Two Republicans who have been critical of former President Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol will face the voters on Tuesday. While Sen. Lisa Murkowski is likely to advance thanks to a new election system in Alaska, Rep. Liz Cheney appears headed for defeat in Wyoming.
With Trump campaigning aggressively against Republican lawmakers who have been involved in the Jan. 6 investigation or who supported his impeachment, this week’s primaries showcase his ongoing influence over the party.
Read on for the races to watch in Alaska and Wyoming, as well as the recent changes in election law in those states that will affect voters.
Alaska
Alaska will hold a special election for its at-large House of Representatives seat Tuesday, with former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in contention alongside fellow Republican Nicholas Begich and Democrat Mary Peltola.
The special election, called following the death of Republican Rep. Don Young in March, will be the first in Alaska’s history to use ranked-choice voting. Results will not be known until Aug. 31 at the earliest.
Elsewhere in Alaska, Sen. Lisa Murkowski is being challenged by fellow Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. However, both of the candidates are likely to advance to the general election in November under the state’s open primary rules.
In 2020, voters in the state approved a ballot initiative creating a primary system in which candidates from all parties appear on a single ballot. The four candidates with the most votes move on to the general election, which will utilize ranked choice voting. (There are only three candidates in the special election because a fourth dropped out after advancing in the primary earlier this year.)
Murkowski drew anger from Trump after joining six other Republican senators to voting to convict the former president after the House impeached him for inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy is also seeking the nomination for another team, and is competing with nine other candidates for four spots on the general election ballot. Polls show Dunleavy should easily secure one of those places.
Other than the elimination of partisan primaries and the transition to ranked-choice voting, Alaska has done little to change elections over the past few years.
Read more about election changes in Alaska.
South Dakota
No runoff elections will occur in South Dakota on Tuesday, as previously scheduled, because the statewide races were decided on June 7.
Read more about election changes in South Dakota.
Wyoming
The nation will watch as Republican Rep. Liz Cheney fights to keep her seat in Congress against challengers within her own party.
Harriet Hageman leads a slate of Republican challengers to Cheney, whose vote to impeach Trump and subsequent leading role in the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection left her deserted by many of her Republican peers.
Trump has attacked Cheney with vigor, backing Hageman in a state where he won 70 percent of the vote in 2020. Cheney has responded by trying to appeal to moderate Republicans and Democrats (Wyoming runs open primaries), but trails heavily in polls. Recent polling shows Hageman with a 29-point lead heading into Tuesday’s voting.
Wyoming is a staunchly Republican state, with the GOP having held the governor’s office and both chambers of the Legislature since 2011.
In recent years, Wyoming’s biggest changes to election laws have focused on voter identification. In 2021, the Legislature implemented a full voter ID law, requiring voters to present a valid form of identification before voting on Election Day. Previously, the state only required voters to do so when registering to vote. Under the new law, people without an ID must vote via provisional ballot, which can be used as grounds to challenge the vote.
This year, the state has enacted just one bill related to voting, according to the Voting Rights Lab. That bill allows elections officials to begin processing absentee ballots prior to Election Day, but increases the penalty for releasing the results of such ballots before the polls close.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.