The Latest: Primary elections in Alabama, Oklahoma and Georgia further test Trump’s influence

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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:

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’ hardline 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.

In 2020, a Georgia state senator named 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 has referenced Jones’ “loyalty” many times since, including when endorsing his bid for governor. Jones, now the lieutenant governor, faces billionaire businessman Rick Jackson in a Tuesday runoff for the Republican nomination.

“Burt was strongly committed to my Campaign in 2016, 2020, and 2024, and worked tirelessly to help us WIN,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on the eve of the runoff. “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. The president 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.

The president’s endorsed candidates have mostly done well so far in the midterm primaries. But the open U.S. Senate race in Alabama will be another test of his endorsement power.

U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, a three-term congressman, faces former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson in the GOP runoff. Trump endorsed Moore early in the campaign, but he's been forced into a heated race with Hudson, a political newcomer.

Hudson, borrowing a page from Trump’s original playbook, 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.

The candidates are seeking the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who's running for governor. The winner will face the Democratic nominee in November.

GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt is term-limited, and former U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin vacated his seat to replace Kristi Noem as Homeland Security secretary.

Republican Alan Armstrong, an energy executive, is filling the U.S. Senate seat for now, but state law prohibits him from seeking a full term as an interim appointee.

Rep. Kevin Hern, a four-term congressman endorsed by Trump, is running against four other candidates of lesser profile in the Republican Senate primary.

The GOP primary for governor is more crowded, with nine names on the ballot, including several prominent Republicans. That could lead to an Aug. 25 runoff if no candidate receives at least 50% of the vote to win outright.

The Democrat 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 was a leading candidate for California governor at the time and dropped out of the race the same month. He 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.

Tuesday’s elections are needed after no Republican won a majority to clinch the nominations in the May primary.

In the Senate race, Rep. Mike Collins, a second-term congressman who calls himself a “MAGA warrior,” and Derek Dooley, a first-time candidate and former football coach, are facing off. The winner will try to oust Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in a key November contest. Trump endorsed Collins on Sunday.

The primary for governor pits Lt. Gov. Burt Jones against billionaire Rick Jackson. Trump endorsed Jones last August. The winner will face Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, in November.

Voting is underway in one of the city’s most consequential primaries in a generation.

Democrats in the nation’s capital have not had a chance to vote for a new mayor and new delegate to Congress in the same election since 1990, when gas was cheaper than $1.35 a gallon and George H.W. Bush was president.