California and Iowa primaries test Trump’s GOP clout in key 2026 races

Republicans are aiming to break longtime losing streaks by taking first steps toward winning elections for governor and Los Angeles mayor as voters in Democrat-dominated California head to the polls on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s clout over the GOP will once again face a ballot box test, in a gubernatorial showdown in Iowa, while the Hawkeye State’s Democratic Senate nomination is the latest battle between the establishment and progressive wings of the party.

California and Iowa are two of the six states holding primary contests from coast to coast during the first week of June, in elections that will impact November’s midterms, when the GOP’s slim Senate and razor-thin House majorities will be up for grabs.

The election arguably grabbing the most headlines nationally is in Los Angeles, where it’s been three decades since a Republican won a mayoral contest in the nation’s second most populous city. Spencer Pratt, a reality TV star and online influencer-turned-mayoral candidate, is gaining traction, thanks in part to his populist pitch and viral videos.

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Pratt, a Republican running as an independent in the left-leaning city, is backed by Trump. His rise is also fueled in part by his well-known status as one of the victims who lost their homes in last year’s devastating wildfires, when over 17,000 homes in Los Angeles County were destroyed, as well as his right-leaning focus on homelessness, crime and government accountability in a city long run by Democrats.

“I keep saying I become the mayor because of moms. Moms are getting me elected. Moms do not feel safe in Los Angeles. Not just feel safe, they are not safe. Nobody’s safe really in LA unless you’re the drug dealer. The drug dealers and the people giving them the needles, the city, our taxpayer money, the needle givers, they’re safe, the meth pipe givers. They’re safe. Everyone else is not safe in LA,” Pratt argued this past weekend in an interview on ‘ “Saturday In America with Kayleigh McEnany.”

Pratt is targeting Mayor Karen Bass, a former Democratic congresswoman seeking a second four-year term steering Los Angeles. Bass, who has been endorsed by former Vice President Kamala Harris, a former California senator and state attorney general, as well as the state’s two Democratic senators, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, last week landed term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom’s backing.

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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass campaigns ahead of Tuesday’s primary election as she seeks a second term in office. (Louise Barnsley for Digital)

Bass is attempting to fend off challenges from the right from Pratt and on the left from progressive City Council member Nithya Raman. If no candidate tops 50% in Tuesday’s nonpartisan mayoral election, the top two finishers will face off in November.

In the race for governor, a whopping 61 candidates are running to succeed Newsom in steering the nation’s most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest-economy.

But heading into the jungle primary, where all candidates regardless of party affiliation appear on the same ballot, with the top two finishers advancing to the general election, only a handful of contenders have a good chance of making the cut.

Among them are Democrats Javier Becerra and Tom Steyer and Republican Steve Hilton.

Becerra, a former longtime congressman and California attorney general who later served as a Cabinet secretary in former President Biden’s administration, would become the first Latino Golden State governor in modern history. Steyer, meanwhile, is a billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmental activist who unsuccessfully ran for his party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

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Hilton is a one-time British political strategist turned American conservative commentator and former Channel host who is backed by Trump.

Also in the race is Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican. Hilton and Bianco are both hoping to become the first California Republican win a gubernatorial election since then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2006 re-election two decades ago.

Bianco has argued that he’s the most conservative candidate in the race.

But Hilton, in an interview on ‘ “The Big Weekend Show,” reiterated his argument that “Chad is just too far behind. He can’t make it into the top two. So every vote for him actually helps the Democrats. We have got to make sure of this. We can’t let this opportunity for change slip away.”

Democratic candidates former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, are among the other better-known contenders.

Democratic candidates Antonio Villaraigosa, Katie Porter, Tom Steyer and Xavier Becerra and Republican candidates Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco participate in a California gubernatorial debate at East Los Angeles College Auditorium in Monterey Park, Calif., on May 5, 2026, ahead of the June 2 primary elections. (Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images)

Former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla mulled launching Democratic bids for governor, but both last year announced they would take a pass. That resulted in the lack of a clear Golden State gubernatorial frontrunner for the first time in more than a quarter century.

And the race was overshadowed for much of last year, as the devastation from the LA wildfires and Trump’s immigration raids grabbed headlines in California.

But the showdown for governor entered the spotlight earlier this year when one of the leading candidates, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, dropped out of the race and then resigned from Congress following a political implosion after facing multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct that he continues to deny.

Swalwell’s exit from the race opened the door for first Steyer and then Becerra to rise in the polls. Steyer shelled out more than $200 million of his own money to blanket the airwaves and the internet with ads.

Bianco, who launched his campaign for governor in April of last year, was among the top contenders in the race until Trump’s endorsement of Hilton in early April blunted his momentum.

Iowa showdowns

In Iowa, the retirements of Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and GOP Sen. Joni Ernst along with the rough political midterm climate facing Republicans, have Democrats optimistic they can flip the seats in a one-time battleground state that turned red the past decade.

Trump, who carried Iowa by 13 points in his 2024 presidential election victory, last week weighed in on the competitive GOP gubernatorial primary,

The president endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra in a race that also includes entrepreneur and private school co-founder Zach Lahn, who is backed by the influential conservative group Turning Point USA, state Rep. Eddie Andrews, former state Rep. Brad Sherman and former state administrative services director Adam Steen.

President Donald Trump, right, last week endorsed Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra in Tuesday’s GOP gubernatorial primary in Iowa. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Cody Scanlan/The Register/USA Today Network)

The winner will face Democratic state Auditor Rob Sand, who is unopposed in his primary. Sand is the only Democrat currently elected to statewide office.

The brute force of the president’s endorsement power and the immense grip he has on the Republican Party has been on display in GOP primaries the past month, with his candidates ousting incumbents he targeted in showdowns in Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky and Texas.

Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa is the overwhelming frontrunner to secure her party’s Senate nomination in the race to succeed retiring Ernst.

Hinson, a former TV news anchor who is in her third term representing Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, is facing a long-shot challenge from former state senator and former U.S. Senate candidate Jim Carlin. Hinson is backed by Trump, Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is the campaign arm of the Senate GOP. Hinson, who in 2020 flipped a Democratic-held seat that covers the northeastern portion of Iowa, is seen as a rising star in the party.

Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa sits for a Digital interview in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 4, 2025. She is running in the 2026 race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Joni Ernst. (Paul Steinhauser – )

The Republican-controlled seat in Iowa is a top target for Democrats and the race is one of about a dozen crucial showdowns in this year’s midterm elections that will determine whether the Republicans hold on to their current 53-47 majority in the chamber.

Hinson will face off in the general election against the winner of an expensive and contentious Democratic Senate primary between state Rep. Josh Turek, a Paralympian, and state Sen. Zach Wahls.

Wahls, a progressive who Republicans have likened to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has the backing of liberal champion Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Turek, the more moderate Senate contender who flipped a GOP-held Iowa House seat in 2022, is backed by former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He also has the tacit support of longtime Senate Democratic leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. And VoteVets, an establishment-aligned outside group, has spent big bucks on behalf of Turek.

Primaries in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts will set up general election showdowns in crucial GOP-held seats that Democrats are aiming to flip.

Other showdowns

It’s the same story in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, another purple seat Democrats are eyeing as they try to regain the House majority.

The Republican incumbent, Rep. Tom Kean Jr., has been in the national headlines after being absent from Congress and the campaign trail for three months due to a “a personal medical issue.”

In New Mexico, the race to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is taking top billing.

Former Rep. Deb Haaland, who served as Interior Secretary in former President Joe Biden’s administration and made history as the nation’s first Native American woman to serve as a Cabinet secretary, who’s to make history again as the first Native American woman elected as governor. She faces off against Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman. Three major Republicans are seeking their party’s gubernatorial nomination.

Montana voters will select nominees in Tuesday’s primary to replace departing Republican incumbent Sen. Steve Daines.

Former U.S. District Attorney Kurt Alme is running for the GOP Senate nomination in Montana, in the race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Steve Daines. (Alme Campaign)

The senator and Trump are backing former U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme, who jumped into the race in March immediately after Daines announced his retirement just ahead of the state’s filing deadline, in what appeared to be a carefully choreographed move. Alme faces two longshot rivals for the nomination.

Former state Rep. Reilly Neill appears to be the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in the solidly Republican state.

The Republican and Democratic nominees will face off in the general election against former University of Montana president Seth Bodnar, who is running as an independent and has outraised everyone else in the race.

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In GOP-dominated South Dakota, Gov. Larry Rhoden faces a crowded and competitive field as he seeks a full term as governor.

Rhoden was lieutenant governor in early 2025 when he assumed the top job after then-Gov. Kristi Noem stepped down to become Department of Homeland Security secretary in the Trump administration.