Voters in several US states cast ballots in primary elections on Tuesday, including Florida, where Congressman Byron Donalds celebrated victory in the Republican gubernatorial primary at a party in Orlando. Primary season is drawing to a close ahead of November’s midterm elections, with Alaska, Florida and New Hampshire among the states still finishing their contests.

What a primary decides

For readers outside the United States, this is the step that most often causes confusion. A primary is not an election to office. It is an election to be a party’s candidate for that office in November. Nobody won the governorship of Florida on Tuesday; somebody won the right to run for it.

Who may vote in one varies by state. Some run closed primaries, open only to registered party members; others allow independents or any voter to participate. That single rule shapes outcomes considerably, because a contest decided only by committed partisans tends to reward different candidates than one open to everyone.

Turnout is also far lower than in a general election. A primary is frequently decided by a small, highly motivated slice of the electorate — which is why primary results are a poor guide to how the same state votes in November.

The Florida contest

Florida’s governorship is open because Ron DeSantis is term-limited, and a crowded field competed to succeed him. Donalds, a member of the US House of Representatives, took the Republican nomination.

An open seat changes the shape of a race in ways that are easy to underestimate. There is no incumbent to defend a record or deter challengers, so primaries in open-seat states attract larger fields and become contests about who best represents the party rather than referendums on a sitting governor.

Why the remaining primaries are being watched

With the midterms in November deciding control of Congress, the closing primaries are being read for signals about the general election: which factions are winning nominations, how much money is moving, and whether turnout patterns have shifted since 2024.

Analysts differ on how much these signals are worth. One view is that nomination contests reveal where a party’s energy sits and therefore what its November message will be. The competing view is that primary electorates are so unrepresentative — small, partisan, and heavily influenced by local factors — that reading national trends from them is close to guesswork. Both positions have been argued from the same set of results in past cycles, which is itself informative.

What to hold on to

Three things are worth separating when reading US primary coverage over the coming weeks. What was actually decided — a nomination, not an office. Who was eligible to decide it, which varies by state and shapes the result. And how many people turned out, because a decisive-sounding margin among a small electorate is not the same as broad support.

The contests that determine who governs are in November. What happened on Tuesday determines who is on the ballot then.

Sources

• WORLD Radio — primary elections, 19 August 2026
• US News — the Florida gubernatorial field and the remaining primary calendar