Two territorial primary elections over the weekend saw Democratic Del. Stacey Plaskett advance in her bid to become the next governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, while Guam Del. James C. Moylan came out unscathed in the Republican primary for his nonvoting House seat.

Nearly half of the nearly 21,000 Democratic voters in the Virgin Islands turned out for Saturday’s primary. Plaskett led with 48 percent of the vote, according to an unofficial tally by the territory’s election board. Lt. Gov. Tregenza A. Roach was in second place with 32 percent, and former territory legislator Donna Frett-Gregory had 20 percent.

The U.S. Virgin Islands is among the five territories and the District of Columbia to send a nonvoting member to the House. 

First elected to Congress in 2014, Plaskett would become the first female governor of the Caribbean territory if elected in November. Her running mate is Milton Potter, the president of the Virgin Islands’ unicameral legislature, and the pair will face a handful of independent tickets in the race to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.  

Plaskett’s primary win comes some nine months after the release of Jeffrey Epstein’s personal files by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee revealed she had been texting with convicted sex offender during a 2019 congressional hearing. Plaskett narrowly avoided a censure resolution when three Republicans joined Democrats to vote down the measure. 

In remarks on the House floor, Plaskett said that Epstein was her constituent and that it was not publicly known that he was under federal indictment at the time. She said Republicans had “taken a text exchange …  and weaponized it for political theater.” 

Meanwhile, former Virgin Islands Sen. Janelle K. Sarauw on Saturday won the Democratic nomination for Plaskett’s open House seat. While she served in the legislature as an independent and was a frequent critic of the Democratic Party, Sarauw changed her party affiliation in February and ran on a platform of coalition-building, the Virgin Islands Consortium reported. 

Plaskett, who served in the George W. Bush administration before her election to Congress, also spoke up for big-tent Democratic politics when she addressed supporters over the weekend. “We have to open up our camp to whomever wants to be a part of change, who believes for better for the Virgin Islands,” she said, according to WTJX.

An incumbent holds on

Party unity was also a theme thousands of miles away in Guam after Moylan, the Pacific island’s Republican incumbent, fought off a primary challenge from former territorial legislator Mary Camacho Torres. The initial vote count showed Moylan leading Camacho Torres 60 percent to 40 percent. 

“The primary is behind us, and there is far more that unites us than divides us,” Moylan said in a statement after the election, according to The Guam Daily Post.

Camacho Torres came into the race with strong family ties to Guam politics. Both her late father, Carlos Camacho, and her brother Felix Camacho previously served as governor. 

Moylan will next face Democrat Alicia Limtiaco, a former territorial attorney general and U.S. attorney for the Districts of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Obama administration. Limtiaco was unopposed for the Democratic nomination Saturday.