Katie Britt won the Republican nomination for Senate in Alabama on Tuesday, defeating six-term Rep. Mo Brooks in a primary runoff after former President Donald Trump took the unusual step of rescinding his endorsement of Brooks, the AP reports. The loss ends a turbulent campaign for Brooks, a conservative firebrand who fully embraced Trump’s election lies and had run under the banner “MAGA Mo." But it wasn’t enough for the former president, who initially backed Brooks in the race to replace Britt's former boss, retiring Sen. Richard Shelby, but then pulled his support as Brooks languished in the polls. Trump eventually endorsed Britt in the race’s final stretch after she emerged as the top vote-getter in the state’s May 24 primary. She will face Democrat Will Boyd in November in the overwhelmingly Republican state.
The race was among a handful of contests held Tuesday at the midpoint of a primary season that has been shaped by Trump’s effort to influence the GOP. While Britt was already considered the favorite by the time Trump got behind her, the result gives the former president a win at a time his influence over the GOP has come under scrutiny. Trump has had a mixed record of success in backing candidates this election season, helping lift Senate candidates in Pennsylvania and Ohio while floundering elsewhere, particularly in Georgia. Voters in the onetime Republican stronghold rejected his efforts to unseat the state’s GOP governor and secretary of state, both of whom rebuffed his extraordinary pressure to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. More from Tuesday:
- Trump's losing streak in Georgia, a crucial swing state this year and in the 2024 presidential campaign, deepened Tuesday as two of his endorsed congressional candidates faltered in their GOP run-off elections. In the 6th District in Atlanta’s northern suburbs, emergency room physician Rich McCormick beat Trump-backed lawyer Jake Evans. And in the 10th District east of Atlanta, trucking company owner Mike Collins bested Democrat-turned-Republican Vernon Jones.
- Also in Georgia, Democratic state Rep. Bee Nguyen defeated former state Rep. Dee Dawkins-Haigler in the secretary of state’s race. Nguyen will face Republican Raffensperger, who rebuffed Trump’s efforts to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win in the state’s 2020 presidential election and beat back a Trump-endorsed challenger in his May 24 primary.
- Virginia voters picked two women, a state senator and a Hispanic law enforcement official, on Tuesday as the Republican nominees for what could be two of the country’s most competitive US House races, the AP reports. Jen Kiggans defeated three challengers to win the nomination in Virginia’s coastal 2nd District and will take on US Rep. Elaine Luria. And Yesli Vega, an auxiliary deputy and county-level elected official, prevailed in a crowded field in the central Virginia 7th District. Vega will face Rep. Abigail Spanberger in the general election, where Republicans are bullish about their chances of flipping the seats currently held by the two centrist Democrats. Trump didn't endorse anyone in either contest.
- In Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser won the Democratic nomination to serve another term, fending off a pair of challengers amid concerns over rising crime and homelessness.
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