Trump’s endorsement – Tuesday’s races showed two sharply different reactions to the president’s political gravity: Georgia Republicans moved past a Kemp-backed lane toward a Trump-favored outcome, while Oklahoma voters rejected a ballot-backed plan to raise the minimum wage to $15.
By the time election officials finished counting in the early hours of June 16. it was already clear Tuesday would not be a single-issue story about Donald Trump’s influence. In Georgia and Alabama, the president’s endorsements cut through crowded Republican lanes. In Washington, D.C., voters largely shrugged off Trump’s warning. And in Oklahoma, where a wage hike was at the center of the ballot question, the reaction was blunt: no.
Trump’s push to dominate Republican primaries met one of its first meaningful tests in a critical U.S. Senate race in Georgia, where the president went up against the sitting governor’s endorsement in the backdrop of major stakes for the 2026 midterms.
June 16 became a referendum on a familiar question for Republicans in the Peach State: who is best positioned to take down Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff next year—Trump’s preferred brand of candidate, or Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s pitch for a different fit.
Trump v. Kemp: who’s best to take down Ossoff?
The dispute wasn’t just personal politics. Part of Trump’s falling out with former Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene last year was rooted in the president’s desire to run a more viable Senate candidate in Georgia in 2026. Republicans, the thinking goes, would be better positioned to keep control of the U.S. Senate if they could flip Ossoff out of office.
Kemp backed Derek Dooley. a personal friend and former college football coach. framing him as an outsider for the general election. The president, though, made a last-minute move: Trump endorsed Rep. Mike Collins, explicitly pointing out that—like Kemp—Dooley affirmed that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. For candidates hoping to secure Trump approval, that was the line he would not cross.
Collins moved quickly after the polls closed, securing the nomination less than an hour later.
Collins brings a different kind of profile into the contest. He is an immigration hard-liner popular among conservatives for drafting the Laken Riley Act. which was the first bill Trump signed into law when he returned to office. But he also carries risk heading into a general election. In one widely described moment. Collins suggested Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington “should be added to the deportation list” after she urged Trump to show mercy toward immigrants in a January 2025 sermon.
The messaging battle between Trump and Kemp also showed up again when both attempted to align on who should succeed Kemp as governor.
Trump and Kemp agreed on a candidate—and still lost
When the GOP needed a nominee to challenge Democrat Keisha Bottoms, a former Atlanta mayor, Trump and Kemp briefly looked like allies. Both endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who joined Trump in trying to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.
But their combined strength wasn’t enough. Georgia GOP voters ultimately selected Rick Jackson, a wealthy healthcare CEO.
Jackson’s support came from major Republican political figures as well: Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida backed him in an expensive runoff.
After the election was called, Jackson told supporters on June 16, “Tonight, you made your voice loud and clear.”
The money behind Jackson’s run was striking even by modern campaign standards. He was self-funded, putting more than $100 million of his own money into the race and more than doubling Jones’ spending. Jackson also attacked the lieutenant governor’s background aggressively. arguing that Jones’ business experience made him uniquely qualified as an outsider to tackle Georgia’s problems in foster care and other areas.
The cost of getting attention wasn’t cheap. The two sides spent a total of about $162 million on primary ads, based on AdImpact, a marketing analytics company.
Voters ignore Trump’s warnings, elect a democratic socialist mayor in DC
While Georgia’s outcome turned on whether Trump’s endorsement could outmaneuver Kemp’s, Washington, D.C. offered a different test: whether voters would follow Trump’s tone at all.
Trump was asked if he would be OK with DC electing Janeese Lewis George. a self-described democratic socialist. as mayor on June 16. His answer was immediate and forceful. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office last week. Trump said. “I wouldn’t like it — and maybe we’ll take back Washington. run it on the federal basis. We won’t put up with it.”.
Despite that warning, voters appeared poised to put the 38-year-old city council member in charge of the nation’s capital.
Lewis George’s left-leaning agenda emphasizes universal childcare, social housing, and stronger labor unions. Her grassroots campaign has been compared—by both supporters and critics—to last year’s elections of other democratic socialists. including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson.
Trump’s outreach in DC appears to carry a specific lever: the 1973 Home Rule Act, which gives the federal government certain powers over DC governance.
Amy Vruno. executive director of DC Vote. a group focused exclusively on statehood for Washington. DC. said in response to Trump’s threat. “The threat that we heard Trump make. it’s not an idle one if he aligns with Congress to interfere more with how DC is governed because it’s not a state. DC residents should have the right to choose their own elected officials without intervention from a president or Congress.”.
The race itself featured two very different Democrats. Janeese Lewis George, a self-described democratic socialist on the City Council, faced Kenyan McDuffie, a more moderate former council member. The endorsement Trump offered against Lewis George did not appear to derail her—she was leading 53% to 37%. with 66% of results counted.
If Lewis George stays above 50% on the first round of vote counting, she wins. If not, the contest moves to an instant runoff, using voters’ lower-ranked preferences to redistribute votes from those who ranked a non-viable candidate first.
Oklahoma rejects raising the hourly wage to $15
If Georgia and Alabama reflected how much influence Trump can still exert in Republican primaries, Oklahoma reflected something else entirely: voters refused a policy tied to the cost of living.
The Oklahoma ballot had multiple statewide contests, but the wage question drew the attention of voters who came to the polls with a clear focus. Oklahoma voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have gradually increased the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2029.
The debate tapped into a wider national frustration. Congress hasn’t raised the national minimum wage. which remains $7.25 an hour. in almost two decades—despite broad support for the idea among Americans across partisan lines. A 2024 Data for Progress survey found 86% of likely voters, including 84% of Republicans, do not think $7.25 is enough to live off.
In Oklahoma, the rejection was still decisive. With more than 95% of the vote counted, 56% opposed the increase and 44% supported it.
Erik Acosta, an Oklahoma Democrat, put the math in blunt terms, saying, “I think that it’s kind of crazy that it is [$7.25].”
Oklahoma wasn’t an outlier in the broader movement to raise wages. At least 28 states and Washington, D.C. have raised the floor on what the lowest paid workers get through ballot initiatives since 2014, including conservative-leaning states such as Florida, Missouri, and Alaska.
But in this election, the electorate sent a different signal.
Moore overcomes Hudson in Alabama GOP runoff with Trump fuel
Alabama’s runoff added another chapter to the same theme: Trump’s presence in Republican primaries could still shift outcomes late in the process.
Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville is leaving Congress to run for governor, leaving Alabama voters to choose a successor. That meant a runoff between two contenders: Rep. Barry Moore and Jared Hudson, a former Navy SEAL.
Alabama’s electorate followed the president’s direction. Much like other GOP primaries nationwide, rank-and-file Republicans supported Moore over Hudson.
The turnaround was notable. Moore trailed by as much as 10 percentage points in some statewide polls, but he still won the runoff.
In Alabama’s deep-red context, that primary victory all but assures Moore will be the state’s next senator come the fall.
Moore’s win also underscored what Trump’s backing can do to momentum in a party that increasingly treats endorsements as a sorting mechanism.
The races across these states and the nation’s capital left voters doing two different things at once: rewarding Trump-aligned choices in political contests—while rejecting, in Oklahoma, a wage plan that would have tightened the gap between paychecks and living costs.
Trump Brian Kemp Jon Ossoff Mike Collins Derek Dooley Georgia Senate primary Washington DC mayor Janeese Lewis George minimum wage $15 Oklahoma Erik Acosta Alabama Senate runoff Barry Moore Jared Hudson