Attorney General Chris Carr and Insurance Commissioner John King - both opposed by Trump - were also successful in their primaries. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who defied Trump's call to “find” the votes to change the outcome two years ago - a call that is now under investigation - also won his party's nomination. The governor was among Trump's top targets after he refused to overturn the results of the 2020 White House election in his state. David Perdue, whom Trump had lobbied to run and helped clear the field for, lost to Kemp. And in Pennsylvania, a marquee Senate primary featuring Trump-endorsed celebrity heart surgeon Mehmet Oz remains too close to call.īut his biggest upset was in Georgia, a crucial swing state, where former Sen. In North Carolina, voters rebuffed Trump's plea to give a scandal-plagued congressman a second chance. In Idaho a week later, the governor beat a Trump-backed challenger. Trump's pick in Nebraska's primary for governor, Charles Herbster, lost his race after allegations surfaced that he had groped women. Still, the pattern of high-profile defeats is hard to ignore.Īfter JD Vance vaulted from third to first place following Trump's late-stage endorsement in the Ohio Senate primary, the dynamics took a turn.
Trump sought to play down the losses by his favored candidates, saying on his social media platform Wednesday that he had a "very big and successful evening of political Endorsements” and insisting some races “were not possible to win.” One thing Parbhoo liked about the current governor? “Kemp is focused on Georgia,” he said. With all the election stuff, I was like ‘Dude, move on.’” “I’m not really a Trumper,” he said after voting. It was the same for Will Parbhoo, a 22-year-old dental assistant who also voted for Kemp. Brian Kemp on Tuesday and said Trump’s endorsements had “no” impact “whatsoever” on his thinking. “I like Trump a lot, but Trump is in the past,” said David Butler of Woodstock, Georgia, who voted for Gov. But voters are increasingly vocal in saying that the party's future is about more than Trump. Nearly seven years after the onetime reality television star launched what seemed to be an improbable campaign for the White House, the “Make America Great Again” movement Trump helmed isn't going anywhere. But the magnitude of defeat in the governor's race - more than 50 percentage points - was especially stunning and raised questions about whether Republican voters are beginning to move on from Trump. Trump faced a series of setbacks in Tuesday's primary elections as voters rejected his efforts to unseat two top targets for retribution: Georgia's Republican governor and secretary of state, both of whom rebuffed Trump's extraordinary pressure to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. He's ending the month, however, stinging from a string of defeats that suggest a diminishing stature. (AP) - Donald Trump opened May by lifting a trailing Senate candidate in Ohio to the Republican nomination, seemingly cementing the former president's kingmaker status before another possible White House run.