Tuesday saw the advancement of former President Donald Trump and U.S. President Joe Biden toward party nominations, along with a number of other noteworthy preliminary elections.
Only a few weeks before their first of two scheduled debates, the Democratic incumbent and his Republican opponent decisively won their respective party elections in the northwest state of Oregon and the southeast state of Kentucky.
This is a rematch of the 2020 election between Biden and Trump, which Trump has falsely claimed was rigged to keep him from winning over Biden.
The Georgian and Californian elections eclipse the remaining US presidential races.
Republican state Assemblyman Vince Fong of California’s West won the special election to succeed outgoing House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who resigned from the position in December after 16 years in office.
After just nine months in office, McCarthy resigned as speaker in response to a vigorous campaign by extreme Republican conservatives. In the special election held on Tuesday, Fong—a former member of McCarthy’s staff—overcame local sheriff Mike Boudreaux to complete McCarthy’s term.
After finishing first and second in a special election held on March 19, the two men moved on to a second round of voting.
In the general election held in November, Fong and Boudreaux will square off once more for a full two-year term.
Fani Willis, the Democratic nominee for district attorney (top prosecutor) of Fulton County, which encompasses the state capital of Atlanta, won the Democratic primary election in the state of Georgia’s southeast.
Willis is bringing charges against Trump and eighteen other individuals for allegedly meddling in the 2020 election through the use of “fake electors” and Trump’s direct phone call to state election officials in January 2021 requesting that they “find” him 11,780 votes—one more than Biden’s margin of victory—so that he could declare victory in the state.
Earlier this year, Willis became involved in a minor controversy when it came to light that she was romantically involved with the special prosecutor she appointed.
In response to a group of defendants’ attempts to have Willis removed from the case, the judge decided to let her continue—but only on the condition that special prosecutor Nathan Wade step down.
However, Trump and a few of his co-defendants have agreed to have an appeal of the judge’s ruling reviewed by the state’s appeals court.
Attorney Courtney Kramer, who worked for Trump in the White House and on his 2020 reelection campaign, will be Willis’s Republican opponent.
With a strong Democratic majority in the county, Willis is favored to win reelection.
The judge presiding over the case of the former president, Scott McAfee, emerged victorious in the nonpartisan race to hold his position on the Fulton County Superior Court.