Another election day in Georgia has brought a further round of defeats for former President Donald Trump and his chosen Republican candidates.
Trump’s politics remain firmly rooted — and deeply influential — in almost every GOP race around the country, but the measure of his personal influence has taken a hit so far this primary season. Nowhere has that been more apparent than in the Peach State, a state he lost in 2020, where voters in Republican contests up and down the ballot have dealt him a string of embarrassing rebukes in primaries for this year’s midterms.
The latest came Tuesday in a pair of US House primary runoffs.
Nel 10th Congressional District, CNN projects that Kemp-backed businessman Mike Collins, son of the late US Rep. Mac Collins, will defeat former Democratic state Rep. Vernon Jones, who was endorsed by Trump. The race provided the closest thing to a clear proxy battle between Trump and Kemp — and Collins, though an archconservative aligned with the former President, is on track for a comfortable victory.
Trump pick Jake Evans, the former chairman of the State Ethics Commission, will also fall to emergency room physician Rich McCormick in the 6th Congressional District runoff, Progetti CNN.
Trump sat out the race in southwest Georgia’s 2nd District — for three decades the unquestioned province of Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop, a centrist “Blue Dog” caucus member. West Point graduate and frequent Fox guest Jeremy Hunt and attorney Chris West, a former Georgia Air National Guard officer, are vying for an opportunity to unseat a suddenly endangered incumbent.
The mostly rural district is plurality Black and Hunt, chi è nero, has become a favorite of national Republicans, with the National Republican Congressional Committee spotlighting him as an up-and-comer and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley joining him on the campaign trail.
Earlier this spring, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who rebuked Trump’s entreaties to help him overturn the 2020 Elezioni presidenziali, defeated Trump-backed primary picks.
Alabama Senate
Trump did get a win of sorts in Alabama on Tuesday, where CNN projects Katie Britt, the former chief of staff to retiring Republican GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, will win the GOP Senate primary runoff.
She’ll defeat Rep. Mo Brooks — o “MAGA Mo,” as he’s called himself — after Britt fell narrowly short of clinching the nomination outright on May 24. Trump initially endorsed Brooks in the primary, then dropped him in March, citing Brooks’ comments about moving past the 2020 elezione.
But Brooks’ struggles in the polls were also believed to have influenced Trump, who keeps close tabs on his primary endorsement win column. So it came as little surprise that the former President jumped back into the race 10 days ago, this time to endorse Britt, a GOP establishment favorite who finished the first primary round with more than 44% del voto.
Republicans pick nominees for key Virginia US House races
The battle lines are clearer in Virginia as Republicans in two key swing US House districts chose the candidates they hope will unseat a pair of endangered Democratic congresswomen this fall.
In the coastal 2nd Congressional District, CNN projects that state Sen. Jen Kiggans has secured a matchup with incumbent Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria. Kiggans, who fits a more traditional Republican profile and had the backing of GOP congressional leaders in her primary, will defeat three others, including Jarome Bell, who was more closely aligned with right-wing allies of Trump, including former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar. In a tweet last year, Bell called for the execution of “all involved” in Trump’s imagined 2020 election fraud. There’s no evidence of widespread election fraud.
di Virginia 7th distretto became more Democratic-friendly after redistricting. Whether that will be enough to save Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who isn’t facing a primary challenge, in November is less clear — especially in the state where the backlash to Democratic rule in Washington won its first headlines last year with Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the governor’s race.
Conservative Republicans here are divided, pure, on their desired flavor of candidate — with state Sen. Bryce Reeves supported by Utah Sen. Mike Lee, FreedomWorks’ political arm and the campaign arm of the National Rifle Association. His main rivals are Yesli Vega, a Prince William County supervisor, who has been endorsed by Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist who’s the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and Derrick Anderson, a retired Green Beret backed by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.
Abrams’ influence shows in Georgia Democratic runoffs
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams’ influence with Georgia Democrats was further solidified on Tuesday, as at least two of her endorsed statewide candidates won their primary runoffs.
Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants who had Abrams’ sostegno, broke through despite comments from her rival, ex rappresentante dello stato. Dee Dawkins-Haigler, that the Democratic Party has “a race problem” and that institutional support for Nguyen was part of a bid to diversify their ticket and appeal to White voters. Dawkins-Haigler, like Abrams, is Black.
CNN is also projecting that in the primary runoff for lieutenant governor, another Abrams endorsee, Charlie Bailey, will defeat Kwanza Hall, a better-known candidate who briefly served as a member of Congress in the late Rep. John Lewis’ quartiere. Abrams also endorsed state Rep. William Boddie in his race against businesswoman Nicole Horn in the labor commissioner primary runoff.
Washington, DC, was also a political battleground in the Democratic mayoral primary. Two-term Mayor Muriel Bowser will win the nomination again, Progetti CNN, defeating three challengers: DC Council members Robert White and Trayon White, along with James Butler, who finished second in the 2018 primario — di 70 percentage points behind Bowser.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
