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Georgia, Arkansas and Kentucky Primaries: Top Races to Watch

Adriel James, a poll manager, helps voters at the Clairmont Presbyterian Church in Atlanta on Tuesday.Credit...Kevin D. Liles for The New York Times

Go here for results in Georgia.

Go here for results in Texas.

Go here for results in Arkansas.

Go here for results in Kentucky.

The race for the open governor’s seat in Georgia, a battle with implications for health care, gun control and other contentious issues, leads a slate of three primaries on Tuesday. Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, has reached his term limit, and Georgia Democrats are hoping the same political climate that has buoyed them in special elections will propel them in a state where they have not won the governorship in two decades.

Also in play are two competitive House seats, including the Sixth District, a longtime Republican stronghold where a Democrat came close to winning in a special election last year.

Elsewhere, Democrats are hoping to pick up House seats in Arkansas and Kentucky, which will also hold their primaries on Tuesday. And in Texas, which held its primaries in March, candidates for governor and for 17 House seats will be decided in runoffs.

Here’s what you need to know about the biggest races.

The polls in Georgia are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

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Stacey Abrams, left, and Stacey Evans debate in Atlanta on Sunday. They’re competing in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Georgia on Tuesday.Credit...John Amis/Associated Press

The governorship

The Democratic primary is a race between Stacey Abrams, a former minority leader of the Georgia House, and State Representative Stacey Evans. Ms. Abrams leads in polls and fund-raising, and if elected in November, she would be the first black woman to be governor of any state.

An outspoken progressive, she has distanced herself from Ms. Evans not so much on policy as on strategy, rejecting the conventional wisdom that a Democrat seeking office in the South must appeal to moderate and conservative-leaning white voters.

[Read more about Stacey Abrams here.]

Ms. Abrams’s bet is that Georgia’s electorate is shifting. Supporters of President Trump will never vote for her, this thinking goes, and so the way to win is to mobilize core supporters like young people, women, African-Americans and Hispanics — including those who live in majority-white areas far from the state’s major cities — ensuring that they turn out on Election Day. Georgia’s changing demographics suggest this strategy has potential — African-Americans alone were 33 percent of registered voters there in 2016 — but some of these constituencies have proven difficult to rouse in nonpresidential election years.

On the Republican side, the front-runner appears to be Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, a veteran officeholder, but based on local polls, he is unlikely to secure the nomination outright on Tuesday. If no candidate receives a majority, the top two will face off in July — and while surveys indicate that Mr. Cagle is significantly ahead of his opponents, they generally show him receiving around 30 to 40 percent of the vote, not enough to avert a runoff.

Two challengers — Georgia’s secretary of state, Brian Kemp, and former State Senator Hunter Hill — are tussling to establish themselves to the right of Mr. Cagle, especially on immigration. Mr. Kemp appears to be the stronger of the two, though he drew criticism late last month for a campaign ad in which he pointed a shotgun at a young man who ostensibly wanted to date one of Mr. Kemp’s daughters.

House District 6

Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District, north of Atlanta, was the site of one of 2017’s hardest-fought special elections. After the most expensive campaign in House history, the Republican candidate, Karen Handel, fended off Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old Democrat who had never run for office before. Ms. Handel won by a larger margin than political experts had expected, but it was notable that Mr. Ossoff was competitive at all in a reliably conservative district that has not been represented by a Democrat since 1979.

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Karen Handel is up for re-election in the Sixth District.Credit...Kevin D. Liles for The New York Times

Now Ms. Handel is up for re-election, and four Democrats are running for the chance to challenge her. A runoff in July is likely.

[Half of the women running in House primaries have won so far.]

Bobby Kaple, a former news anchor, is politically inexperienced but has been endorsed by several prominent Democrats: former Senator Max Cleland; Steve Henson, the Democratic leader in the Georgia Senate; and Representative Cedric L. Richmond of Louisiana, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mr. Kaple’s strongest opponent may be Lucia McBath, a gun safety activist who entered politics after her son, Jordan Davis, was fatally shot in 2012. Also running are Kevin Abel, a businessman who has served on the board of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and Steven Knight Griffin, who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

House District 7

In an ordinary political environment, Representative Rob Woodall, a four-term Republican incumbent, would probably be a shoo-in for re-election in this district, another suburban seat north of Atlanta. But, like the Sixth District, the Seventh could present an opportunity for energized Democrats.

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Representative Rob Woodall of Georgia is a four-term Republican incumbent.Credit...Al Drago/CQ Roll Call

In a crowded primary field, three Democrats stand out in terms of fund-raising: Carolyn Bourdeaux, a longtime professor of public management and policy at Georgia State University; David Kim, founder of a tutoring and exam preparation company; and Ethan Pham, a lawyer whose family immigrated from Vietnam in 1994.

Mr. Woodall is facing a primary challenge of his own from Shane Hazel, a Marine veteran who has accused the congressman of being insufficiently conservative. Mr. Woodall has voted with President Trump more than 97 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.

The polls in Arkansas are open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Arkansas Democrats suffered a precipitous decline in the Obama years, losing the governorship, both Senate seats and control of the state legislature. While they are unlikely to reclaim their former dominance, they do have an opening to pick up one House seat: Four Democrats are vying for the nomination and the chance to take on Representative French Hill, the Republican incumbent in the Second District, the least conservative of the state’s four congressional seats.

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Representative French Hill is the Republican incumbent in the Second District of Arkansas.Credit...Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

National Democrats have gotten behind Clarke Tucker, a moderate state representative who is facing a handful of more liberal challengers. The question is whether Mr. Tucker can break 50 percent on Tuesday and avert a costly, monthlong runoff.

The other primary to watch is the Republican race for governor, where the incumbent, Asa Hutchinson, is facing a conservative challenge from Jan Morgan, a gun range owner and former television personality. Mr. Hutchinson is widely expected to be renominated, but Ms. Morgan’s vote share will indicate how vulnerable popular, veteran lawmakers are in this turbulent environment.

The polls in Kentucky are open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

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Democratic congressional candidate Amy McGrath is a former Marine Corps aviator.Credit...Bryan Woolston/Reuters

There are few better indicators of how 2018 is shaping up to favor both women and political newcomers than the Democratic primary to take on Representative Andy Barr, a Republican, in Kentucky’s Sixth District.

National Democrats lobbied Mayor Jim Gray of Lexington, who ran against Senator Rand Paul in 2016, to enter the race and were elated when he did late last year. But Amy McGrath, a former Marine Corps aviator making her first bid for office, won attention with a debut ad that went viral, and she has raised more money than Mr. Gray.

If Ms. McGrath wins on Tuesday, she will immediately become one of the most acclaimed House Democratic candidates this year — and someone Republicans will be eager to defeat in November in order to deter her from running for statewide office.

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