Trump-Backed Candidates Lose in Georgia Primary Elections

Jackson trucking company owner and lifelong 10th Congressional District resident Mike Collins (R) talks to a TV reporter after his GOP runoff victory on June 21, 2022, in Jackson, Georgia. (Jeff Louderback/Epoch Times)

Five of six Georgia Republican primary candidates endorsed by former President Donald Trump have lost election contests in 2022.

The latest Trump-supported Georgia candidates to fall in nomination battles are Vernon Jones in the 10th Congressional District (CD 10) and Jake Evans in the 6th District (CD 6).

Neither of their races was close; both were called not long after the polls closed.

The Trump-endorsed candidates were running in two of the four runoffs decided by Republicans on June 21.

In Virginia, voters selected a slate of challengers for incumbents in all of the state’s 11 congressional districts.

Jones, who calls himself “the black Donald Trump,” had been a lifelong Democrat and a former state representative who switched parties. He endorsed Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, and then resigned his state House seat to run for governor.

Then-Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones poses for a portrait at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta, on Oct. 25, 2020. (Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images)

At Trump’s urging, Jones left the GOP gubernatorial primary to allow former U.S. Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) to run against Gov. Brian Kemp and instead run for the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who was Trump’s choice to challenge Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in Georgia’s May 24 primary.

Trucking Company Owner

Kemp handily defeated Purdue in the GOP gubernatorial race, Raffensperger topped Hice, and trucking company owner Mike Collins defeated Jones by more than 20 percent of the vote in the CD 10 runoff.

Collins, who was endorsed by Kemp, is the son of the late former Rep. Mac Collins (R-Ga.). Even without Trump’s endorsement, he led in polling and fundraising and remained the favorite in the district.

Mike Collins, endorsed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, defeated Donald Trump-backed Vernon Jones in the 10th Congressional District runoff on June 21. (Courtesy of Collins for Congress).

Trump released a recorded message to CD 10 voters claiming Collins has flooded the airwaves with “unfair” and “vicious political ads that aren’t true.”

Trump said Jones has “proven time and time again he’s with the MAGA movement” and that “he’s the kind of guy that Georgia needs and Georgia, I think, will get.”

During the campaign, Collins called himself “unapologetically pro-Trump, an America First agenda candidate, conservative to the core.”

Evans Outpolled

In Georgia’s CD 6, U.S. Marine Corps veteran and emergency room physician Dr. Rich McCormick easily outpolled Trump-backed Evans, an attorney.

The Associated Press called that race before 8:30 p.m. local time, with McCormick mounting an insurmountable nearly 50 percent lead after only a third of the ballots had been counted.

Evans, the former head of the Georgia Ethics Commission, is the son of attorney Randy Evans, a prominent Trump donor who served as the U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg under Trump.

In his endorsement, Trump called Evans a “young man rapidly on the rise” and said his father is a “highly respected legal warrior.”

CD 6 was represented by U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), but post-2020 census redistricting moved her into the 7th District, where she defeated fellow incumbent U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Suwanee) in the district’s Democratic primary.

That makes CD 6 essentially a new and wide-open district that favors Republicans.

Trump Endorsements

Overall, Trump is 120–8 in endorsements in the 2022 Republican primaries, including 6–3 in governor’s races, 12–0 in U.S. Senate races, and 102-4 in congressional district races.

One of the former president’s candidates did win on June 21 in the Alabama U.S. Senate runoff, with his endorsed candidate Katie Britt defeating Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) for the Senate seat left vacant by six-term Sen. Richard Shelby’s retirement.

Trump had initially endorsed Brooks, who was among the speakers at the Jan. 6, 2021, rally at the U.S. Capitol and voted against certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory, but withdrew support for Brooks when the congressman said it was time to get over the election.

A supporter of Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) hammers a campaign sign into the ground outside a polling place at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Ala., on June 21, 2022. (Jackson Elliott/The Epoch Times)

Brooks claimed he was the standard-bearer of the Trump agenda, calling himself “MAGA Mo” and the America First patriot. Nevertheless, Trump never re-endorsed Brooks.

Britt’s victory in the runoff was lopsided. The Epoch Times called the race with less than 20 percent of total ballots cast counted, with Britt garnering more than 67 percent of the vote.

“We were told by pretty much everyone everywhere that this was an insurmountable task and do not take it on,” Britt told supporters in a victory speech in Montgomery on June 21. “God calls us to do hard things. Well, I’ll be honest with you, it still hasn’t sunk in, but we just did a really hard thing.”

With the June 21 primary and runoff elections over, 25 states will have conducted their preliminary races and set candidates for the November elections. Louisiana and Rhode Island don’t have primaries, so primaries in 23 states still await.

Trump still has at least 70 endorsements on the docket for GOP primaries, mainly in August—including eight for governor, seven for U.S. Senate, and about 55 U.S. House races.