Trump-backed hardliners win Georgia and Alabama primaries as Oklahoma blocks living wage
Donald Trump’s endorsements propelled far-right Republicans Mike Collins and Barry Moore to Senate nominations in Georgia and Alabama, reinforcing the party’s extremist shift. Meanwhile, Oklahoma voters, swayed by corporate interests, rejected a proposal to raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour, dealing a blow to working families.
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Mike Collins, known for his hard-line anti-immigrant stance, clinched the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat in Georgia after a last-minute endorsement from Donald Trump, defeating Governor Brian Kemp’s more moderate pick, Derek Dooley. Collins’s swift victory, declared less than an hour after polls closed, signals the GOP’s continued embrace of Trumpism and its exclusionary policies.
In the Georgia gubernatorial primary, both Trump and Kemp supported establishment figure Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, but voters instead chose Rick Jackson, a wealthy businessman who poured over $100 million of his own money into the race and was backed by right-wing Senators Ted Cruz and Rick Scott. This outcome highlights the outsized influence of money and conservative powerbrokers in American politics.
In Alabama, Rep. Barry Moore, another Trump loyalist, defeated former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson in the Republican Senate runoff. Moore’s victory, attributed to Trump’s backing after Tommy Tuberville left the seat to run for governor, further cements the party’s shift toward reactionary politics.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., progressive voters continued to support Janeese Lewis George, a self-identified democratic socialist, who led the ranked-choice mayoral race with 53% of the vote counted. Despite Trump’s attacks on her left-leaning platform, George’s success demonstrates a growing appetite for transformative policies in the nation’s capital.
In a setback for workers, Oklahoma voters rejected a ballot initiative to raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2029, with about 56% voting against it. The defeat, despite widespread national support for higher wages, reflects the power of business interests and conservative misinformation campaigns to block progress for working people.
