Trump’s picks challenge GOP rivals

The impact of Georgia’s primary elections on Tuesday will reverberate far beyond state lines, as key races up and down the ballot test former President Donald Trump’s political power and set the table for a showdown over which party controls Congress.

Trump has endorsed more than a dozen candidates in the Peach State primaries, some of whom are challenging incumbent Republicans who are up for reelection.

Those incumbents include Georgia’s Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, two Republicans who both resisted pressure from Trump to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win in the key swing state.

The Trump-backed challengers in both of those GOP primaries have echoed the former president’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election results were tainted by widespread fraud and misconduct.

Trump has also thrown his weight behind Herschel Walker, a former NFL running back who is expected to advance to the general election for Senate against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. The election of Warnock over Republican Kelly Loeffler in a pivotal 2021 runoff election helped Democrats seize a razor-thin majority in the Senate.

Also endorsed by Trump is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose extreme conspiracy theories before and during her time in Congress have made her a polarizing figure in politics and a villain among Democrats.

For some of today’s races, the key question may not be which candidate can receive more votes, but whether a candidate can avoid a runoff election by receiving more than 50% of the votes cast.

Georgia’s primaries arrive as Republicans hope to wrest control of the House and Senate from the Democrats in the fall. Democrats are fighting uphill: The president’s party tends to underperform in the midterm elections, and the lead-up to the primaries has been marked in part by high inflation and low approval ratings for Biden.

That dynamic holds true in the four other states — Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Minnesota — that are also holding elections Tuesday.

In Arkansas, Trump’s former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is also the daughter of ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee, is expected to win the GOP gubernatorial primary. Meanwhile in Alabama, GOP Rep. Mo Brooks is fighting in the primary for the state’s open Senate seat after Trump rescinded his endorsement.

Polls in Georgia’s primary elections are open Tuesday from 7 a.m. ET to 7 p.m. ET.

Here’s what to watch:

Former Sen. David Perdue is trying again in Georgia, this time competing for the governor’s office after losing in last year’s Senate runoff race to Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

But Perdue, who is endorsed by Trump and has campaigned in part on spreading the former president’s debunked falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election, appears to be falling badly…