JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist cruised to victory Tuesday in Florida’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, setting up a November battle with incumbent GOP governor and potential 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.
Mr. Crist defeated Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who struggled to break through against Mr. Crist’s consistent poll leads and a broad range of endorsements by party and union leaders who saw him as the strongest candidate to take on Mr. DeSantis in November.
With 94% of the vote reported, Mr. Crist won almost 60% of the vote while Ms. Fried trailed with about 35%. Two additional candidates, Candace Daniel and Robert Willis, picked up about 2% each.
Mr. Crist served as Florida’s governor from 2007 until 2011, first as a Republican, then as an independent.
He became a Democrat in 2012 and is running for another term as governor of the Sunshine State on a solidly Democratic agenda that includes green energy initiatives, criminal justice reform, protecting abortion access and legalizing marijuana use.
After handily defeating Ms. Fried, Mr. Crist faces a bigger challenge in November when he takes on a popular GOP governor in a state that has experienced a massive surge in Republican voters who now outnumber registered Democrats by more than 200,000 people.
General-election polling taken before the primary shows Mr. DeSantis with a consistent lead of about 6 percentage points over Mr. Crist, although some Democratic polling shows a narrower race.
Also on the Republican side in Florida, incumbent Rep. Dan Webster fended off a challenge by Laura Loomer, a conservative provocateur who’s been banned on some social media networks because of her remarks about Muslims.
On the other side of the party divide, Democratic voters picked Rep. Val Demings as their nominee to face off in November against incumbent GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, who is running for a third term. Ms. Demings easily won the primary, garnering more than 80% of the vote but faces a steeper challenge against Mr. Rubio, who has held a comfortable lead in many polls.
The Florida primary was among a handful of nationwide primaries held Tuesday, most notable among them being a bitter battle between two long-time incumbent House Democrats in New York City who were squeezed into the same district after redistricting to accommodate a lost House seat.
Reps. Jerry Nadler decisively defeated Rep. Carolyn Maloney in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for the state’s newly drawn 12th Congressional District, which was created by combining parts of Mr. Nadler’s 10th District with portions of the old 12th District that Mrs. Maloney served.
With 91% of the vote counted, Mr. Nadler garnered 56% of the vote to her 24%. A third candidate, lawyer Suraj Patel, 38, who worked on both of former President Obama’s campaigns, picked up 19% of the vote in Tuesday’s contest.
In Oklahoma, voters went to the polls in a special Republican primary runoff and picked Rep. Markwayne Mullin over bank CEO T.W. Shannon to run on the November ballot to fill the rest of Sen. Jim Inhofe’s term.
Mr. Inhofe, a Republican, plans to retire at the end of the year but his term does not expire until after the 2026 midterm election.
Mr. Mullin currently represents the state’s 2nd Congressional District in the House and was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Mr. Shannon is a former member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives and was the chamber’s first Black speaker.
With nearly 30% of the vote reported, the race was called for Mr. Mullin, who had secured nearly 70% of the vote. He will face Democrat and former House Rep. Kendra Horn in November.
Oklahoma has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1990. The nonpartisan Cook Political report rates the seat “Solid Republican” for the midterm election.
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