What Went Down In The June 21 Elections In Alabama, Virginia And Georgia

The Republican runoff for Senate in Alabama is one race to watch tonight because it knits together a number of themes we’ve been watching throughout the primary season: the power of Trump’s endorsements, the former president’s “revenge” tour and the Big Lie, or the false idea that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Originally, as Nathaniel said, Trump endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks, but about a year later, Trump rescinded that endorsement, saying that Brooks had “decided to go in another direction.” (If Trump was referring to Brooks’s slipping in the polls, then he may have been honest in his explanation for the rescindment.)

Brooks said he lost Trump’s endorsement because he refused to try to overturn the 2020 election. And earlier this month, Trump endorsed Brooks’s competitor, Katie Britt, saying Brooks had “backtracked and made a big mistake by going Woke,” citing a rally where Brooks said it was time for Trump supporters to put the 2020 election behind them. But the reality is that both Britt and Brooks have largely supported Trump’s voter-fraud claims — Brooks even voted not to certify some of the 2020 election results — so the endorsement-unendorsement fiasco likely has less to do with the Big Lie than all parties are claiming.

Elsewhere in Alabama, there are more Big Lie races to watch. In Alabama’s 5th District, both Republican candidates in the runoff — Dale Strong and Casey Wardynski — have endorsed the Big Lie. And in the race for Alabama secretary of state (which, as I’ve repeatedly stressed in our live blogs, is a crucial position because secretaries of state serve as the chief election officials in most states), both candidates have at least questioned the results. State Rep. Wes Allen has said the “election process did not work” outside of Alabama, and state Auditor Jim Zeigler has said he has concerns about election administration and dubbed himself a “watchdog” with “unusual training in preventing fraud.”

Outside of deep-red Alabama, I’m also keeping an eye on the runoff for Georgia’s 10th District, where both candidates, Vernon Jones and Mike Collins, have claimed Trump won in 2020. Jones earned Trump’s endorsement after agreeing to drop out of the race for governor (where Trump had already endorsed David Perdue), but Jones has not been as popular with Trump supporters online, who take umbrage with Jones’s past life as a Democrat and the rape allegation against him.

And regarding Virginia, I’ll be curious to see how the GOP primary in the state’s 2nd District shakes out. State Sen. Jen Kiggans is the favorite among national Republicans, but Jarome Bell could be a contender as well. While Kiggans has avoided stating outright whether she believes the 2020 election was legitimate, Bell hasn’t been shy about promoting the Big Lie. Last month, he posted on Facebook that Trump supporters can’t claim to be “Ultra MAGA” unless they “boo Mike Pence for caving to the Democrats on the Stolen 2020 election.” And he has even stated he believes that anyone convicted of election fraud should be executed — a jaw-dropping view he doubled-down on last month, saying, “I definitely still stand by the tweet; it is the rule of law.”

Here’s the full slate of election-denying and election-doubting candidates I’ll be keeping an eye on tonight: