Key 2022 matchups in half the swing states have been decided

Incumbent Brad Raffensperger will win the Republican primary for his reelection bid in the Georgia secretary of state race, CNN projects, defeating Trump-backed Jody Hice.

Raffensperger became a national name when he refused former President Donald Trump’s demand to “find” votes to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. He was facing off against Hice, who has embraced the former President’s lies about the election results.

The 2020 election has been one of the biggest issues in the secretary of state campaign. At a May debate, Raffensperger said Hice has “been spreading misinformation” while Hice said Raffensperger opened “the door for election fraud in this state.” 

Rep. Mo Brooks will face Katie Britt in a runoff for the Republican Senate primary in Alabama, CNN projects.

The race will proceed to a runoff on June 21 because no candidate won more than 50% in the primary. They are running for the seat being vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Richard Shelby.

Though Brooks was once one of Trump’s strongest defenders and voted against certifying the 2020 election results, the former President pulled his endorsement in March because Brooks had urged voters to put the 2020 election behind them.

Katie Britt will advance to a runoff in the Alabama Republican primary for Senate, CNN projects, but who she’ll face isn’t yet known.

If no candidate in a race in the state gets 50%+1 vote, the top two finishers advance to a runoff on June 21.

More on the race: Sen. Richard Shelby announced in early 2021 he would retire at the end of the term, setting up a Republican primary that will likely determine who the next Alabama senator will be.

Shelby endorsed his former chief of staff, Britt, early in the race, at one point setting up a proxy battle with former President Donald Trump who had endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks.

However, Trump withdrew his support in March after Brooks struggled to take command of the race. The former President had yet to weigh in further on the race, but he met with both Britt and retired Army pilot Mike Durant before announcing he would take back his endorsement. Durant’s Army story of being taken hostage in 1993 was depicted in the book and movie “Black Hawk Down”. 

Incumbent Kay Ivey will win the Republican primary in the Alabama governor’s race, CNN projects.

Ivey was facing off against several primary challengers. One of the most well-known was Lindy Blanchard, the former US ambassador to Slovenia during the Trump administration.

A former top campaign aide to Donald Trump says the former President will need to recalculate his 2022 strategy after incumbent Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp soundly defeated his Trump-backed challenger David Perdue on Tuesday in Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial primary. 

Trump has “to look at races from a local and state level, not just 40,000 feet,” this person added. “Going after an incumbent in a southern state like Georgia is fraught with danger. Local politics matter and dominate.” 

The same former Trump aide said the former President may have miscalculated in thinking his influence over GOP voters in Georgia would be enough to propel insurgent candidates to victory over their popular incumbent opponents.

“Some states are so insular politically that voters take exception to anyone trying to come into their state and tell them what to do,” the aide said.

Meanwhile, the former head of Trump’s 2016 Georgia campaign operation had some choice words for MAGA candidates who centered their campaigns around the former President instead of local and statewide issues. 

“So come to find out, running an issueless campaign … isn’t a winning strategy,” tweeted Seth Weathers, a Georgia Republican strategist who oversaw Trump’s field effort in Georgia during his first presidential run. 

Weathers also criticized Rep. Jody Hice, who is running against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and closely aligned himself with Trump in the race. Raffensperger is currently leading his opponent in the vote count.

“He seemed to take the same bad strategy, just not as bad as Perdue,” Weathers said, adding that Raffensperger “also ran nonstop ads trashing [Hice] and I didn’t see him respond in kind.” 

Trump boasted about “record turnout” in Georgia earlier Tuesday on his Truth Social website, but has not yet commented on Perdue’s loss or the win by Herschel Walker, another candidate backed by the former President, in his Senate primary. 

Bee Nguyen is advancing to a runoff in Georgia’s Democratic Secretary of State race, CNN projects. The second candidate is too early to call.

If no candidate in a Georgia race gets 50%+1 vote, the top two finishers advance to a runoff on June 21.

Nguyen has helped lead the fight against Republican efforts to restrict voting in this presidential battleground.

More on this race: The battle to become Georgia’s next secretary of state and preside over the 2024 presidential election here has emerged as one of the most hotly contested fights for election chiefs this year.

The job has taken on new weight after repeated attempts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 loss in the state. In the aftermath of that election, the Republican-controlled legislature passed sweeping changes to voting rules — actions that critics say are aimed at dampening the record turnout from 2020 that helped President Joe Biden become the first Democratic presidential contender in nearly 30 years to win the Peach State.

Republicans are facing a contentious primary of their own on Tuesday, with the incumbent, Brad Raffensperger, who famously rebuffed Trump’s request to “find” votes, facing several challengers including Rep. Jody Hice. Hice, one of the 147 House Republicans who voted against certifying Biden’s win on January 6, 2021, won Trump’s backing in the race as the former President seeks to exact revenge on Raffensperger and other Republicans he views as disloyal.

CNN’s Fredreka Schouten contributed reporting to this post.

Gov. Brian Kemp may have had plenty of reasons to gloat tonight as he scored a resounding triumph in his Republican primary for a second term, but he made no mention of former President Donald Trump and looked ahead to his rematch with his Democratic rival, Stacey Abrams.

As he has done throughout his campaign, Kemp ignored Trump – making only a passing reference to the “noise” from the extraordinary GOP primary campaign that the former President orchestrated by recruiting former Sen. David Perdue into the race. Kemp struck a modest tone, considering his wide margin of victory.

In the speech to supporters at the College Football Hall of Fame in downtown Atlanta, Kemp thanked Perdue for a gracious concession call and his pledge to work together to keep the governor’s office in Republican hands.

Kemp devoted the majority of his victory speech to assailing Abrams.

It was a theme Kemp repeated again and again as he implored Georgia voters to stop Abrams’ political rise. He also sought to tie her to the political challenges facing President Biden and other Democrats.

“She has embraced the disastrous Biden agenda,” Kemp said, adding that her “far-left campaign for governor is only a warm-up for her presidential run in 2024.”

Former Sen. Saxby Chambliss told CNN at Kemp’s party in Atlanta that he’s “not surprised at all” by Kemp’s victory over David Perdue in the primary.

Chambliss, a Republican, said the results of the primary show that GOP voters appreciate Kemp’s accomplishments in his first term. He also said the results demonstrate the limits of Trump’s ability to influence GOP voters as he backed Perdue in the race.

“Georgia Republicans have spoken about how they feel about Trump,” said Chambliss, who served two terms in the Senate. Perdue was elected to succeed Chambliss in 2014 and served one term in the Senate before losing reelection in a 2021 runoff to Democrat Jon Ossoff.

Rep. Lucy McBath will win the Democratic primary for Georgia’s 7th Congressional District, CNN projects.

McBath became active in the gun control movement after her son was fatally shot in 2012 and since being elected, she’s become one of her caucus’ foremost voices on the issue.

Georgia hosted the first Democratic member vs. member primary with McBath and Carolyn Bourdeaux running in the new 7th Congressional District. Both Democrats flipped suburban districts in their respective first elections (McBath in 2018 and Bourdeaux in 2020). While most of the new congressional district includes residents Bourdeaux represented, McBath has been able to outraise and outspend the first-term member.

In his victory speech tonight, Georgia GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker, who was backed by former President Donald Trump, criticized Sen. Raphael Warnock’s voting record in the Senate, calling him a “rubber stamp” for President Joe Biden’s policies.

CNN projects Walker will win Georgia’s Republican primary for Senate and face Warnock in November.

Walker noted that the country took a wrong turn when the “radical left” came up with “a bunch of lies to divide us.”

He pivoted, “Run with me, on a much better road, a road to the American dream. It’s a big, beautiful road that is open to anyone. It doesn’t matter where you came from or what color you are. It’s a road where everyone has the freedom to speak their mind, freedom to keep their hard earned money, freedom to practice their faith and make their own medical decisions, free to protect your family and yourself.”

Walker ended his speech by leading the crowd in a call and response chant: “No weapon formed against me shall prosper.”