A pair of Republicans endorsed by Donald Trump won their Senate primary runoffs Tuesday, but the president suffered a setback in a Republican gubernatorial contest for the second time this month.

In Georgia, Rep. Mike Collins claimed the GOP Senate nomination, two days after picking up Trump’s support, while the president’s pick in neighboring Alabama, Rep. Barry Moore, comfortably prevailed in his runoff in the deep-red state. 

But Trump’s choice in Georgia’s open governor’s race, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, lost to wealthy health care executive Rick Jackson, who poured millions of his own money into the race to succeed retiring Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Jackson will face Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms in November. 

Jones’ defeat follows GOP Rep. Randy Feenstra’s gubernatorial primary loss in Iowa earlier this month just days after securing Trump’s support. 

Collins was leading former football coach and first-time candidate Derek Dooley 56 percent to 44 percent just after 8:30 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday when The Associated Press called the race. He will next take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in a high-stakes November contest that could determine which party controls the Senate. 

Collins and Dooley both aligned themselves with Trump, but their styles were a study in contrasts. Collins, the founder of a trucking company and the son of a former congressman, has staked out a hard-line stance on immigration. He’s also a prolific social media user who’s drawn criticism for incendiary posts and faces a House Ethics investigation over allegations of improper hiring and the misuse of congressional resources.

Dooley pitched himself as a political outsider, a profile he said would have made him more electable in a purple state against a well-funded Democratic incumbent. Dooley had the backing of the state’s popular Gov. Brian Kemp, a longtime friend who recruited him to run  and campaigned extensively with him in recent months. 

Republicans haven’t won a Senate race in Georgia since 2016, and Ossoff has the benefit of incumbency, a unified Democratic Party and  a massive war chest. On the campaign trail, he has largely ignored both Collins and Dooley and focused on Trump, a strategy that has sparked talk of a potential 2028 presidential run.

But South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who leads the campaign arm of Senate Republicans, predicted Ossoff’s political ambitions “will come to a screeching halt this November.” 

“Georgia is now uniting behind Mike Collins, because he fights for the future of the Peach State and knows how to win,’’ Scott said in a statement. Trump won Georgia by 2 points in 2024. 

Ossoff, meanwhile, dismissed Collins in a statement as “a notorious bigot [and] antisemite … who is only a congressman because his daddy was a congressman.”

In Alabama, Moore was leading former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson 59 percent to 41 percent at 10:17 p.m. Eastern time when the AP called the Republican primary runoff for the seat of Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who opted to run for governor this year.

Moore, a member of the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus, will be the heavy favorite in the general election in a state Trump won by 30 points in 2024. He secured the president’s backing earlier this year and leaned heavily on that endorsement throughout the primary campaign.

“Barry has been a powerhouse in Congress, and Alabamians made it clear that they are ready for his voice in the U.S. Senate,” Scott said in a statement Tuesday. 

The Republican primary for Senate in deep-red Oklahoma will not be heading to a runoff after Rep. Kevin Hern easily vanquished four largely unknown opponents Tuesday, according to the AP. Hern enters the general election as the front-runner for the seat previously held by Republican Markwayne Mullin, now Trump’s Homeland Security secretary. 

Also in Oklahoma, the GOP primary in the state’s open governor’s race is moving to moving to an Aug. 25 runoff after no one took more than 50 percent of the vote. Attorney General Gentner Drummond and former state Sen. Mike Mazzei, who has Trump’s backing, will face off for the Republican nomination, the AP projected. The winner will take on Oklahoma House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson, who easily won the Democratic primary Tuesday. 

House contests

Hern’s Senate run opened up his 1st District seat, which is anchored by Tulsa in the state’s northeast. State Rep. Mark Tedford and Trump-endorsed pastor Jackson Lahmeyer were leading a crowded Republican field with 32 percent and 26 percent, respectively, when the AP projected the race would move to an Aug. 25 runoff. 

Lahmeyer, who launched Pastors for Trump before the 2024 presidential race, said this week that he “crossed a boundary” by sending text messages to a former Miss Oklahoma USA, who had worked as a fundraiser for his campaign. After the allegations were reported by The Daily Mail on Sunday, Trump reaffirmed his support for Lahmeyer, who unsuccessfully challenged GOP Sen. James Lankford in 2022. 

In Georgia’s open 11th District, neurosurgeon John Cowan defeated former congressional aide Rob Adkerson, the AP reported, in the GOP runoff for the seat of retiring Rep. Barry Loudermilk. With 91 percent of the vote in, Cowan had 65 percent of the vote to 35 percent for Adkerson, who was Loudermilk’s chief of staff. Cowan, who is heavily favored to prevail in November, lost a primary for a neighboring House district in 2020 to Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Other races taking place Tuesday included a special election in California’s 14th District for the seat Democrat Eric Swalwell vacated in the face of sexual assault allegations. With 80 percent of votes in Tuesday night, Democratic state Sen. Aisha Wahab was leading a crowded all-party primary field with 43 percent, according to the AP. The race will be decided by an Aug. 18 face-off between the top two finishers if no one takes a majority of the vote. 

And Democrats in the nation’s capital were also picking their nominee in the race for the District of Columbia’s nonvoting House seat, which Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is vacating after 18 terms. D.C. Councilmember Robert White was leading the Democratic field with 63 percent, with nearly two-thirds of the vote in just after 11:30 p.m. Eastern time, according to the AP.