mexico will be for the legislature, as progressives are trying to deny renomination to several Democratic incumbents who blocked a medical leave bill. New Mexico in Depth's Justin Horwath has more on these races.

Montana

Polls close at 10 PM ET/8 PM local time. 

• MT-02 (R) (62-35 Trump): Nine Republicans are running for the eastern Montana seat held by GOP Rep. Matt Rosendale, who in little more than a month went from launching a bid against Democratic Sen. Jon Tester; dropping out of the primary; kicking off a reelection campaign for the House; and announcing his retirement from politics altogether.

The three main candidates are all current and former elected officials who have been self-funding much of their campaigns: state Auditor Troy Downing, Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen, and former six-term Rep. Denny Rehberg. Also in the running are state Senate President Pro Tempore Ken Bogner, former state Sens. Ric Holden and Ed Walker, and former state Rep. Joel Krautter, but they've each struggled to raise money.

Rehberg, who represented the entire state in Congress from 2001 to 2013 (Montana regained a second district following the 2020 census), is on the ballot for the first time since his 2012 loss to Tester. However, while a Rehberg internal showed him in the lead before he launched his comeback in February, he hasn't responded to a trio of more recent surveys from Downing and his allies placing the auditor far ahead.

Downing, an Air Force veteran who lost the 2018 primary to face Tester to none other than Rosendale, may owe any advantage he has to the fact that he's brought in considerably more money than the rest of the field. And alone among the field, he's also benefited heavily from outside spending: At least $750,000 has been deployed on his behalf, much of it coming from the crypto-backed Defend American Jobs and the Elect Principled Veterans Project. Downing also picked up an endorsement from Trump one day before the primary.

Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated to reflect that Donald Trump has endorsed Troy Downing in Montana’s 2nd District.