Welcome to a special edition of At the Races! Throughout the 2026 primary season, watch for these updates from the CQ Roll Call campaign team on what you need to know for Election Day. Know someone who’d like to get this newsletter? They can subscribe here.
By Nick Eskow, Daniela Altimari and Mary Ellen McIntire
Voters in suburban Atlanta are deciding Tuesday on a successor to the late Democratic Rep. David Scott, who died in April.
The late congressman’s daughter Marcye Scott and former local school board chair Everton Blair are among the five candidates competing in the all-party special election for Georgia’s deep-blue 13th District.
Under Georgia law, a candidate needs to take home more than 50 percent of the vote to win the seat outright and avoid an Aug. 25 runoff election between the top two finishers.
Either way, the winner won’t be in office for long: None of the special election hopefuls will be on the November ballot for a full term. State Rep. Jasmine Clark won the regular Democratic primary in May, besting five other hopefuls, including Blair, who finished third.
Blair is the only special election candidate who also ran in the regular primary. A former chair of the Gwinnett County Board of Education, he has the backing of Rep. Lucy McBath and, if elected, would be the first openly gay man to represent Georgia in Congress.
Marcye Scott appears to be making her first bid for office and her more prominent backers include Rep. Nikema Williams and former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young.
If Scott wins, she will be the second daughter to succeed her father in the 119th Congress, after Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva won a special election last year for the late Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva’s seat.
South Dakota
In reliably red South Dakota, Republican voters will select a gubernatorial nominee in a runoff election.
Businessman Toby Doeden and incumbent Larry Rhoden, who succeeded Kristi Noem after she left to become Homeland Security secretary, advanced to the runoff after no one cleared 35 percent of the vote in last month’s primary. Rep. Dusty Johnson finished in third place.
The winner will face former Democratic state legislator Dan Ahlers in November. Democrats haven’t won a governor’s race in South Dakota since 1974 — the longest gubernatorial drought for either party nationwide.
Photo finish
Subscribe now using this link so you don’t miss out on the best news and analysis from our team.
