Trump Allies Come Closer to Controlling Georgia’s Elections

There will be a lot of talk today about last night’s victory by a Trump-backed automaton over Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the eccentric libertarian who was perhaps the last Republican in Congress to reliably choose his right-wing but distinct ideology over Trump’s demands whenever he felt the two diverged. But don’t discount Tuesday’s primaries for the positions that will run Georgia and oversee its elections. The state has, of course, been a hotbed of MAGA hijinx and efforts (again!) to overturn Trump’s defeat in 2020. Last night, Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state who resisted Trump’s demand to “find 11,780” votes, lost the GOP gubernatorial primary to two election deniers, one of whom served as a fake elector in Trump’s plan to 2020. The deeply Trumpy Vernon Jones, meanwhile, is one of two Republican candidates advancing in the race for secretary of state.

Georgia’s runoff will take place on June 16.