The Latest: Primary elections in Alabama, Oklahoma and Georgia further test Trump’s influence
An endorsement from President Donald Trump is worth a lot in Republican primaries. But is it worth more than $100 million in Georgia? Can it propel a congressman past an insurgent outsider in Alabama? Can it transform a candidate into a front-runner in Oklahoma?
Trump has been at the center of this year’s midterm campaigns, and his influence will be tested in different ways Tuesday as four states and the District of Columbia hold primaries.
Among Democrats, the primaries will hinge on longstanding divides between progressives and moderates as the party tries to chart the best path forward to November.
Here's the latest:
In-person Election Day voting concluded in Georgia at 7 p.m. ET.
Comparable past elections can offer clues about when to expect the first vote results and how long the vote count might take.
In the May 19 Republican primary for governor, the AP first reported results at 7:13 p.m. ET, or 13 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 3:13 a.m. ET, with more than 99.9% of total votes counted.
At a polling place in Griffin, some Republican voters relied on their personal knowledge of candidates when making their selections.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who’s running for governor, and U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, who’s running for U.S. Senate, both grew up in Jackson, about 20 miles away.
Joann Colwell-Kinard, 82, said she voted for both Jones and Collins, having known their families for more than 50 years and believing them to be “good, honest people.”
“I just think he’s a very honest person and I think he’ll do a good job,” she said of Jones.
Stephen Tobias, 63, said he voted for former football coach Derek Dooley for Senate, saying he didn’t like Collins. He also backed Rick Jackson over Burt Jones for governor because he doesn’t like data centers.
“They’re putting a data center right in my backyard, so I’m not really a happy camper,” Tobias said.
Voters in the District of Columbia will be using ranked choice voting for the first time since they approved the switch in 2024. Ranked choice voting allows voters to choose multiple candidates, ranking them in order.
Election officials have cautioned that the new system, combined with the number of mail in ballots that come in on Election Day, could mean slower results in some races.
Monica Evans, executive director of the D.C. Board of Elections, said results from in person ballots and those cast early will be counted and posted, along with any mail in ballots already received and processed.
“What you will not see election night will be any mail ballots we receive on Election Day,” she said, noting that can be as 30,000 to 40,000 ballots.
In the worst case scenario, the first tabulations of the ranked choice ballots could be Sunday, she said.
Attorney Everett Wess and business owner Dakarai Larriett are seeking the Democratic nomination for the state’s open Senate seat.
The winner of Tuesday’s runoff will face long odds in November.
Republicans have held the seat for nearly 30 years, with the exception of the three years when it was held by Democrat Doug Jones.
Republicans also hold all statewide offices in Alabama. But Democrats believe frustration with inflation and other issues could give them an opening this year in the deep red state.
The winner will face the Republican nominee in November for the seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor.
It’s the first time in decades that the Democrat’s name isn’t on the ballot for D.C. delegate.
Norton, 89, is finishing her 18th term as the district’s nonvoting delegate in the U.S. House and is the chamber’s oldest member.
She faced heavy pressure to stand down by critics who said she wasn’t pushing back hard enough against the Trump administration’s intervention into her city.
Norton was a personal friend to civil rights icons such as Medgar Evers and a contemporary of other activists-turned-congressional stalwarts, including Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and the late Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia.
Council members Brooke Pinto and Robert White Jr. are the top candidates vying for the role.
The two front-runners, D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis George and former member Kenyan McDuffie, both say outgoing Mayor Muriel Bowser should have been less cooperative with federal authorities as they targeted the city’s immigrant communities.
Both candidates also said they would bolster the city’s legal defenses against federal overreach.
Lewis George, a self-described democratic socialist, told The Associated Press that her top priority is addressing “the affordability crisis here in D.C.,” which she said was made worse by the Trump administration “firing federal employees en masse and militarizing our streets.”
McDuffie said his top priority is public safety as crime continues to be an issue. He has said he would add 1,000 police officers over four years, fully staff the 911 call center after years of chronic staffing shortages and take a public health approach to violence reduction.
Washington voters are headed to the polls as the president is once again threatening to take over the capital — but this time because of his opposition to mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George.
In the past, Trump’s threats have been about crime and cleanliness. His refrain from his campaign to inauguration was the city as a “dirty, crime-ridden death trap.”
He briefly seemed to back off, saying aboard Air Force One that he and Mayor Muriel Bowser “get along great.” But by last August, he was declaring a public safety emergency.
“We’re going to take our capital back,” Trump said.
The National Guard was brought in and remains today. Trump has touted his actions as the reason for historic drops in crime.
Alabama’s primary runoffs Tuesday include heated contests for lieutenant governor and attorney general.
For lieutenant governor, Secretary of State Wes Allen and former Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl are battling for the GOP nomination.
As a state lawmaker, Allen sponsored legislation to ban curbside voting and to criminalize gender transition treatments for minors. The state library board, which Wahl leads, voted to remove books about being transgender from the youth sections of public libraries.
Th lieutenant governor presides over the Alabama Senate and takes over as governor if the governor dies or resigns, but the position has limited power. The winner will face Democrat Phillip Ensler in November.
For the GOP nomination for attorney general, former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell faces Katherine Robertson, who is chief counsel to current Attorney General Steve Marshall.
Mitchell has emphasized his courtroom experience, while Robertson has emphasized her work in the attorney general’s office. The winner will face Democrat Jeff McLaughlin in November.
The president’s preferred primary candidates have a strong record so far in 2026. But none have faced a self-funded rival with Rick Jackson’s spending power.
Trump has backed Burt Jones, who, as lieutenant governor, was part of Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden, and the president has repeatedly praised Jones’ loyalty.
Jackson has chipped in more than $93 million of his own money to win the nomination. The 71-year-old businessman amassed a fortune from his company that provides contract healthcare personnel, and he’s used it to blanket television and online platforms with ads.
President Trump and the continuing presence of military uniforms in the city were among central themes for voters casting ballots in the Washington, D.C., primary.
Fran Tatu, 69, said she voted for Janeese Lewis George. “Many years she’s been in the streets with us activating, getting out there, with us in the movements standing up for the rights for all.”
Tatu said she also supported current council member Robert White Jr., in his contest to replace longtime non-voting delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton.
“What’s at stake — many young lives with the surge of federal officers by Trump and all of the troops that are here,” she said, citing one instance where Immigration and Customs Enforcement was detaining riders getting off public transportation. “We called Janeese and she showed up in her purple coat to check on her constituents,” she said.
Although voters in the District of Columbia are overwhelmingly Democrats, the local GOP is fielding its largest group of candidates in more than 30 years.
Those candidates include Manuel Rivera, who's the first Republican ever to seek the Attorney General seat. He's running unopposed in the primary.
Republicans are also running for chair of the D.C. Council and Council members for Wards 1, 5, 6 and at-large, Member of the Council for Wards 1, 5, and 6, and Delegate to Congress, where Denise Rosado is running unopposed and will advance to the general election.
As of May 31, there were about 481,000 registered voters in Washington. More than three-quarters of them, about 363,000, were registered Democrats. Roughly 25,000, or 5%, were registered Republicans and about 18%, or roughly 86,000, were not affiliated with any party.
Josh McKoon knows there are differing opinions and a web of endorsements flying around the Georgia Republican Party. Most notably, the outgoing governor, Brian Kemp, and the president are on opposite sides in the Senate.
But they’re now aligned in the race for Kemp’s successor.
“We’ve heard this narrative for so long about Donald Trump Republicans and Brian Kemp Republicans,” McKoon said. But their mutual support for Burt Jones “speaks to the ability of Republicans to come together ahead of a general election.”
McKoon acknowledged Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms have had a head start. They had no runoffs. But McKoon said Wednesday morning will be a “fresh start.”
Still, in the Senate race, either Derek Dooley or Mike Collins will face a big financial gap. Earlier this spring, Ossoff had $32.5 million on hand. Each Republican had less than $2 million.
Wendy Huang is a real estate investor with past experience working in Silicon Valley, a background she’s touted while emphasizing that artificial intelligence will be a defining part of the economy. She’s focused on reducing the cost of housing and prescription drugs.
Dena Maldonado, who runs a floral business, says she wants to stop insider trading in Congress, protect the Second Amendment, install term limits and to stop “endless wars.” She has framed her decision to run around bringing transparency to what happens in the nation’s capital and how taxpayer dollars are spent.
The top-two primary is nonpartisan. Any Republican making it through to the special general election will have a tough time pulling out a win in a seat that has been safely Democratic.
Eleven candidates are running in the special primary, which sends the top two voter-getters to a special general election regardless of party affiliation.
Democratic state Sen. Aisha Wahab has focused on housing costs and consumer protections such as banning junk fees. She's endorsed by the state Democratic Party and has leaned into her story of living through foster care and adoption in California.
Another Democratic candidate is Melissa Hernandez, a former mayor of the East Bay city of Dublin, who says she’ll tackle high costs by supporting small businesses and helping create jobs. She’s also emphasized expanding access to healthcare and childcare.
Both candidates also ran in the regular primary election seeking the full two-year term to the House seat.
Jenny Beth Martin and Debbie Dooley were on the front lines of the early tea party movement during Barack Obama’s presidency.
In Georgia’s GOP Senate runoff, they’re on different sides. Each insists her candidate is the one to defeat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in the fall.
Martin backs Rep. Mike Collins, a self-declared “MAGA warrior” with Trump’s endorsement. Dooley supports first-time candidate Derek Dooley (no relation).
Martin says energizing the conservative base is necessary to protect Republican majorities that aren’t populated with Republican “anti-Trumpers” or “liberals like Jon Ossoff.”
Debbie Dooley says Collins has too much baggage and hard-right ties to win. “He will drag down the whole Republican ticket in Georgia,” she predicted. “This is about actually winning. It’s not about just following Donald Trump.”
Debbie Dooley and Martin have diverged before. In 2016, Dooley backed Trump from the start. Martin backed Ted Cruz for the GOP nomination.
The closing days of the Senate runoff between U.S. Rep. Barry Moore and former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson have been marked by a heated back-and-forth over military service.
Some of Hudson’s supporters have accused Moore, a three-term congressman, of inflating his military record.
Moore served in the Alabama National Guard and U.S Army Reserves, and has often emphasized his veteran status. He ran an ad in 2020 saying he knows how to support veterans because he’s been in combat boots.
In a recent video, Moore called it a “garbage swamp tactic” to suggest Guardsmen and reservists aren’t veterans. He said he never claimed to have been in combat.
The two are seeking the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who's running for governor.
Trump’s early backing of Republican Rep. Kevin Hern for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin kept other potential big challengers at bay in Oklahoma, which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1990.
A bigger test may come in the crowded race to succeed outgoing Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Trump last month endorsed former state Sen. Mike Mazzei. Other prominent Oklahoma Republicans seeking the nomination include Attorney General Gentner Drummond, former Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall and Chip Keating, the state’s former public safety director.
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser greeted supporters as she arrived to cast her primary vote at Shepard Park Elementary on Tuesday morning.
This fall, current council members Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie are the front-runners vying to replace Bowser, who was elected in 2014.
Georgia’s secretary of state election is open for the first time since Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election, famously pressuring outgoing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,800 votes” to overtake Democrat Joe Biden. Raffensperger refused.
For his potential successor, Republicans are left to choose between an outright election denier, Vernon Jones, and a state lawmaker, Tim Fleming, who avoids explicitly disputing the president’s 2020 election lies.
Democrats will choose between Dana Barrett, a Fulton County commissioner, and Penny Brown Reynolds, a former state judge in Fulton County who also served in the Biden administration as deputy assistant secretary for civil rights for the Department of Agriculture.
Retired software engineer James Haddad emigrated from Jordan and became a U.S. citizen in 1983. He backs Rep. Mike Collins in Georgia’s GOP Senate runoff because of Collins’ hard-line approach on immigration.
“I’m an immigrant, but I’m a legal immigrant,” Haddad said. “Just follow the law.”
Collins hopes to defeat former football coach Derek Dooley and then draw contrasts on immigration with Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November.
“The congressman is a good American who puts America first,” said Haddad, a 66-year-old from Woodstock.
Collins sponsored the 2025 Laken Riley Act, named for a Georgia nursing student killed by a man in the U.S. illegally. The law requires immigrants charged with certain crimes to be held without bond.
Ossoff voted against an initial version but backed it after Trump returned to power.
“It’s unfortunate that some immigrants have ruined it for others,” Haddad said.
The outgoing Republican governor passed on a Senate bid and recruited his former football coach Derek Dooley. Kemp’s spent months saying it’ll take an “outsider” to defeat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November.
Meanwhile, until Sunday, Kemp sat out the Republican tussle to be his successor. That runoff pits the sitting lieutenant governor against a first-time candidate. Rick Jackson, a billionaire businessman, labels himself an “outsider” in his ads and plastered the word on his campaign tour bus.
Yet Kemp opted for Burt Jones, the Capitol insider. Campaigning with Jones on Monday, Kemp said there’s no contradiction in his message.
His reasoning, essentially: Georgia state government has been run by Republicans for a generation and things are great, whereas in Washington, where Dooley would go, Congress is often deadlocked and has atrocious approval ratings. But Kemp did not note that Republicans have a trifecta with Trump as president and GOP majorities on Capitol Hill.
There’s the regular race in November that will determine who'll be sworn in come January and serve a full, two-year term in the U.S. House.
But since Swalwell resigned early following sexual assault allegations, there’s also the special election that will decide who will serve out the rest of his current term until January.
Tuesday’s primary will decide the top two candidates for the special general election on August 18. But if one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, they’ll win outright and there won’t be a general election.
The Texas senator has gotten more active on the Republican campaign circuit.
In Republican governor’s races in South Carolina and Georgia, Cruz finds himself on the opposing side from the president.
Cruz was in Georgia ahead of Tuesday’s runoff to stump for billionaire Rick Jackson. Trump backs Jackson’s rival, Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.
In the upcoming South Carolina runoff the GOP governor nomination, Cruz backs longtime state Attorney General Alan Wilson over Trump’s pick, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette.
Cruz, who finished second in Republicans 2016 presidential nominating fight, insisted he’s not picking fights with Trump.
“Not remotely,” Cruz said Monday. He noted he and Trump have both endorsed former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu in his U.S. Senate bid.
“The president and I agree on the vast majority of races,” Cruz said. “What I try to do in every race is endorse the strongest conservative who can win.”
Georgia gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson choked up a bit in the closing hours of his GOP runoff campaign explaining why he’s spent nearly $100 million of his own money on the race.
Jackson called his wealth “God’s money” that he directs “the best I can.” And he compared his campaign spending to his years of philanthropy, especially to help children in foster care, where he spent part of his childhood.
“I want our kids, our foster kids and everybody else, to have hope, you know,” he told a lunch crowd Monday.
“I have lived in poverty,” Jackson continued. “When you, when you have not eaten, you never forget that you don’t forget the people that are struggling.”
It was a stark contrast to Jackson’s tone in some of his television ads, including a promise that migrants who are in Georgia illegally and commit crimes will be “deported or departed.”
Voters in the nation’s capital are selecting party candidates for mayor and the district’s delegate to Congress.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, who isn’t seeking reelection, has walked a fine line between staying in Trump’s good graces and responding to the concerns of constituents, many of whom said she didn’t push back hard enough on Trump’s actions.
The district’s long-serving congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, is also stepping down.
The election is taking place as Washington undergoes major change under the Trump administration.
Washington has limited autonomy and federal leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including the approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C. Council.
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