Trump’s endorsements collide with primaries across four states

Across Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., voters head to the polls Tuesday in races where President Donald Trump’s endorsements are being treated—by supporters and rivals alike—as a test of his power in the midterm era.

When voters arrive to cast ballots Tuesday, the question won’t be abstract for many Republicans—it will be personal. In Georgia. Alabama and Oklahoma. campaigns are built around a single premise: a Trump nod can move a candidate from relative obscurity to the front of the pack. In Washington. D.C. the stakes look different. but the pressure is still unmistakable—local leaders are trying to navigate a city reshaped by the Trump administration.

Tuesday’s primaries span four states and the District of Columbia, with Republicans leaning on Trump’s endorsements and Democrats trying to manage internal fault lines between progressives and moderates.

In Georgia, the Republican Party is trying to present unity even as major figures once positioned themselves differently. Georgia GOP chairman Josh McKoon said Republicans “will be united Wednesday morning. ” acknowledging that differing opinions and a web of endorsements have swirled through the party. McKoon singled out outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp and President Donald Trump as being on opposite sides in the Senate race—but said they’re now aligned as Republicans prepare to pick Kemp’s successor.

McKoon described the moment as a “fresh start” heading into Wednesday morning, while also pointing to the head start Democrats already have. He said Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms had no runoffs.

Financial pressure is also sharpening the contrast. In the Senate race, McKoon said either Derek Dooley or Mike Collins will face a big financial gap. Earlier this spring, Ossoff had $32.5 million on hand, while each Republican had less than $2 million.

The Georgia Democratic slate for the Senate seat—created by a special election structure—reflects that party’s focus on costs and consumer protections. Eleven candidates are competing in the special primary that sends the top two vote-getters to a special general election regardless of party affiliation. State Sen. Aisha Wahab emphasized housing costs and consumer protections such as banning junk fees. and she has leaned into her story of living through foster care and adoption in California.

Melissa Hernandez. a former mayor of the East Bay city of Dublin. pitched job creation and small businesses as her path to tackling high costs. while also emphasizing expanding access to healthcare and childcare. Both Wahab and Hernandez ran previously in the regular primary seeking the full two-year House term.

Even within the Republican coalition. the question of what Trump’s endorsement is worth is playing out in competing tea party legacies. Jenny Beth Martin and Debbie Dooley were early organizers during the tea party movement in Georgia. including during Barack Obama’s presidency. Now they are on opposite sides in Georgia’s GOP Senate runoff.

Martin backs Rep. Mike Collins, describing him as a “MAGA warrior” with Trump’s endorsement, and she argues that energizing the conservative base is necessary to protect Republican majorities that she says aren’t populated with “anti-Trumpers” or “liberals like Jon Ossoff.”

Debbie Dooley supports first-time candidate Derek Dooley and says Collins has “too much baggage and hard-right ties to win.” She predicted that “He will drag down the whole Republican ticket in Georgia,” adding: “This is about actually winning. It’s not about just following Donald Trump.”

The separation between them isn’t new. In 2016, Dooley backed Trump from the start, while Martin backed Ted Cruz for the GOP nomination.

Georgia’s politics are also being shaped by immigration and the way it’s used to frame who belongs. James Haddad—an immigrant from Jordan who became a U.S. citizen in 1983—said he supports Collins because of his hardline approach to immigration. “I’m an immigrant, but I’m a legal immigrant,” Haddad said. “Just follow the law.”.

Haddad. 66. from Woodstock. said Collins hopes to defeat former football coach Derek Dooley and then draw contrasts on immigration with Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November. He pointed to legislation tied to the name of a Georgia nursing student killed by a man in the U.S. illegally. Collins sponsored the 2025 Laken Riley Act, which 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. Haddad said, “It’s unfortunate that some immigrants have ruined it for others.”

While immigration and money loom large in Georgia, conflict over authenticity and service is sharpening the Republican contest in Alabama.

In Alabama’s GOP Senate runoff, U.S. Rep. Barry Moore—described as a three-term congressman—faces former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson. Supporters of Hudson have accused Moore 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 has been in combat boots. In a recent video. Moore called it a “garbage swamp tactic” to suggest Guardsmen and reservists aren’t veterans. and he said he never claimed to have been in combat.

Both are seeking the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor.

Trump’s role as a kingmaker is also being watched closely in Oklahoma. where early backing has helped shape who is willing to challenge the party’s nominees. 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.

But 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 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.

In Washington, D.C., Tuesday’s voting looks different, but it still centers on the tension between local autonomy and federal influence. 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 frontrunners vying to replace Bowser, who was elected in 2014.

The election matters now in a way many residents say they haven’t felt in decades. Voters are selecting party candidates for mayor and the district’s delegate to Congress. The city 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.

For Bowser, staying in Trump’s good graces while responding to constituents has been a careful balancing act. The election is also unfolding as the district’s long-serving congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, is stepping down.

There’s also a broader political calculation running through Tuesday’s races: in places where Trump’s endorsements have already helped shape outcomes, the party’s future unity and electoral strength are being measured by whether those endorsements still carry weight when the field gets tougher.

Georgia’s governor’s race shows how that tension can be framed as strength. Outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp passed on a Senate bid and recruited his former football coach Derek Dooley. Kemp spent months saying it would take an “outsider” to defeat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November.

Until Sunday. Kemp sat out the Republican tussle to be his successor. leaving Tuesday’s runoff between the sitting lieutenant governor and a first-time candidate: Rick Jackson. a billionaire businessman. Jackson labels himself an “outsider” in his ads and has plastered the word on his campaign tour bus.

Kemp, however, chose Burt Jones, the Capitol insider. Campaigning with Jones on Monday, Kemp said there’s no contradiction in his message. His reasoning was that Georgia state government has been run by Republicans for a generation and things are great. while Congress—where Dooley would go—is often deadlocked with atrocious approval ratings. Kemp did not note that Republicans have a trifecta with Trump as president and GOP majorities on Capitol Hill.

In Georgia, Trump’s fixation on 2020 continues to echo through the endorsement map. In 2020. Burt Jones was part of Donald Trump’s alternate Electoral College slate and backed the president’s scheme to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump referenced Jones’ “loyalty” many times since, including when endorsing his bid for governor. Jones now faces billionaire businessman Rick Jackson in Tuesday’s Republican nomination runoff. Trump wrote on Truth Social on the eve of the runoff: “Burt was strongly committed to my Campaign in 2016. 2020. and 2024. and worked tirelessly to help us WIN. ” adding. “He has been with us from the very beginning.”.

A day earlier, Trump endorsed Rep. Mike Collins in a Senate runoff over former football coach Derek Dooley. Trump chided Dooley for saying—months ago and not as a feature of his campaign—that Trump did indeed lose Georgia in 2020. Collins, meanwhile, has consistently echoed Trump’s false claims of a “rigged” election.

Alabama’s runoff also includes Trump as a direct participant. Trump endorsed U.S. Rep. Barry Moore early in the Alabama campaign. but the contest has hardened into a heated race with Jared Hudson. a newcomer. Hudson has tried to depict Moore as a political insider and has urged voters to send an outsider to Washington. Trump held a telephone rally for Moore last week.

Meanwhile, in Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz says he is not trying to separate himself from Trump even as he tries to navigate opposing sides in other governor races. Cruz has gotten more active on the Republican campaign circuit. and he is in Georgia ahead of Tuesday’s runoff to stump for billionaire Rick Jackson. while Trump backs Jackson’s rival. Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.

In South Carolina’s upcoming GOP governor nomination runoff, 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’s gubernatorial contest is also being powered by money in a way that’s hard to miss. Rick Jackson choked up during the closing hours of his GOP runoff campaign explaining why he has spent nearly $100 million of his own money. 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 helping children in foster care. where he says he spent part of his childhood.

“I want our kids, our foster kids and everybody else, to have hope, you know,” Jackson told a lunch crowd Monday. “I have lived in poverty,” he continued, saying that when someone has not eaten, “you never forget the people that are struggling.”

His message contrasts with some of his television ads, including a promise that migrants in Georgia illegally and commit crimes will be “deported or departed.”

Underneath all the political signaling, Tuesday’s calendar includes a complicated election structure tied to a California seat that is being filled after a resignation.

There are two elections for the California House seat formerly held by Rep. Eric Swalwell. The regular race in November will determine who is sworn in come January and serves a full, two-year term. But since Swalwell resigned early following sexual assault allegations. there is also a special election deciding 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. If one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the candidate will win outright and there will be no general election.

Swalwell stepped down in April following allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman twice, including when she worked for him, and other accusations of sexual misconduct. Swalwell has denied the allegations and said he will defend himself.

The San Francisco Chronicle first reported that a woman accused Swalwell of sexually assaulting her in 2019 and again in 2024. She told the outlet that she had been too intoxicated to consent.

Back in Georgia, the political machinery is still catching up to an election-denying era. 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. which Raffensperger refused.

For his potential successor. Republicans are choosing between an outright election denier. Vernon Jones. and 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.

As voters head to polls Tuesday, the results in Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma and Washington, D.C. will land as more than just partisan wins or losses. They will serve as a direct measure of whether Trump’s influence still behaves like a multiplier in the final stages of congressional and statewide nomination races—especially when candidates are forced to persuade skeptical primary voters rather than simply benefit from name recognition.

Trump endorsements Alabama primary Oklahoma primary Georgia primary Washington DC primary GOP kingmaker Burt Jones Rick Jackson Mike Collins Derek Dooley Barry Moore Jared Hudson Jon Ossoff Keisha Lance Bottoms