ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp celebrated an easy victory over Trump-backed GOP primary challenger David Perdue on Tuesday night at the College Football Hall of Fame, taking the stage as his focus turns to Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, who refused to concede defeat when the two matched up four years ago.

“Tonight, because of your support, Georgia Republicans went to the ballot box and overwhelmingly endorsed four more years of our vision for this great state,” Kemp said, prompting chants of “Four more years!” from a fired-up crowd of supporters. Playing to the venue, he later said it was time to go 2-0 against Abrams.

While former President Donald Trump endorsed Perdue, the former senator, nearly the entire Republican establishment turned out for Kemp. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie turned out for the embattled Peach State incumbent, as did former Vice President Mike Pence in a notable break from Trump. The Republican Governors Association backed Kemp too and issued a statement of support after the race was called.

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The GOP primary race for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District will head to a runoff after the top candidates failed to gain more than half of the overall vote needed to secure the nomination.

Republican candidates Jake Evans and Dr. Rich McCormick will go head to head in a primary runoff next month on June 21.

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Evans for the 6th District earlier this month, picking the former state Ethics Commission chairman over rivals including McCormick and former state Rep. Meagan Hanson.

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Georgia Republican congressional candidate Vernon Jones said he is confident that his America First platform will earn him victory.

Jones is currently in second place in his bid for the Republican nomination in Georgia’s 10th District, pulling 20% of the vote behind Mike Collins’s 25%. This race will head to a runoff if neither secures 50% of the vote.

“Throughout the past few months, our message of America First conservatism, economic freedom, and defending America’s founding values have connected with voters throughout the 10th Congressional District,” Jones told the Washington Examiner. “We are confident heading into tonight and look forward to what the night will hold.”

Rep. Lucy McBath won a member-versus-member Democratic primary in Georgia on Tuesday, a victory for the progressive faction of the party in a key swing state. McBath was projected to clear a “50% +1 vote” threshold to avoid a runoff election.

For McBath, who became a gun control activist after the death of her son, her signature issue was again in the national spotlight on the same day as her primary victory after a mass shooting at an Uvalde, Texas, elementary school that reportedly left at least 18 children and two adults dead, as well as the gunman.

After Georgia’s Republican-led redistricting process, McBath announced she would vacate her 6th District seat to run in the neighboring and newly drawn 7th District instead, which is a friendlier district for Democrats. Her fellow Democratic Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux, the district’s incumbent, also ran for reelection to the seat. Both congresswomen previously flipped their current seats in suburban Atlanta from Republican lawmakers.

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Texas state Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a first-term lawmaker, won the Democratic nomination for a Dallas-area House seat over political veteran Jane Hope Hamilton.

The victory all but guarantees Crockett’s rise to Congress, as the Democratic nominee typically wins the seat in Texas’s 30th District. The two had previously faced off during the state’s primary election on March 1, when Crockett barely missed the majority threshold needed to clinch the nomination. That set up a runoff showdown on Tuesday against Hamilton, who, in the initial round of voting, finished more than 30 percentage points below Crockett.

In the heavily Democratic Dallas-area 30th District, incumbent Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson’s retirement attracted a crowded primary with 15 candidates from both parties. Although Hamilton was initially considered an early front-runner, Johnson offered a major boost to her opponent by endorsing Crockett.

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Before Herschel Walker claimed victory, his best friend in the very crowded room of supporters said special guest former President Donald Trump was on the phone, the New York Times reported. When they patched Trump through, they got a busy signal. The event was then put on hold as they waited for Trump.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won his Republican primary runoff election against Land Commissioner George P. Bush, setting him up for a third term.

Paxton, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, only secured 42% of the vote during the March primary, short of the 50% needed to secure the nomination and forcing him into a runoff against Bush, the next highest vote-getter, with 22%, in March.

Paxton has been vocal and litigious in opposition to critical race theory, left-wing gender ideology in schools, and mask and vaccine mandates. He has filed and won dozens of lawsuits against the Biden administration’s policies.

“The Biden administration is so dramatically wrong,” Paxton told the Washington Examiner in late March. “That’s why the president is losing — he’s wrong on the law.”

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Former Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has won the Republican nomination for governor of Arkansas.

Sanders, whose father, Mike Huckabee, held the post from 1996 to 2007, was the front-runner since she announced her bid last year. The governorship, held by Republican Asa Hutchinson, is open due to term limits. With Arkansas now a deep-red state, Sanders is a strong favorite to win in November.

Former President Donald Trump endorsed his former spokeswoman the day she announced her bid for governor in January 2021.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Tuesday edged out five GOP challengers in a primary election that tested the Republican firebrand and former President Donald Trump’s influence in Georgia.

Greene beat out her closest challenger, Jennifer Strahan, in the crowded primary contest for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, several television networks projected.

The other Republicans in the race were Erin Cunningham, Charles Lutin, James Haygood, and Seth Synstelien.

Greene spent the weekend leading up to Tuesday’s primary slamming President Joe Biden. During a “Bikers for Trump” event for former Sen. David Perdue, Greene was brought onstage to chants of “Let’s go Brandon!” — a shorthand insult to the president.

She said she felt “great” about her chances Tuesday despite a growing anti-Greene sentiment in her district.

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The Republican Governors Association gave hearty congratulations to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for securing the Republican nomination for a second term.

“Tonight, voters proved that Governor Brian Kemp is a results-driven leader who has always put Georgia first,” RGA Co-Chairs Govs. Doug Ducey and Pete Ricketts said in a statement. “The contrast between Governor Kemp’s record of cutting taxes, empowering parents, supporting small businesses, and putting his faith in the people of Georgia stands in stark contrast with Stacey Abrams, who believes that only she knows what’s best.”

The statement concluded, “As we were in the primary, the RGA is all-in and we will be there to ensure Governor Kemp is re-elected this Fall.”

Kemp beat out former Sen. David Perdue, who had former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Tuesday defeated former Sen. David Perdue in the state’s Republican primary election for governor, handing former President Donald Trump his biggest electoral setback since his own defeat two years ago.

Trump had vowed revenge on Kemp, who refused to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 Georgia win, the first by a Democratic nominee since 1992.

Still smarting from the loss, Trump has done everything in his power to kick Kemp out of office. Not only did he recruit, promote, and clear the primary field for Perdue, but Trump also recorded television ads against Kemp and gave $2.6 million to groups helping Perdue — the most the former president has ever invested in another politician. Members of the “MAGA-verse” have also kept up their verbal attacks on Kemp, calling him unpatriotic and blaming him for everything from inflation to the war in Ukraine.

Early returns showed Kemp winning a healthy majority, and Perdue conceded about 90 minutes after polls closed at 7 p.m. EST.

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A House Democrat from Arizona blasted Sen. Ted Cruz with profanity-laced tweets after the Republican denounced calls from colleagues across the aisle to implement stricter gun control laws after a deadly elementary school mass shooting in Texas on Tuesday.

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), a potential challenger to centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, criticized Cruz as a hypocrite for identifying himself as an anti-abortion lawmaker and pushing for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortions nationwide, but not taking more steps to fight mass shootings.

“F*** you @tedcruz, you care about a fetus but you will let our children get slaughtered. Just get your a** to Cancun. You are useless,” Gallego said in a tweet, referring to the senator’s controversial family trip to the Mexican resort destination during a winter emergency in Texas last year.

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Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) has won the Democratic primary as he runs for his first full term in the Senate.

Warnock, who became a senator in a 2020 special election that headed to a runoff, easily won over his primary opponent. Fewer than 7% of the votes were counted when the Associated Press called the race. He will face Republican nominee Herschel Walker in November.

Former football star Herschel Walker won the Republican nomination for Senate in Georgia on Tuesday, setting him up to run against the state’s incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), who was elected in a special election runoff in January 2021.

Walker was backed by both former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in his campaign in a race that is a key part of Republicans’ efforts to win a Senate majority.

If Republicans can net a single Senate seat in November, they take back the majority. A win in Georgia would flip the chamber to their control. President Joe Biden won the state in 2020, making him the first Democratic nominee to do so since 1992. And two Republican senators subsequently lost a January runoff election after Trump made unfounded claims the election was stolen, signaling that the once-red bastion is becoming more of a swing state.

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Increased gun control as a means to protect law-abiding citizens makes “no sense” and should not be the focus of lawmakers right now, said Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX) after a deadly mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Paxton, who faces a runoff primary contest on Tuesday, argued such efforts would not reduce the number of gun deaths but instead would leave citizens powerless against threats.

“People that are shooting people, that are killing kids, they’re not following murder laws. They’re not going to follow gun laws,” Paxton told Newsmax. “This idea that somehow if you ban guns from law-abiding citizens, somehow these people that kill people are going to follow gun laws but won’t follow the murder laws is somewhat ridiculous.”

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Robert F. Bukaty/AP

Stacey Abrams will officially be on the ballot for Georgia’s gubernatorial race after running unopposed in the Democratic primary.

In 2018, Abrams maintained that she rightfully won her race against Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who tonight is facing a challenge from Trump-backed former Sen. David Perdue.

Georgia voters who cast ballots in the Democratic primary two years ago are crossing over tonight to vote against Trump-backed candidates, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

That could help hopefuls like Gov. Brian Kemp avoid a runoff against former Sen. David Perdue, who was hand-picked by former President Donald Trump to kick Kemp out of office for refusing to meddle with the 2020 presidential election results. It could also help Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who also bore the brunt of Trump’s anger.

In-person voting in Georgia started off with a few hiccups, even after early voting surged.

Polling places in five counties didn’t open up on time due to problems setting up voting equipment, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. The affected precincts included Fulton, Bibb, Chatham, Gilmer, and Gwinnett.

Some 875,000 ballots were cast in early voting, which ended Friday, a record number despite Democratic complaints that new “Jim Crow” voting laws would suppress the vote.

A mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 14 students and one teacher cast a pall over primary night.

Many of the candidates on the ballots turned their attention from the final hours of their primary races to issue messages of support for the victims and their families. The 18-year-old gunman was killed by law enforcement.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, facing a primary challenge from Trump-backed former Sen. David Perdue, said he and his family were “heartbroken” over the attack and “lifting […] the entire community in prayer.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), facing a crowded primary field, struck a similar note in saying that she was praying for everyone affected by the shooting. In another tweet, she blamed mental illness and faltering morals for the uptick in mass shootings.

“America is failing our youngest generations from decades of rejecting good moral values and teachings,” she said. “We don’t need more gun control. We need to return to God.”

Click here to read the Washington Examiner’s full coverage of the shooting.