Here's the latest
• All eyes on Georgia: Polls are closing in Georgia, where a pair of GOP runoffs will set up key contests in November. Rep. Mike Collins, endorsed by President Donald Trump, faces former football coach Derek Dooley, backed by Gov. Brian Kemp. The winner will challenge Sen. Jon Ossoff, a rising Democratic Party star. The GOP runoff for governor features Trump- and Kemp-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and billionaire businessman Rick Jackson. Track the results.
• Another test: The president’s sway will also be tested in Alabama as Trump-backed Rep. Barry Moore is locked in a Senate runoff against former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson.
• Decision time in the District: Voters in the nation’s capital are set to decide who will be the next mayor in a race shaped by what kind of leader and approach Democrats want when it comes to standing up to the Trump administration.
Can Rick Jackson expand his support in the Georgia suburbs?
A big question for Rick Jackson in the Republican primary runoff for Georgia governor is whether he can build on his suburban advantage from the primary.
The billionaire carried counties around the state’s three most populous cities: Atlanta, Columbus and Augusta. His opponent, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, dominated in rural Georgia, powered by an endorsement from President Donald Trump.
In one sign of his strategy, Jackson held one of his last campaign events — a rally with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — on Monday in Alpharetta. It’s an Atlanta suburb in vote-rich Fulton County, where Jackson beat Jones by 3 percentage points in the primary.
It’s 7 p.m. and polls in Georgia are closing
It’s 7 p.m. ET and polls in Georgia are closing.
Rep. Mike Collins, endorsed by President Donald Trump, faces former football coach Derek Dooley, backed by Gov. Brian Kemp in the Peach State.
The winner will challenge Sen. Jon Ossoff, a rising Democratic Party star.
The GOP runoff for governor features Trump- and Kemp-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and billionaire businessman Rick Jackson.
Here’s when polls close tonight and when to expect results
The night begins in Georgia, where polls in several state-wide runoff races close at 7 p.m. ET.
At 8 p.m. ET, polls close in Alabama, Washington, DC, and Oklahoma.
The Alabama Republican Senate runoff will test the power of President Donald Trump’s endorsement, as he’s backed Rep. Barry Moore against former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson.
In DC, voters head to the polls for primaries for mayor, attorney general and the district’s nonvoting delegate in the US House of Representatives. In November 2024, the first votes weren’t reported until around 10:20 p.m. 82% of the vote was in by 11 p.m., and 13% remained uncounted after noon on the Wednesday following Election Day.
Polls also close in Oklahoma at 8 p.m., and votes should come in quickly. In 2024, nearly half the vote was reported in the first hour and the state was all but wrapped up by midnight. However, primary races might not be resolved in Oklahoma Tuesday night, as candidates need to win a majority of the vote to avoid a runoff on August 25.
In the regular primary for a full term earlier this month, nearly 40% of the votes were reported in the first drop at around 11:25 p.m. ET. Alameda County, where the district is located, reported three more times on election night, finishing at around 2:30 a.m. with about 44% of the vote in.
The county reported again on Friday, Monday and the next Friday.
If no candidate in the all-party special election wins a majority, the top two will face off again on August 18.
Trump's clout also on the line in Oklahoma
In a lesser-noticed test of President Donald Trump’s influence tonight, he is backing former state Oklahoma state Sen. Mike Mazzei in the Republican primary to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Trump surprised some Oklahoma Republicans when he endorsed Mazzei in late May, if only because the primary features a number of other prominent state Republicans who’ve embraced the president. The field also includes Gentner Drummond, the state’s attorney general; Chip Keating, the former state secretary of public safety; and Charles McCall, the former speaker of the state House.
The primary goes to a runoff if no candidate receives a majority of the vote.
Oklahoma has overwhelmingly backed Trump through his three presidential campaigns. He received nearly two-thirds of the vote there in 2024.
Ossoff has stockpiled significant cash while GOP primary dragged on
Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff has been among his party’s most prolific fundraisers this cycle, and it’s given him a big edge as he awaits his general election opponent.
Meanwhile, his potential GOP rivals have been forced to burn resources battling each other in a prolonged runoff, and both challengers, Rep. Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley, entered June with less than $2 million in cash on hand.
DC’s next mayor will have to navigate Trump. Here’s why that matters
Whoever wins tonight’s mayoral primary election in Washington, DC, will have to strike their own balance between working with and fighting against the Trump administration during President Donald Trump’s final two years in office — and there’s not yet a clear answer as to which candidate DC residents prefer.
The leading candidate for mayor and DC councilmember, Janeese Lewis George, as well as her main primary opponent, the more moderate former DC councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, have vowed to take on Trump, build bridges with members of Congress and fight to protect home rule.
McDuffie, who spent 13 years on the DC council before resigning earlier this year, has said he has the experience to “wage a smart fight” against the president. He argued that recent comments from Trump about Lewis George show that the president would use her as an effective foil if she’s elected.
Lewis George, meanwhile, has been more critical of outgoing Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser, the longtime incumbent who has sought to find a middle ground between working with the administration and asserting DC’s rights. Lewis George has pushed back on the suggestion that her election would give the president cover to interfere in the district’s affairs.
Burt Jones makes Rick Jackson’s big spending his closing argument in Georgia runoff
Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones criticized rival Rick Jackson’s campaign spending as the billionaire broke state records in the final stretch of a tight runoff for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
Jackson, a former healthcare executive, has leveraged his personal fortune to elbow into the race, dropping tens of millions of dollars on ads and mailers to place himself in front of voters. It was enough to garner him roughly a third of the vote in the primary in May, forcing today’s runoff with Jones to decide who will face Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democratic former mayor of Atlanta, in November.
But whether Jackson can convince Georgia’s Republican voters to back him against Jones, President Donald Trump’s chosen candidate in the race, remains unclear — with the election offering the latest test of whether multimillionaire and billionaire political outsiders can translate their business expertise into ballot box victories at a time when affordability is top of mind for many Americans.
Read more about the race for governor
DC voters choosing between 7 candidates in ranked-choice mayoral primary
After three terms as mayor of Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser is not seeking reelection — leaving the city’s overwhelmingly Democratic voters to choose between seven candidates in a ranked-choice primary to replace her.
The best-known contenders are Ward 4 Councilwoman Janeese Lewis George and former At-Large Councilman Kenyan McDuffie. The city will use ranked choice voting for the first time if no candidate tops 50%, potentially delaying the results by several days.
The race comes as DC grapples with the Trump administration’s threats to intervene more heavily in the district. Trump — with whom Bowser has sought to forge a cooperative relationship — said earlier this month that he “maybe would take back Washington, run it on the federal basis,” if Lewis George wins.
Whoever prevails is all but certain to win in November in a city where former Vice President Kamala Harris got more than 90% of the vote in the 2024 presidential election.
Washington voters will also select a nominee to succeed Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city’s longtime non-voting delegate in Congress. Five Democrats are running for that seat.
Nearly half of Americans don't consider themselves Democrats or Republicans, poll finds
Nearly half of Americans say they don’t consider themselves a part of either major political party, the highest level of partisan independence measured by CNN polling in more than a decade.
Independents have grown to 47% of the population, rising roughly 10 points since just after President Donald Trump’s first term as president, according to CNN polling. Over the last 20 years, CNN polling found independent identification peaked in 2015 at just a shade higher than it is today: 48% of Americans on average across all CNN polling that year were independents.
The poll suggests a shift away from Republicans since 2024 among registered voters, another ominous sign for the GOP ahead of the upcoming midterm elections as Trump’s approval ratings have sagged.
CNN's latest polling shows more Americans are identifying as independent voters, standing at 47% in this new CNN poll - the highest it has been in more than 10 years.
Read more about the latest CNN polling here.
Voters in 3 states and Washington, DC head to the polls today. Here's what to watch
Voters head to the polls today in primaries across Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma and Washington, DC.
Much of the attention is on Georgia, where Peach State voters are casting their ballots Tuesday in two key Republican primary runoffs: choosing who will face Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in what will be one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races in November, and picking a nominee in the governor’s race, where Trump and term-limited Kemp are aligned.
In Washington, DC, mayor Muriel Bowser is not seeking reelection — leaving the city’s overwhelmingly Democratic voters to choose today between seven candidates in a ranked-choice primary to replace her.
There’s also a new test for Trump in Alabama. The Republican primary runoff between Trump-endorsed Rep. Barry Moore and former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson in Alabama’s Senate race is another test of how willing voters in a deep-red state are to follow the president’s lead.
And in Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a conservative Republican who at times has criticized Trump, is term-limited, leading to a wide-open primary race to replace him.
Read more about what to watch for in today’s elections here.
