Pennsylvania, North Carolina in focus after primary elections

Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman joins the Live show to discuss the latest results from Monday night’s primary elections.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Well, five states held primaries last night-- this is your thing number three-- ahead of the upcoming midterms in November. And one race in Pennsylvania still too close to call, while an incumbent Republican in North Carolina lost his race. Joining us to talk more about those race results is Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman.

And Rick, we're watching these so closely for a couple of reasons. One, because we're watching the sort of Trump proxies, if you will, as an indicator for his continuing influence over the party. And we're also looking at them as an early indicator for what could happen in the midterms. So what are your takeaways from some of the races yesterday?

RICK NEWMAN: I think first, let's look at that Senate Pennsylvania race in the Republican primary there. Trump's backed-- the candidate that Trump backed, Dr. Oz, did not take it away. That seems to be too close to call. It's going to be a recount. So Trump's endorsement there was not decisive. His preferred candidate in the Republican primary in North Carolina did win, but Trump also backed Madison Cawthorn, who is out. He's been involved in a bunch of controversies, and voters in his district just decided they're sick of him.

And then another interesting thing is in the Pennsylvania governor's race where a pretty far-right Republican who has been a QAnon backer and a MAGA Republican and a super pro-Trump election denier from 2020, he won the governor's primary-- excuse me, the primary for governor there. And it seems likely he's going to lose. So this sets up one of the interesting dynamics in these primaries. If Republicans do vote in, vote for a lot of fairly extreme election denier type of candidates, can they win in the general election in November? I think that's one of the developing storylines in all these primaries.

BRAD SMITH: I'm a bit biased here, Rick, having grown up in Pennsylvania, but I'd love to continue talking about PA and Fetterman and what that race now looks like going forward from here on the Democratic side. I mean, this is a person that just suffered from a stroke just days before the primary actually taking place. If there's anything that we can extrapolate from this race in particular, the primary, and now how it's shaping up for the seats that are available and up for grabs in Pennsylvania, what would you take from that?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, I grew up in Pittsburgh, Brad, so this-- I'm interested in this, too. People who don't know about Fetterman need to get used to him. He's a real character. He campaigns in shorts and hoodies. He breaks the dress code everywhere he goes. He has supported Bernie Sanders in the past. He's moving a little bit to the center, I guess, but he beat Conor Lamb, who's a member of the House right now from the Pittsburgh area who is basically considered more moderate.

So Fetterman is a real firebrand. He's a fighter. I think that's what people like about him. And what this tells us is, whoever the Republican candidate ends up being, this is going to be a high visibility race. It's going to attract a ton of money from all over the country. And it's going to be one of the hardest fought and probably one of the closest battles in the November midterms.

And Fetterman, I mean, pretty amazing that he won, given that there was a pretty competitive candidate running against him, and he had a stroke just a few days ago. So he gets people fired up. And that's the kind of candidate that Democrats want to have, somebody who seems like a fighter and who's going to Washington to break down some walls.