Who Has the Power
President Donald Trump’s endorsement is being tested in Tuesday’s primaries in Alabama, California, the District of Columbia, Georgia and Oklahoma, with the central question whether it can outweigh heavy spending and local dynamics. In Georgia, healthcare tycoon Rick Jackson has provided most of the $100 million-plus that his campaign has spent to persuade Republican primary voters to overlook Trump’s advice. Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones more than a year ago and reiterated his support last week, praising Jones’ “Courage and Wisdom” in a social media post.
Jackson faces Jones in a runoff for governor after Jones finished first with 38% and Jackson second with 33% in the May 19 primary. The runoff will be decided by voters who did not back either candidate, a reminder that the final say is still being filtered through a system built for elite competition, not ordinary control.
What People Are Up Against
In Oklahoma, Trump weighed in late and threw his support two weeks ago to former state Sen. Mike Mazzei in a crowded Republican primary for governor without a clear front-runner. The race will go to a runoff if no candidate gets a majority. Trump’s choice for governor of Iowa, U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, lost to Zach Lahn in the state’s primary earlier this month.
In Alabama, Trump is backing U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, a three-term congressman who has promised to be “a warrior for President Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda” if elected. Moore faces former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson, who is presenting himself as a Washington outsider and trying to harness the anti-establishment fervor that propelled Trump to power. Alabama is a Republican stronghold, so whoever wins the primary will be heavily favored to prevail in November over either candidate in Tuesday’s Democratic runoff, business owner Dakarai Larriett and lawyer Everett Wess. The seat is being vacated by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Republican nominee in the race for Alabama governor.
The City Under Pressure
In the District of Columbia mayor’s race, one of the leading Democratic contenders, Janeese Lewis George, describes herself as a democratic socialist. Trump indicated days before the mayoral primary election that he might take over the city if George wins, saying “we won’t put up with it.” George called Trump’s threat “an attack on democracy itself.”
The overwhelmingly Democratic city’s relationship to the president is a focal point of the campaigns as Trump has exercised broad power over Washington, D.C., including an open-ended deployment of National Guard troops in the streets and his culling of the federal workforce, a chunk of the city’s jobs. Some residents were frustrated that the mayor, Muriel Bowser, did not push back enough on the administration. George’s platform on her website, which heavily focuses on affordability, is to “protect Home Rule” with “leaders that stand up and fight back, not shrink in the face of injustice.” George and another Democrat, Kenyan McDuffie, who is focused on public safety, are two of the seven candidates whose race will be the first decided with D.C.’s new ranked choice voting system. Like a handful of other places, D.C. voters will rank the candidates on a ballot, and if no one crosses 50% of the popular vote, then residents’ second choices come into play. Election officials have warned the new system could delay results by days.
Fraud Talk and the Machinery of Control
In Georgia’s race for secretary of state, six years ago Brad Raffensperger resisted Trump’s unfounded claims of election fraud and his request to “find 11,780 votes” to overtake Democrat Joe Biden. Now, in the first open election for the seat since Raffensperger’s defiance, the two Republicans in the runoff echo Trump’s falsehoods to varying degrees.
Vernon Jones, who was previously elected to the statehouse as a Democrat but switched parties and aligned himself with Trump, has said he believes there were “irregularities” and “violations” and he stands “with those who believe there was election fraud.” Of four key points on Jones’ campaign platform, three have to do with election management, including stronger voter identification rules and requiring voting in person with limited exceptions. Jones’ runoff opponent, state Rep. Tim Fleming, has tiptoed around the topic, saying there were “irregularities” in 2020 but adding he is “not running on conspiracy theories.” Still, of the seven platform points on his campaign website, four are focused on election management and one says the state should “make it impossible for the Left to cheat in our elections.”
Skepticism of elections flared up recently in California after Trump made a baseless claim that Democrats were cheating to defeat a Republican candidate for governor and another for Los Angeles mayor. Soon after, the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, led by Trump appointee Bill Essayli, said it was opening fraud investigations related to the elections.
Who Gets Decided, and How
In California, a special primary election Tuesday was prompted by Eric Swalwell’s resignation from the U.S. House in April after a woman alleged he had sexually assaulted her twice, saying she was too intoxicated to consent to sex in both cases. Swalwell denied the accusations, but he dropped out of the race for California governor and resigned from Congress. Both Republican and Democratic candidates are competing to serve out Swalwell’s term until January.
If a candidate gets more than 50% of the vote Tuesday, that candidate wins outright; otherwise the top two contenders will go to a runoff election Aug. 18. The Democratic candidates favored to win in the blue district covering several East Bay cities include Aisha Wahab, a state senator, and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director. Wahab takes aim at “corporate profiteering” and argues for an expansion to social safety nets. Hernandez focuses on local job growth and supporting small businesses. Both candidates also ran in the regular primary election for Swalwell’s seat and will face off in the general election in November. Whoever wins that race will take over next year.