McCormick, Collins trounce Trump-backed opponents in GOP congressional runoffs
Trump-endorsed candidates lose runoffs in landslides
Less than one month after watching several of his endorsed statewide candidates get swamped in the primary, former President Donald Trump was handed yet another pair of defeats in two North Georgia congressional runoffs on Tuesday.
In the suburban 6th district, emergency room physician Rich McCormick easily defeated former ethics commission chair Jake Evans. Evans, who was endorsed by the former President, is the son of a major Trump donor and had the support of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who held this seat for decades.
But Evans, who had never run for elected office before, struggled to compete with McCormick’s name recognition and financial resources. McCormick unsuccessfully ran for a neighboring district in 2020 and capitalized on his leftover name ID in the Atlanta media market.
Trucking company owner Mike Collins easily defeated former Democratic State Rep. Vernon Jones in the 10th district Republican runoff. Collins, whose father represented the district in the 1990s, lost a bid for this seat in 2014 and entered tonight’s runoff with the support of many state and local Republicans, including Gov. Brian Kemp.
Despite having Trump’s endorsement, Jones — who at times referred to himself as the “Black Donald Trump,” was unable to resonate with Republican voters in this rural, conservative district. Collins reminded voters of Jones’ liberal past at every opportunity. A DeKalb County native, Jones also had little to no ties to the district.
The conservative makeup of both the 6th and the 10th districts indicates that Collins and McCormick are the overwhelming favorites in the November general election.
But just because Trump’s endorsed candidates were defeated does not mean that Republican voters didn’t choose pro-Trump candidates. Quite the opposite, in fact. Collins has echoed Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. “If you count the legal votes that were cast in the state of Georgia, Donald Trump won this state,” Collins said in January.
And McCormick has aligned himself with the House Freedom Caucus, a faction of hard-right Republican members of Congress. He was also endorsed by President Trump in his 2020 bid for Congress.
Nevertheless, the results are viewed as another setback in the former President’s quest to reshape Republican politics in one of the country’s most important swing states.
VOTE blue💯