ATLANTA — It was shaping up as a big night for women Tuesday as four states cast primary and runoff ballots, with Georgia Democrats taking the lead by giving Atlanta lawyer Stacey Abrams a chance to become the first black female governor in American history.
Abrams already set historical marks with a primary victory making her the first black nominee and first female nominee for governor of either majority party in Georgia.
Voters also picked nominees in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas. A closer look at key story lines:
Georgia governor's race
Democrats were set to nominate a woman for governor either way, with Abrams and Stacey Evans battling it out in a pitched primary fight.
But the 44-year-old Abrams stood out in her bid to be the nation’s first black female governor.
The Atlanta attorney and former state General Assembly leader also has been unabashed in her insistence that the way to dent Republican domination in Georgia isn’t by cautiously pursuing the older white voters who've abandoned Democrats over recent decades.
Rather, she believes the path is to widen the electorate by attracting young voters and nonwhites who haven’t been casting ballots.
She'll test her theory as the underdog against either Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle or Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who will meet in a July runoff. Cagle led a five-man Republican field, with Kemp qualifying for the second spot after a campaign that was a sprint to the right on everything from immigration to support for President Trump.
Texas congressional runoffs
Texas had three House runoffs that will be key to whether Democrats can flip the minimum 24 GOP-held seats they'll need for a majority when a new Congress convenes next year. All three were among 25 nationally where Trump ran behind Hillary Clinton in 2016.
In a San Antonio-Mexican border district, Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force veteran and former intelligence officer, got Democrats’ nod to face Republican Will Hurd in November. Jones would be the first openly lesbian congresswoman from her state.
Former NFL player Colin Allred won a battle of two attorneys and a former Obama administration official in a runoff for the Democratic nomination in a metro-Dallas district. He topped Lillian Salerno and will face Republican Representative Pete Sessions in November. Both Allred and Salerno made the runoff ahead of national Democrats’ initial preferred candidate.
A metro-Houston matchup between attorney Lizzie Fletcher and activist Laura Moser has become a proxy for the internal party fight between liberals and moderates. National Democrats’ campaign committee never endorsed Fletcher, but released opposition research against Moser amid fears that she’s too liberal to knock off vulnerable Republican Representative John Culberson in the fall.
Republicans will be watching whether Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a favorite in his own re-election race, can help his former chief of staff join Congress. Chip Roy is in a runoff for a San Antonio-area seat being opened by the retirement of Representative Lamar Smith. Cruz would love to place another ally among House conservatives.
Democrats battle in Ky.
Voters in a central Kentucky congressional district opted for retired Marine officer and fighter pilot Amy McGrath over Lexington Mayor Jim Gray to advance to a fall campaign against Republican Representative Andy Barr.
National Democrats once touted Gray as one of their best recruits in their efforts for a House majority.
They said in recent weeks they'd be happy with McGrath, but the race still shaped up as a battle between rank-and-file activists and the party establishment.
In eastern Kentucky’s Rowan County, voters denied a Democratic nomination to a gay candidate who wanted to challenge the local clerk who denied him and others same-sex marriage licenses.
David Ermold had wanted to challenge Republican Kim Davis, who went to jail three years ago for denying marriage licenses in the aftermath of a historic Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
Ark. health care preview
Arkansas state Representative Clarke Tucker, who is running for Congress in a Little Rock-based district by telling his story as a cancer survivor, was the winner over a crowded Democratic primary field.
He’ll take on Republican Representative French Hill, who voted many times to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
