Primary election updates: Brad Raffensperger wins primary as Trump's picks fall in Georgia

He defeats Trump-backed Rep. Jody Hice in the secretary of state race.

May ends with another round of notable primary elections on Tuesday, this time in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Texas.

The most-watched races will be in Georgia, with primaries for governor and the Senate.


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Raffensperger projected winner of GOP nomination for Georgia secretary of state

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger will win the Republican nomination, ABC News has projected.

Raffensperger has been running for reelection under the cloud of former President Donald Trump, who has spent much of the 2022 midterm election cycle advocating for the takedown of Georgia’s top officials after they rebuffed his requests to change the 2020 election results.

Trump endorsed Rep. Jody Hice in the secretary of state's race. The congressman has amplified Trump’s false claims about election fraud and irregularities -- a message that didn't appear to resonate with voters on Tuesday. ABC News has projected that Gov. Brian Kemp -- another target of the ex-president -- will win the Republican nomination over Trump-backed David Perdue.


ABC News projects Katie Britt, Mo Brooks will advance to runoff

In the Alabama Senate Republican primary, ABC News projects that Katie Britt and Rep. Mo Brooks will advance to a runoff.

They are competing to fill the seat left open by retiring Sen. Richard Shelby. The contest will take place on June 21.

Brooks flailed in the race after once securing the endorsement of former President Donald Trump. Trump rescinded his support earlier this year after Brooks, a champion of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, suggested it was time to move on from the presidential race. But Club for Growth, a popular conservative anti-tax group, is still backing him and has spent more than $4.4 million on his behalf.

Britt, a former Shelby aide, has secured the endorsement of the outgoing senator as well as Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.


McBath speaks about gun violence in victory speech: 'We are exhausted'

Addressing supporters at an election watch party on Tuesday night, Rep. Lucy McBath, the projected winner in Georgia's 7th Congressional District, used the moment to discuss gun violence after a mass shooting at an elementary school left at least 19 children and two adults dead in Uvalde, Texas.

"Tonight I came to give one speech but I am now forced to make another," McBath said after briefly thanking voters and volunteers, "because just hours ago, we paid for the weapons of war on our streets again with the blood of little children sitting in our schools."

McBath rose to national prominence in 2018, becoming a leading advocate for gun control after her son, Jordan, was shot and killed at a gas station in Florida. She described on Tuesday night the "all-consuming fear" that parents feel about their children’s safety.

"The violence that took my soon has been replayed with casual callousness and despicable frequency," McBath said, citing the recent shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, that left 10 people dead, as well as past tragedies in Newton, Connecticut, and Charleston, South Carolina.

"We cannot be the only nation where one party sits on their hands as children are forced to cover their faces in fear," McBath said. "We are exhausted, all of us, the American majority."


ABC News projects Lucy McBath will win Democratic primary in Georgia

Rep. Lucy McBath will win the Democratic nomination in Georgia’s 7th Congressional District, ABC News has projected, besting Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux after redistricting pitted the two incumbents against each other.

McBath flipped Georgia’s 6th Congressional District from red to blue in 2018. She is now the presumptive front-runner to win the November general election in the solidly Democratic district, which includes the Atlanta suburbs.

Her primary win comes on the same day as a mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas. McBath has been advocating for gun control following the death of her son, Jordan Davis, from gun violence back in 2012. He was shot and killed at a gas station in Florida by a man who complained that his and his friend's music was too loud.

In a statement, McBath said Tuesday that we as a country our better than this and that it is "imperative we act, and act now."