Alabama is one of several Southern states that will be holding elections on Tuesday. Virginia primaries and Georgia runoffs will determine the general election matchups for a handful of the nation’s most competitive congressional elections in November’s midterm elections. And Democrats in Washington, DC, will decide whether to nominate the city’s mayor for a third term.
Britt, a former Shelby chief of staff who later ran the Business Council of Alabama, and Brooks, a six-year congressman and member of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, finished in the top two of the state’s May primary, advancing to the runoff, with Britt 45% to Brooks received 29%. Trump had originally endorsed Brooks in the Senate race, but rescinded that endorsement in March, citing the congressman’s comments at a rally with Trump in August 2021 that Republicans needed to get past the 2020 election – an implicit break with Trump’s lies about widespread voter fraud. Less than two weeks before the runoff, Trump endorsed Britt, saying in a statement Brooks had “foolishly started listening to the wrong advisors and not the people.” However, the decision disappointed many of the former president’s key supporters.
Brooks has argued that he has long supported Trump’s policies, and Tuesday’s runoff will show whether that will be enough to insulate him against the former president’s criticism.
Republicans will also choose a candidate for the seat of Brooks’ house in North Alabama on Tuesday — Madison County Commissioner Dale Strong and Army veteran Casey Wardynski face each other in the 5th District runoff.
Republicans choose candidates for major congressional elections in Virginia
Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Virginia governor’s race last year provided an early glimpse of just how much the political tide had turned against the Democrats heading into the midterm elections. This year, the GOP is looking to build on its wins in three races for the Democratic House seats: Representative Elaine Luria’s 2nd district in Virginia Beach, as well as Representative Abigail Spanberger’s 7th district and Representative Jennifer Wexton’s 10th district , both in Northern Virginia.
The state GOP allows Republican officials in each congressional district to choose how they select their candidates. The 2nd and 7th districts will hold primary elections on Tuesday, while the 10th district GOP selected retired Navy Captain Hung Cao as its nominee in a ranking fire department primary in May.
In the 2nd District, Navy veteran and Senator Jen Kiggans has founding support from the Congressional Leadership Fund, which aligns with House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanik’s leadership PAC of New York Rep. Elise Stefanik and the New York campaign arm is the National Rifle Association. Navy veteran Jarome Bell has been backed by far-right figures and groups, including former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, and Turning Point Action, the group linked to activist Charlie Kirk. In a tweet last year, Bell called for the execution of those involved in the 2020 election fraud, although there is no evidence of widespread fraud. Air Force veteran Tommy Altman is joined by North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a member of the House Freedom Caucus who lost his primary earlier this year. Bryce Reeves and Yesli Vega, a Prince William County supervisor and deputy sheriff’s deputy, who is being assisted by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of US Judge Clarence Thomas.
Trump is trying again in the Georgia runoff
Trump’s biggest failure yet in a Republican primary came in Georgia, where candidates he backed failed to oust Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump had targeted for more than a year.
He’ll get another chance to gauge his impact on the Georgia race in Tuesday’s runoff for two House seats.
In the 6th Circuit in the greater Atlanta area, Jake Evans, the Trump-backed former chairman of the state ethics committee, meets Marine veteran and paramedic Rich McCormick, who is running for a second time in Congress. In the 10th District, stretching east from Atlanta to the South Carolina border, Trump’s choice, former Democratic Rep. Vernon Jones, is up against businessman Mike Collins, son of the late US Rep. Mac, in the GOP runoff Collins is and recently received Kemp’s endorsement. Jones originally ran for governor before switching to the house race with Trump’s encouragement.
Will Stacey Abrams’ list win in Georgia Democratic runoff?
A Stacey Abrams endorsement is one of the most coveted in Democratic politics across the country and particularly in Georgia, where she will face Kemp for a second time in November.
Abrams agreed to run for statewide office in three Democratic primaries Tuesday as she seeks to help shape the party’s ticket this fall.
State Assemblyman Bee Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, is Abrams’ choice as secretary of state over former State Assemblyman Dee Dawkins-Haigler, who is black and said she believes support for Nguyen is the result of party leaders’ efforts to diversify the Democratic ticket and appeal to more white voters in November. Dawkins-Haigler has the support of the three candidates who did not make the runoff. The winner will face off against incumbent Republican Brad Raffensperger and Libertarian Ted Metz, a former gubernatorial candidate, in November. In the race for lieutenant governor, Abrams is supporting attorney Charlie Bailey. He is up against Kwanza Hall, who briefly served as a US Congressman after winning a special election to replace the late Rep. John Lewis in 2020. The candidate faces Republican Senator Burt Jones, who was endorsed by Trump.
Abrams has also backed state assemblyman William Boddie for the Democratic nomination for commissioner of labor over businesswoman Nicole Horn. Republican Senator Bruce Thompson expects the winner in the fall.
A black Republican is trying to turn around the Democrat-held District of Georgia
National Republicans have rallied around Jeremy Hunt, a 28-year-old graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point and a black candidate in Georgia’s Black Rural 2nd District, to take on longtime Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop.
Hunt, who took first place in the May primary with 37% of the vote, meets Chris West, a 38-year-old attorney and former Georgia Air National Guard officer who is white. West is supported by some of the Republicans they faced in the primary. He’s cast Hunt, a Fox commentator who recently relocated to Columbus while taking online classes at Yale Law School, as an underdog for the district.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley campaigned with Hunt, and the National Republican Congressional Committee listed him as an “On the Radar” candidate in its promising recruit program. He is among a slew of black Republican candidates — which also include Wesley Hunt in Texas, John James in Michigan and Jennifer-Ruth Green in Indiana — seeking to win seats and diversify the party’s membership in Congress this year.
Bishop has represented Southwest Georgia County since 1993. Its large black population and Bishop’s status as a more conservative “blue dog” Democrat have made it one of the few seats in the rural South that the party still holds. Bishop has not faced a truly competitive general election since 2010.
But Georgia’s redistribution process has made the seat a little more competitive, and Republicans are hoping that, with economic and historical factors behind them, they would win a wave election in the district where former Democratic President Jimmy Carter resides.
Bowser is seeking a third term as DC mayor
Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser faces three opponents in Tuesday’s Democratic primary: DC Councilmen Robert White and Trayon White, and 2018 mayoral candidate James Butler.
Bowser and Robert White are widely regarded as the top contenders in the race. White has pledged to expand the district’s government and guarantee jobs to anyone who wants one. But with little public polling, it’s not clear that DC residents are eager to turn down Bowser’s bid to become the first mayor to win three consecutive terms since Marion Barry in 1986. (Barry served a total of four non-consecutive terms.)
