BRITT COMES OUT AHEAD IN ALABAMA
Trump first endorsed rival Brooks, then shifted allegiance
Katie Britt, a former chief of staff to retiring Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, won the Republican nomination to replace her onetime boss Tuesday, comfortably defeating a right-wing rival in a race that puts the 40-yearold on track to become the youngest woman in the U.S. Senate.
The Alabama Senate primary was the marquee contest Tuesday as a handful of states across the South held primaries or runoffs, and a House race in Texas last month that went to a recount gave a moderate Democratic incumbent a victory.
The Senate race in Alabama took a number of twisting turns involving former President Donald Trump, who has made the 2022 primary season into a rolling referendum on his inf luence. Trump has carefully guarded his record in picking Republican primary winners, and his shifting allegiances in Alabama were among the best examples of his obsession with scoring wins — and avoiding losses — before a 2024 presidential run that he continues to loudly tease.
But in Georgia, where Trump last month suffered his most serious political setbacks of 2022, the former president continued to rack up losses, as two congressional candidates he supported lost their runoffs Tuesday.
Yet even in races where Trump’s hand-picked candidates
have faltered this year, those who defeated them in primaries have rarely broken with the former president. Many have run as Trump allies even without his formal support.
In Alabama, Trump had initially offered his “complete and total endorsement” to Rep. Mo Brooks, a congressional ally who spearheaded efforts to overturn the 2020 election and who spoke at the Jan. 6, 2021, rally near the White House that preceded the riot at the
Capitol.
But when Brooks sank in the polls, Trump rescinded that endorsement leading up to the first round of voting in May. The former president claimed it was because Brooks had stopped fully embracing his falsehoods about the 2020 election. In the end, Trump backed Britt, who cuts a more traditional Republican profile as a former congressional staffer, lobbyist and past president of the Business Council of Alabama.
Britt, who lobbied privately for the endorsement, finished far ahead in the May primary, with almost 45 percent, nearly enough to avoid a runoff. She was a heavy front-runner in polls when Trump endorsed her earlier this month.
“Alabama has spoken,” Britt declared in a victory speech in Montgomery, Alabama, on Tuesday evening. “We want new blood.”
Britt added that she entered the race despite naysayers telling her: “You’re
too young. Wait your turn.”
In Georgia and Virginia, voters helped determine the Republican Party’s direction in a number of key congressional contests, setting up closely watched matchups for November. And in Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser defeated three primary opponents in her bid to become the first mayor in the nation’s capital since Marion Barry in the 1990s to win three consecutive terms.
In Texas, a fierce Democratic
clash in the border region of Laredo was called Tuesday nearly a month after the May 24 runoff, as Rep. Henry Cuellar, a moderate, survived a second consecutive primary challenge from Jessica Cisneros, a lawyer who was once his intern. A recount by the Texas Democratic Party found Cuellar won by 289 votes.
For Trump, Georgia has proved to be his most challenging state in 2022.
Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican whom Trump had made a top target for defeat because he certified the 2020 election, won renomination in a landslide last month, easily dispatching a Trumpbacked challenger. That same night, the former president saw his choices for secretary of state, insurance commissioner and attorney general in Georgia all defeated by Republican incumbents aligned with Kemp. Trump’s picks for lieutenant governor and U.S. Senate did win open races in May.
But on Tuesday, two of Trump’s picks for House races lost in Georgia.
In Georgia’s 10th District, Vernon Jones — a longtime Democrat who endorsed Trump in 2020, became a Republican and now calls himself a “Black Donald Trump” — lost to Mike Collins, the son of a former congressman.
In the redrawn 6th District, which is held by a Democrat but was redrawn into a Republican seat, Jake Evans, a lawyer, lost to Rich McCormick, a physician. Trump backed Evans, the son of a former ambassador appointed by Trump.