What to know about today’s primaries in Georgia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and more

Voters are going to the polls Tuesday for primaries in several states, including in the key battleground states of Georgia and Pennsylvania, while in Kentucky, Trump foe GOP Rep. Thomas Massie faces a challenger backed by the president.

In Alabama, voters are weighing in on four out of seven House races, while the other three districts will vote in August, after a Supreme Court decision earlier this month made it possible for the state to use a different congressional map with just one majority-Black district.

Here’s what to know about the key races:

Kentucky 4th District

Massie faces challenger Ed Gallrein in the 4th Congressional District in northern Kentucky in what has become the most expensive House primary in history.

In an interview with CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe in his hometown of Vanceburg, Kentucky on the eve of the primary, Massie said of Mr. Trump, “He knows I’m tough to beat.”

“He’s literally losing sleep over this race, because he’s in with both feet,” Massie said. I think their polling shows what our polling shows, which is there’s a better than half chance that we’re going to win this race.” n an interview Monday in his hometown of Vanceburg, Kentucky.

Massie later predicted, “I’m going to win,” but he admitted it’s a tight race.

“I think what would have been a 60-40 race is now a 50-50 race,” Massie told O’Keefe, citing the impact of outside money. Gallrein is backed by AIPAC, the Republican Jewish Coalition and GOP megadonors including Miriam Adelson. Pro-Israel interest groups have funneled millions into the race in a bid to oust Massie, who is facing Mr. Trump’s wrath over his opposition to a number of his priorities, including the Iran war and Massie’s defiance of party leaders in pressing the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. Massie also voted against Mr. Trump’s signature legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Massie, who is running for his eighth term, defended his voting record, telling reporters he votes with Mr. Trump “90% of the time,” but the president and his allies “want 100% compliance.”

“It’s only the 10% of the time they’re mad about — when I won’t vote for a war, when I won’t vote for warrantless spying and when I won’t vote to bankrupt the country,” he said. “But in those instances, I’m doing what I told the people in Kentucky I would do.”

Mr. Trump has campaigned for Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL, and spent the days leading up the primary attacking Massie as the “worst congressman in the long and storied history of the Republican Party.”

“He is an obstructionist and a fool,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post Monday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hit the campaign trail with Gallrein on Monday and criticized Massie’s “constant obstruction.”

“At some point, being against everything becomes an excuse for accomplishing nothing,” said Hegseth, who noted he was there in his personal capacity. “President Trump does not need more people in Washington who are trying to make a point, especially from his own party.”

Massie indicated Hegseth’s campaign appearance is a good sign, telling O’Keefe, “You don’t send the Secretary of War to Kentucky during a war if you think your candidate is up 10 points. That’s what you do when you realize your whole campaign is imploding.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to pick sides in the race, but said it would be “helpful to have a more reliable vote” as he leads a divided conference with a razor-thin majority.

Mr. Trump has been successful in wielding his influence in races this year in Indiana and this weekend in Louisiana, where Sen. Bill Cassidy did not advance to a runoff after facing a challenger backed by Mr. Trump and a third candidate who also pledged loyalty to MAGA.

Georgia governor’s race

Popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is term-limited, leaving the seat open. The once solidly GOP state now has two Democratic senators and provided a key victory for former President Joe Biden in 2020, although it flipped back to Mr. Trump in 2024.

During the 2020 election, Mr. Trump zeroed in on Biden’s victory in Georgia for his baseless claims of voter fraud. In the days leading up to Congress’ certification of the election on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Trump called then-Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and said, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.” Raffensperger resisted and he won reelection in 2022 against a challenger backed by Mr. Trump

The dramatic 2020 election is now the backdrop in the Republican primary to replace Kemp, with not just Raffensperger on the ballot, but two other prominent figures in that election: State Attorney General Chris Carr, who declined to pursue an election fraud case Mr. Trump pushed in 2020, and current Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who signed on as a phony elector as part of one of the schemes to overturn that election. Mr. Trump has backed Jones in this contest.

Then, billionaire healthcare executive Rick Jackson leapt into the race, promising to become Mr. Trump’s “favorite governor” and pledging to spend at least $50 million on his campaign. He’s blown past that, having spent $83 million so far, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

AdImpact, which tracks television ad spending, said last month that more than $100 million had been spent so far on television advertising. Jackson led the pack, dropping $56 million on television advertising, followed by Jones, who has spent $26 million, according to the report. And the anti-Jones group Georgians for Integrity has spent nearly $20 million on ads, while Raffensperger has spent $2 million.

There are four other Republicans on the ballot. If no candidate receives 50% of the vote, the top two Republican vote-getters will go to a runoff.

There are also seven Democrats vying for their party’s nomination, despite having spent only $1.24 million total on television advertising so far. Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is considered the frontrunner in the race, although the race is likely to go to a runoff. Biden has weighed in on the race, backing Bottoms, his first endorsement since leaving office.

There is another familiar name from the 2020 on the ballot on the Democratic side: Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who as a Republican had steadfastly refuted Mr. Trump’s 2020 election claims, is now seeking the Democratic nomination. Duncan wrote an op-ed in 2024 about his support for Biden, and he spoke at the Democratic convention that year in support of Harris after Biden dropped out of the race.

Georgia Senate

A handful of Republicans are vying for the GOP nomination on Tuesday to decide who will take on incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff in November.

Ossoff has been in the Senate since 2021 when he delivered Democrats one of two runoff victories in Georgia and secured their majority.

As the sole Democrat seeking reelection in a state the president won in 2024, the race represents a key prize for Republicans seeking to hold onto control of the Senate. But the GOP’s inability to coalesce behind a candidate, paired with a formidable fundraising effort, have appeared to improve Ossoff’s outlook.

Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter, along with former college football coach Derek Dooley, are facing off in what has become a messy primary in recent months. Dooley has Kemp’s endorsement, but the president has yet to endorse in the race, and the primary could go to a runoff in June if no candidate reaches 50%.

The possibility of a prolonged GOP primary fight has appeared to improve the picture for Ossoff, and a special election in Georgia in April saw a massive leftward swing that could also bode well for the Democrat. The Cook Political Report rates the races as leaning Democrat, shifting its rating from a toss-up in April.

Pennsylvania

Democrats have a path to gain up to four seats in the House and could test Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s political capital with swing voters in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania’s 7th District, centered in the Lehigh Valley, is a top target for Democrats. After its boundaries were redrawn for the 2018 cycle, it was represented by former Democratic Rep. Susan Wild for three terms before Rep. Ryan Mackenzie defeated her in 2024 by about a point.

The district includes the bluer Lehigh County, including Allentown, as well as Northampton County, which has gone to the presidential candidate who eventually won the national election in every cycle except three since 1920. The frontrunner for the Democratic nomination is Bob Brooks, a firefighter and union leader who’s backed by Shapiro and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Democrats have targeted Pennsylvania’s 10th District in every cycle since 2018. The seat, representing Harrisburg, York and the nearby rural areas, has been held by Mr. Trump’s staunch ally Rep. Scott Perry since 2016. Janelle Stelson, a longtime local television anchor, is the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. She narrowly lost to Perry by about 5,100 votes in 2024. Like Brooks, Stelson is backed by both Shapiro and the DCCC.

In the 8th District, comprising Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and some of the Poconos, freshman GOP Rep. Rob Bresnahan is facing a tough reelection campaign. The region was effectively represented in the House by Democrats from 2006 to 2024, but it includes areas that have shifted to the right in the MAGA era. Luzerne County, in the southwestern portion of the district, went for the Democrat in presidential elections from 1992 to 2012, but it was won by Mr. Trump the past three cycles. The clear contender to win the Democratic nomination on Tuesday is Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, who has the support of Shapiro and state and national Democrats.

The most challenging target for Democrats and the toughest test for Shapiro looms in the 1st District, north of Philadelphia and containing Bucks County. The region has been represented by moderate GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick since 2017. Fitzpatrick won reelection in 2024 by nearly 13 points, but local elections in the county show shifts to the left. When Fitzpatrick first won the seat, Republicans controlled all but one of the county’s 12 elected offices. Today, Democrats have that same supermajority Republicans once had.

CBS News reported in April that Mr. Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XVI and the Iran war have Catholics in Bucks — who make up more than a third of the county, according to the privately run 2020 U.S. Religion Census — watching Fitzpatrick and the administration closely. The top Democratic contender in the district is Shapiro-endorsed Bob Harvie, the vice chair of the county’s Board of Commissions.

Republicans have few U.S. House pickup opportunities in Pennsylvania this cycle, with one longshot chance in Democratic Rep. Chris DeLuzio’s 17th District, which comprises the Pittsburgh suburbs and Beaver County. But if Republicans are able to hold the line in their four frontline districts, it could be damaging for Shapiro’s greater political aspirations. If he’s able to help deliver victories to Democrats in those districts, it could attract the attention of donors and party leaders in the race for the White House in 2028.

Alabama

Alabama’s Republican Gov. Kay Ivey earlier this month declared a special selection that will be held on Aug. 11 in the House races in the state’s 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th Congressional Districts. These four districts will be affected by the state’s use of its 2023 map, which was made possible by last week’s Supreme Court decision. The 2023 map was blocked by the court because it had only one majority-Black district, but the Supreme Court last month narrowed the scope of the Voting Rights Act for majority-minority districts.

House primaries in the state’s other three districts will still take place Tuesday

Ivey is term-limited, and U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville is considered the frontrunner for the GOP nomination for governor. But he still faces two GOP challengers. On the Democratic side, there are six candidates vying for the nomination, including former Sen. Doug Jones, whom Tuberville defeated for the Senate seat in 2020.

As Tuberville pursues his bid to be governor, six Republicans are vying for the GOP nomination to replace him, and four candidates running for the Democratic nomination.