The 9 Democratic Primaries to Watch Closely This Year

You might already know about Michigan’s Senate race and the fight in New York’s 17th congressional district. But are you aware of the madness unfolding in Nebraska?

As a New Republic reader, you’re well aware that 2026 is a midterm year. But unless you’re a political junkie—or a voter in a handful of states—you might be unaware that primary season has already begun. Five states have held primaries already, while the rest are taking place this spring and summer. On the Democratic side, there’s no shortage of ideological disputes, age gaps, and longtime feuds as candidates jostle for the right to take on Republicans in the fall elections—and, they hope, win back control of Congress. Here are the party’s nine most intriguing contests in the coming months. (We had 10! But then Maine Governor Janet Mills bailed on her bid for Senate.)

May 5: Indiana’s 5th Congressional District

There’s a crowded field in the race to unseat Republican incumbent Victoria Spartz, and early-voting figures suggest that Democrats in the district—which has an eight-point GOP lean, according to the Cook Political Report—are energized.

Though no polling has been conducted on the race, J.D. Ford appears most likely to win the crowded primary. The first and only gay member of the Indiana Senate, Ford has centered his campaign on affordability and his local name recognition. And he is committed to the fight, having given up his seat to challenge Spartz. “People are going to tell me that the 5th District is unwinnable,” Ford told the Indiana Capitol Chronicle. “I would just tell them, ‘Watch me.’”

Jackson Franklin, along with his two triplet brothers, serves as a combat medic in the Indiana National Guard. Franklin was deployed to Kosovo in 2023, and says he was inspired to run for office after seeing his fellow veterans refuse medical care because they couldn’t afford it. At 26, he’d be the youngest member of Congress if elected (the current title holder, Maxwell Frost, is 29). If Franklin’s presidential-sounding name doesn’t sell Hoosiers on his political panache, his policies might: A Bernie Sanders fan since age 15, he’s rejected all corporate money and pledged to fight against Washington lobbyists.

Another legitimate contender is Dylan McKenna, who works in technology sales and has already raised a surprisingly large amount of cash. McKenna was motivated to run after Renee Good’s killing in Minneapolis, and describes himself as “a boring dad trying to do the right thing.” There’s also chiropractor Steve Avit, who posts low-budget videos on Facebook about helping working families, and Phil Goss, who operates his family farm while somehow also managing a pub in Gdansk, Poland.

May 12: Nebraska Senate

In this Democratic primary, a potential Republican plant is facing an actual Democrat who has no intention of holding office.

Let’s back up. Two years ago, a veteran and mechanic who had never run for office came within seven percentage points of unseating GOP Senator Deb Fischer. Dan Osborn was a progressive, populist, pro-gun challenger—but not a Democrat. He ran instead as an independent, and he’s doing the same this year in a bid to unseat the state’s other Republican senator. State Democrats believe he can pull it off, and stands a better chance than anyone with a D next to their name. Their unorthodox plan was to abandon their own primary and endorse Osborn.

But then a 79-year-old pastor named William Forbes quietly signed up for the primary at the last minute. Things got completely out of hand after CNN discovered Forbes was a Trump voter who frequently espoused MAGA talking points in his sermons. State Democrat Party Chair Jane Kleeb alleged Forbes’s campaign was a “political maneuver engineered by Pete Ricketts to split the opposition vote,” which the two men denied.

Forbes getting the de facto Democratic nomination would take a significant number of votes from Osborn in a race where the latter is trailing in polling by just one point. State Democrats countered through Cindy Burbank, who filed for the primary solely to defeat Forbes. Burbank admitted that if she won, she would immediately drop out and endorse Osborn. Nebraska’s secretary of state initially removed her from the ballot, arguing she wasn’t running in good faith, but Burbank took her case to the state Supreme Court and........

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