An election upset in Florida and more news from the states

Welcome to Wednesday! We’re starting off this morning’s newsletter with results from yesterday’s primary elections.

In Florida, Angie Nixon will run against incumbent Republican Ashley Moody for the U.S. Senate. Nixon’s victory concluded a primary that had some wondering whether progressive Democrats’ wins around the nation would carry into Florida.

Early vote counting in Alaska’s statewide, top-four primary election showed no surprises in the state’s two federal races. For U.S. Senate, Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan and Democratic challenger Mary Peltola led a 16-candidate field as of early Wednesday morning.

State Sen. Eric Barlow, a rancher and former speaker of the House, won the GOP nomination for Wyoming governor. And California is still counting votes in a special election to decide who will serve the remainder of former Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s term.

In other news, two states are facing court decisions on ballot measures. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a Republican-backed ballot referral that would amend the state’s constitution to make sweeping changes to how elections are conducted can remain on the ballot. 

And later today, a county judge in Missouri will decide on whether a proposed constitutional amendment goes too far. The amendment would limit the ability of lawmakers to alter the provisions of laws and constitutional amendments placed on the ballot by initiative.

Maryland: A federal appeals court upheld an injunction that bars Department of Homeland Security agents from conducting immigration enforcement “at or near” more than 1,400 houses of worship sprawling across 33 states and the District of Columbia.

Arizona: A ballot measure that would ask voters to institute sweeping regulations to the state’s billion-dollar universal school voucher program is effectively dead. The state Supreme Court ruled against the backers of Proposition 212, upholding a lower court’s decision that disqualified a number of voter signatures in support of the measure.

Alaska: Early tallies from the state’s primary election showed overwhelming support for a ballot measure that would restrict the amount of money that political candidates can accept from groups and individuals.

Texas: An Alaskan surrogate who sued to obtain medical care for a baby she carried is still requesting that a Dallas court give her custody. The surrogate had challenged the couple’s parental rights after she said they were going to refuse medical care for the baby upon birth.

Pennsylvania: Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order to limit data center development in the state. He repeatedly called the order “the strictest guardrails in the nation,” though it fell short of a moratorium, such as the one advanced last month in New York, and didn’t reverse state tax incentives.

Rhode Island: Democratic Gov. Dan McKee called for a pause on the installation of new Flock cameras for 60 days while the state police lead a review of the technology. The order allows existing cameras to continue operating.

See the rest of the news of the day from all 50 states, plus our D.C. Bureau and Stateline, on News From The States.

A new report has found that about 9% of Ohio’s state lawmakers are moms of children under 18, which they said gives them insight into issues affecting families with minor children, Ohio Capital Journal reports.

The third Politics of Parenthood: Representation in State Legislatures report was recently published by the Vote Mama Foundation, a nonprofit organization that studies the political participation of mothers in the United States. 

About 4% of Ohio state lawmakers were moms of minors when the first report was published in 2022, and that number rose to 6% in 2024 in the second report. 

Of Ohio’s 132 state lawmakers in 2026, 12 are moms of minor children as of February, according to this year’s report. Ohio would need 13 total moms of minors to reach proportional representation among the population at-large, according to the report.

Only two states have reached proportional representation: California and Virginia.

Ohio ranks 23rd in this year’s report — a significant jump from 2024, when it was ranked 37th.

One of the most requested items at North Carolina’s food banks is food that’s high in protein. Starting this week, hungry families will see their wish fulfilled dozens and dozens of times over, NC Newsline reports.

Democratic Attorney General Jeff Jackson, joined by state food bank leaders, received 270,000 eggs on Tuesday, the first in a series of deliveries of millions of eggs from an antitrust lawsuit.

Jackson and 16 other attorneys general reached a settlement in July with three of the nation’s largest egg producers over allegations that they violated the law and worked together to set higher egg prices.

Grocery stores and restaurants typically buy eggs at prices that are tied to industry benchmarks. In this case, the state attorneys general alleged that Cal-Maine Foods, Hickman’s Family Farms and Versova worked together to game the system and charge more for eggs.

North Carolina’s share of the 53 million egg settlement is about 3 million eggs. Over the next six weeks, those eggs will be distributed to food pantries across all 100 counties.