State Rep. Bee Nguyen easily won the Democratic runoff for Secretary of State on Tuesday, defeating former State Rep. Dee Dawkins-Haigler, NBC News projects.
Nguyen, a Democrat from Atlanta, entered tonight’s primary with the support of gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, whose seat she currently holds in the Georgia House.
Nguyen’s victory sets her up for a showdown with Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger this November. Raffensperger beat back a fierce challenge from former President Donald Trump after he refused to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. He testified before the congressional committee investigating the January 6th Capitol attack on Tuesday afternoon.
The race will essentially determine who will oversee the vote count in Georgia ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Nguyen publicly feuded with the Trump campaign in the aftermath of the 2020 election. She is likely to hammer the Republican incumbent for supporting restrictive state election laws, such as S.B. 202 — a 2021 law that targeted absentee and drop-box voting. It also weakened the powers of the Secretary of State.
Raffensperger is going to run on securing Georgia’s elections. During the primary, he campaigned on keeping non-citizens off of the voter rolls. He also oversaw the implementation of new voting equipment and a new voter registration system.