Washington — Polls have closed Tuesday in Georgia, which is holding a high-profile runoff race to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff and a GOP runoff in the contest for governor.
Georgia is one of four states and the District of Columbia where voters are casting their ballots. There is Republican runoff in Alabama, a primary in California aimed at filling former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s seat and primaries in Oklahoma for the Senate seat that was held by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
Here are the major races to watch on Tuesday:
Georgia runoff in GOP Senate primary
Two Republicans are facing off in Tuesday’s Senate runoff in Georgia as they vie for the chance to take on Ossoff in November.
After no candidate secured 50% of the vote in last month’s primary, voters are returning to the polls to decide whether Rep. Mike Collins or former college football coach Derek Dooley will be the Republican nominee for Senate.
Collins, a second-term congressman and the owner of a trucking business, finished first in the initial round of the primaries last month with almost 41% of the vote. Dooley, an attorney who coached football at the University of Tennessee and is the son of legendary University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley, won around 30% of the vote last month. And a third candidate, Rep. Buddy Carter, was eliminated from the race, coming in behind Collins and Dooley.
The two remaining candidates represent differing visions of the GOP — and what it will take to defeat Ossoff. While Dooley is backed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Collins secured President Trump’s endorsement over the weekend. Collins has positioned himself as a staunch ally of the president, while Dooley has kept more of a distance, billing himself as a political outsider though he’s pledged to work with Mr. Trump to deliver for Georgians.
The runoff sets up a key contest, as Republicans aim to flip the seat in their effort to maintain control of the Senate. Ossoff, who was elected to the Senate in 2021 by a 1.2-point margin, is the sole Democrat facing reelection in a state that Mr. Trump won in 2024. And while the dynamic has made him a top target of the GOP, the prolonged Republican primary process has been a boon for the Democrat, who’s amassed a significant warchest as he looks to combat the inevitable Republican attacks.
Georgia governor’s race GOP runoff
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and billionaire healthcare executive Rick Jackson are facing off in a Tuesday runoff after neither failed to secure 50% of the vote on May 19. Jones, who has Mr. Trump’s backing, received the most votes on primary day, coming out more than 50,000 votes ahead of Jackson.
But first-place finish doesn’t necessarily mean a win in the runoff — in 2018, Gov. Brian Kemp received 25% of the vote in the primary and 69% in the runoff. There had been several other Republicans on the primary ballot in May, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who received 15% of the vote, and state Attorney General Chris Carr, who received nearly 12%. Both their voters could be crucial to winning the runoff, and Jackson won Carr’s endorsement.
But neither candidate has made a play for Raffensperger, who is most well known for his public role opposing Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the election results in Georgia, or his voters, which could alienate Mr. Trump’s supporters. Jones was one of Mr. Trump’s alternate electors in 2020 and he has touted his endorsement from Mr. Trump, while Jackson has vowed to be “Trump’s favorite governor.”
The primary had already been expensive before the runoff, and the battle between Jones and Jackson has turned into a slugfest.
On Monday, the eve of the primary, Mr. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., posted on social media in support of Jackson, although he stopped short of an endorsement. “This has been a hard-fought race with a lot of mudslinging, but I know Rick Jackson to be a good man — and that counts for a lot,” Trump Jr. wrote.
The winner of Tuesday’s runoff will go on to face the Democratic nominee, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who secured the nomination outright in the primary.
Alabama runoff in GOP Senate primary
A pair of Republicans are vying for the GOP nomination in Tuesday’s runoff in Alabama as they look to replace Sen. Tommy Tuberville.
With Tuberville leaving the Senate to seek the governor’s mansion, Republicans have faced off for the nomination — which will put the winner on a glidepath to the Senate in the ruby red state that Mr. Trump won by 30 points in 2024.
The president has thrown his support behind Rep. Barry Moore, who’s represented Alabama in the House since 2021. Moore secured nearly 40% of the vote in the primary against U.S. Navy Seal Jared Hudson, who won almost 26%. Another candidate, state Attorney General Steve Marshall, was eliminated.
The race represents another test of the president’s continued influence over the party. While Moore has run as a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump, and touts being among the first to endorse the president in 2015, Hudson, a political newcomer, has positioned himself as an outsider and fighter, while also stressing his commitment to the president’s America First agenda.
Oklahoma Senate race
One of Oklahoma’s Senate seats is open after Mullin vacated it to become Homeland Security Secretary. Gov. Kevin Stitt tapped energy executive Alan Armstrong, who had never held elected office before, to temporarily replace Mullin, but Oklahoma law prevents Armstrong from running in November.
GOP Rep. Kevin Hern quickly secured Mr. Trump’s endorsement, and he faces four primary challengers on Tuesday. Hern has also gotten the backing of Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. Tim Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
There are five Democrats vying to be on the ballot in November: Jim Priest, N’Kyla Jasmine Thomas, Troy Green, Ervin Stone Yen and R.O. “Joe” Cassity Jr.
Oklahoma is a solidly Republican state, with Mr. Trump capturing 66% of the vote in 2024, so whoever wins the GOP Senate primary is favored to win in November.
California special election
A special election primary will be held Tuesday in Swalwell’s district to fill out the remainder of his term. Swalwell resigned in March amid allegations sexual assault and other misconduct accusations from several women.
Eleven candidates are vying to finish out Swalell’s term, and the top two finishers, regardless of party, in Tuesday’s primary will advance to a special election on Aug. 18.
Democrat Aisha Wahab has already advanced to the general election in November, while the second candidate to advance after the June 2 primary has yet to be determined. The district is rated by nonpartisan Sabato Crystal Ball at UVA’s Center for Politics as Safe Democratic.
D.C. delegate
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton has represented Washington, D.C., as the non-voting delegate since 1991, only the second person ever to hold the job. Now 89 years old, the onetime powerhouse had retreated from the public view as she had gotten older and faced questions about her fitness for office before she announced in January that this term would be her last.
There are five candidates running for the seat: Holmes’ former staffer Trent Holbrook, Councilmembers Brooke Pinto and Robert White, former Justice Department official Kinney Zalesne and Greg Jaczo, a a physicist and former chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Holmes Norton has not endorsed a successor.
Looming over both the race for delegate and the mayor’s race is Mr. Trump’s push for a federal takeover of Washington and the district’s push for statehood. Congress retains the authority to amend or block D.C. laws, and did so in 2023 when it nullified a crime bill that would have eliminated most mandatory minimum sentences. Mr. Trump also commands the D.C. National Guard — the only unit of all 54 states and territories which reports only to the president.
All of the candidates running are supporters of D.C. statehood, which passed the House six years ago but died in the Senate.
D.C. mayor
Washington, D.C., residents will be choosing their mayor using ranked choice for the first time after approving a ballot measure in 2024. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced last year that she would not be seeking a fourth term, and the winner of Tuesday’s primary is heavily favored to win in November given D.C.’s Democratic leaning.
There are two leading Democrats in the race: Councilmembers Kenyon McDuffie and Janeese Lewis George, the only member of the D.C. council who is also in the Democratic Socialists of America. Last week, Mr. Trump weighed in on the race, saying he “wouldn’t like it” if Lewis George won, since she is focusing on democratic socialist policies.
“And maybe we’d take back Washington and run it on the federal basis,” he added. “We won’t put up with it.”

A San Francisco lawmaker criticized Giants players for writing Bible verses on their cap during the organization’s Pride Night as MLB warned the team about the messages on Monday.
Matt Dorsey, a Democrat who represents District 6 and sits on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, wrote on social media the event was “disappointing in several respects.” He authored a lengthy thread on X about the ordeal.
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“First, as a sports fan, it struck me as problematically undisciplined,” he began. “When you’re a highly paid professional athlete, your uniform isn’t a canvas for individual self-expression — especially about politics — and it has been my observation over the years that championship-caliber teams never tolerate distractions like this.
“Second, as a person of faith, I’ll be the first to defend Bible verses and prayer as sources of inspiration and strength for many athletes — I have no problem with that. But I am bothered to see Biblical cherry-picking used to score political points, on a single occasion, and it’s hard to argue this was anything other than that.”
Dorsey added that, as a gay man, he was “disappointed” that a symbol of the LGBTQ+ community was still seen as “controversial.”
“Major cities with major-league sports teams are inherently diverse, and if you’re uncomfortable celebrating the wide array of heritage and pride nights for communities that make up the city on your uniform, maybe the major leagues aren’t for you.”
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Still, Dorsey didn’t think the players who wrote the Bible verses on their Pride Night cap were “bigoted.”
“All that being said, I refuse to call what these athletes did bigoted or hateful — and I would urge all those offended or hurt by this episode to show them grace. The LGBTQ+ equality movement succeeds when we commit to winning hearts and minds, rather than shaming them,” he added.
MLB warned Giants players about the Bible verses.
“The writing on the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations,” MLB’s chief communications officer Pat Courtney said in a statement, via The Athletic.
San Francisco pitcher Landen Roupp wrote “Gen 9:12-16” on his cap over the weekend and was asked about the decision.
“It’s just about God’s covenant and a promise that he makes to us that, you know, his faithfulness and his mercy,” Roupp said to reporters. “That’s just kind of something I believe in, and I stand firm in that, and I’m thankful we live in a country where, you know, we have the freedom to believe what we want … and express what we want.
“There’s no hate at all. It’s just what I stand for, and what I stand in. I believe in God.”
Giants manager Tony Vitello also seemed to brush off the issue.
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“Not really. I mean, just kind of a general knowledge of the individuals have the freedom to do what they think is best,” Vitello said. “But I do think it’s been apparent from day one, actually, even some of the exhibition games, it’s pretty impressive how the Giants, as an organization, try and embrace the entire community.”

LOS ANGELES — Fans snuck them into the stadium. Demonstrators waved them outside the security gates. And at watch parties around the city, they appeared whenever the “home” team scored.
The lion-and-sun flag, associated with Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was seemingly everywhere across “Tehrangeles” on Monday as Iran opened its World Cup campaign against New Zealand.
But its meaning varied depending on who carried it.
Some told NBC News the flag symbolized solidarity with the Iranian people, who many feel have been isolated by conflict and political turmoil. Others said it represented opposition to Team Melli, Iran’s national soccer team, which they view as an extension of the clerical regime governing the Islamic Republic.
The competing interpretations reflect a question that has long weighed on the Iranian diaspora: Can pride in their country coexist with opposition to its government?
“I think at the moment people are so confused, people are so angry … and they don’t know whether they support our team or not,” said Helen Kohandel, who draped one of the flags over her shoulders as she prepared to enter the stadium on Monday, defying a ban on the flag from FIFA.
“Because after all, we know that they need to be supported by the regime, otherwise they can’t play.”
The thrill of the World Cup for this soccer-mad country and its diaspora comes at a hugely fraught time for Iranians both inside and outside of the country.
Thousands were killed during a brutal government crackdown earlier this year on anti-government unrest that had been sparked in part by soaring inflation.
Then, in late February, the U.S. and Israel launched a war that consumed the Middle East and was felt from Tehran to ‘Tehrangeles’ and beyond. On Sunday, not long before Team Melli landed on U.S. soil, President Donald Trump announced the two sides had agreed a deal to end fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The news, however, came too late to benefit the team, which had already navigated several hurdles including visa issues and a last-minute move of its training camp from the U.S. to Tijuana, Mexico.
By gametime, Iran had been met with both jeers — as the national anthem played — and thunderous cheers — when Team Melli scored in the 2-2 tie.
“There were many Iranians here,” Coach Amir Ghalenoei told reporters after the match. “They believed in different political affiliations, different beliefs, but they all wholeheartedly encouraged us and I think that’s a victory for all of us.”
Some demonstrators said they wished Team Melli would do more to stand up against the regime, with several protesters outside the stadium calling on FIFA to expel the team entirely.
“All of us are here for a protest against Islamic Republic,” said Kourosh Salman, as a 15-foot lion-and-sun flag flew over his head. “Let us challenge them.”
But others said it’s unrealistic to expect political action from the players, as they are at risk of being punished if they defy the government.
“Separating politics from sports has gotten increasingly difficult because I think sports has gotten political, and politicians have come for sports,” actor and activist Nazanin Nour said in a phone interview ahead of the game.
In March, the Iranian women’s soccer team were branded “traitors” on state television after they didn’t sing the national anthem ahead of a match in Australia. The country granted six of the players humanitarian visas, but five quickly withdrew their claims for asylum and the women then sang the anthem at their following games.
Key striker Sardar Azmoun was omitted from the men’s World Cup roster after Iranian media reported ​that he had been expelled from the national team for what was described as an act of disloyalty to the government.
Ahead of the tournament, taking place across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, FIFA outlawed the lion-and-sun flag at matches, saying it violated the organization’s code of conduct prohibiting “banners, flags, fliers, apparel and other paraphernalia that are of a political, offensive and/or discriminatory nature.”
Many Iranians at the match, eager to express their views publicly, ignored the policy. Nour was among them, proudly posing with a lion-and-sun flag from the stands.
“The regime has taken away so much from Iranians,” Nour said. “But I don’t believe that me going to the game to show my pride in being Iranian means I support every player, or everything they stand for … Our love of being Iranian surpasses everything else.”
Nour said she understands why members of the diaspora struggle with whether to support Team Melli. “Everyone’s decisions are informed by their pain and trauma,” she said.
Ultimately, however, she decided the regime doesn’t “own our culture or our joy. We do.”
The roars each time Iran surged forward suggested she was far from alone. And across town, the mood was jubilant at Meymuni Cafe, where owner Shaheen Ferdowsi had organized a watch party centered around the community.
As patrons sipped on lavashak (traditional Persian fruit leather) smoothies and dug into Persian nachos, they erupted in applause and screams during Iran’s best moments of the game. For attendees, the focus was on soccer — and spending time with one another.
“I want to celebrate the people of Iran,” said Parvin, who requested that her last name be withheld due to concerns about potential political repercussions in her home country for speaking publicly on the issue. “The next generation, I just want them to be happy as they watch from home.”
Her sister, Parvaneh, who also requested her last name be withheld for the same reason, said she was watching the game out of “curiosity” — not excitement.
“I get chills seeing the flag,” she said, pointing to the official Islamic Republic of Iran flag on the TV screen as the game was kicking off.
“It’s not ours.”

In the same post, Trump wrote, “I don’t know Derek Dooley, and neither does anyone else,” before once again pushing the lie that his presidential campaign won the state in 2020. Despite sharing admiration for Trump, Dooley responded to the endorsement by countering on social media that “a vote for Mike Collins is a vote for Jon Ossoff.”
Even before Trump’s runoff endorsement, Collins appeared well positioned to make it to November despite an Office of Congressional Conduct probe into his office’s potential misuse of resources that the Republican has referred to as a “nothing burger.” His social media tone, which includes severely downplaying the U.S. Capitol attack where pro-Trump rioters injured law enforcement, gives credence to the president’s view of him as a “a true Friend, Fighter, and WARRIOR.” It also spotlights a few of the ample vulnerabilities for a statewide candidate coming from a reliably red congressional district.
The worries are compounded by the bigger picture: Democrats now have a plausible route to retake the Senate in November, even though they will need the races to go almost perfectly to reclaim the majority. That once seemed far-fetched, but a clearer path has emerged in recent months as competitive races have opened up across presidential battlegrounds and more right-leaning states scattered around the country. Holding Georgia would be practically essential to any such scenario — and Ossoff’s standing gives him a significant early advantage in making that case.
Ossoff’s own political rise has been unlikely. He lost a close 2017 special election for a House seat, then ran for Senate in 2020, trailing Republican incumbent David Perdue when the votes were counted in November. But because neither candidate crossed the majority threshold, the race went to a runoff — and Ossoff won.
American politics, especially in the Trump era, can change quickly, however, and there is still plenty of time for momentum to shift before November, especially in a place with vast national influence like Georgia.
This race, like so many others over the past decade, has many forces in the mix. But no matter who is on the ballot, it all ties back to the man in the White House. For the Republicans in Georgia, Trump is the presence they covet and concern themselves with. And for the Democrats, he is the throughline for what they see as ailing the nation.
That was true six years ago, and it remains true now. And it may be what matters again — more than anything else — come November.
“He’s a failed president and a national disgrace,” Ossoff said at a recent rally.
Nnamdi Egwuonwu contributed reporting to this article

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Gary Berntsen is convinced Venezuela stole the 2020 U.S. election.
That myth has been debunked numerous times, including as part of Fox News’ 2023 $787 million settlement with voting machine company Dominion, but Berntsen, a former CIA operative, has been pushing it for years.
“One of the things that we learned is there’s 14 different technical ways that you can steal an election,” Berntsen explained in an interview in the fall with conservative podcaster Lara Logan.
But ahead of the 2024 election, Berntsen says he couldn’t get anyone to listen to him. Not the FBI. Not the media.
Finally, he went to Congress, where he says he was similarly rebuffed by almost everyone, including Republicans. Except one.
“One politician in America was not afraid,” Berntsen told Logan. “It was Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.”
Allies of Berntsen say Mullin — then a U.S. senator, now the head of the Department of Homeland Security — brokered a meeting at Mar-a-Lago so Berntsen could brief President Trump’s team on conspiracy theories about Venezuelan interference in elections.
That is just one time of many that Mullin has gone to bat for election denial.
“[D]ue to all of the fraud and uncertainty surrounding the 2020 election there is no way I can vote to certify the Electoral College,” Mullin wrote online on Jan. 2, 2021. Four days later, after a mob overran the U.S. Capitol during the certification, Mullin was one of 147 congressional Republicans who still voted not to certify the results.
Mullin’s history of false election fraud claims has heightened concerns that voting officials have had for more than a year: that DHS will not be a partner helping to secure elections, but rather a threat seeking to undermine results that Trump dislikes.
Numerous local election officials, across the political spectrum, have told NPR they are avoiding sharing voter data or other security information with the federal government for fear that information could be used against them in some way.
“I’m actively discouraging it,” said Matt Crane, a former Republican county clerk who now runs the professional organization for local election officials in Colorado. “I don’t trust how the administration is using that data. I don’t trust that they’re going to keep it confidential. And so I can’t in good conscience advocate that any of my counties do any work with them right now.”
Trump has spoken about wanting to “take over” elections in America. And Crane noted that the current DHS point person for elections, Heather Honey, also has a long history of spreading election misinformation.
“All of this points to the fact that these are not trusted partners anymore,” Crane said. “They’ve brought the fox into the henhouse.”
From allies to adversaries
It’s hard to overstate how different the federal election security landscape looks heading into this year’s midterms, compared with two years ago prior to the last federal campaign.
The Trump administration has taken unprecedented steps to investigate local election administration, including taking states to court in an effort to get their private voter registration data and attempting (and in some cases succeeding) to access voting machines and ballots.
Administration officials, like White House border czar Tom Homan, and other Trump allies have seemed open to deploying immigration enforcement to voting locations this fall. That would be against federal law.
“They say illegal aliens don’t vote. But … part of DHS’ job is [to] secure elections, and I’m not going to say, you know, what our plan is going forward,” Homan said on The Charlie Kirk Show this spring. “But if only U.S. citizens can vote, I don’t see the issue.”
At his confirmation hearing in March, Mullin said DHS agents would only be present at polling places if there was a specific threat at those locations.
And in a statement to NPR about this story, DHS said Secretary Mullin is “committed to restoring integrity to our election systems and ensuring that American citizens, and only American citizens, are electing American leaders.”
But he now helms a department where most people working on election security issues, at least within its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), were pushed out or resigned last year. That agency — which Trump created in his first term — has also been without a Senate-confirmed leader for the entirety of Trump’s second term.
Paul Lux, a Republican election supervisor in Okaloosa County, Fla., says the federal government has told local officials it is still providing the same cybersecurity services as were offered under the Biden administration and during Trump’s first term, but he has not heard of any counties in Florida that have actually received services from the agency recently.
“You know, try calling somebody at CISA and see who answers the phone,” Lux said in an interview earlier this year. “Because at the end of the day, it’s been radio silence from CISA when we reach out about just about anything.”
In response to a request for comment from NPR, a CISA spokesperson said the agency provides “state and local election officials, upon request, no-cost voluntary services such as the sharing of threat information, technical expertise, vulnerability scanning, and resilience-building support.”
But the spokesperson did not detail how many election jurisdictions it has provided services for during Trump’s second term.
Until recently, Lux chaired a national cybersecurity partnership for local and state election officials called the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC). The organization spawned after Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election exposed how little threat information was being communicated across the nation’s thousands of election jurisdictions.
For its first seven years, the EI-ISAC — which provides numerous cybersecurity tools like endpoint protection and malicious domain blocking, in addition to issuing best practices to its members — was funded by the federal government. But in 2025, the Trump administration zeroed out the funding as part of its DOGE cuts.
Election officials are still baffled by how that move and other cuts at DHS square with Trump’s language on wanting to secure U.S. elections.
“The actions of defunding and dismantling those protections speak for themselves,” said Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state and a candidate for governor. “And it’s meant that we as states have had to rebuild networks to protect our respective states from foreign interference. That’s not easy. And we can never replicate what the federal government has built and had done.”
A fractured landscape
The EI-ISAC scrambled last year to create a membership model funded by its county and state members, but the organization told NPR that membership is less than 20% of what it was before the federal funding cut.
“So that collective collaboration is unfortunately becoming more fractured,” Lux said.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., introduced legislation this month that would restore funding for a broader threat-sharing service that covers all local governments. But there’s no indication the bill will gain traction.
Marci Andino, a former South Carolina election official who now runs the EI-ISAC as executive director, said without federal backing, a big challenge is just communicating with the thousands of election jurisdictions. Some are eligible to join the group for free because their state pays for a membership plan, but it’s a struggle to reach all of them to let them know that.
“We’re continuing to get the message out that the EI-ISAC still exists,” Andino said. “We’re having to say, ‘Hey, we’re still here.'”
In addition to the cybersecurity services the organization provides, the EI-ISAC also plans to stand up a virtual situation room for elections, similar to one that was previously provided by the federal government through CISA.
On Election Day, election officials can log on to share physical or cyber threats they’re encountering in real time and see whether other local governments are seeing the same thing.
There was no such space during the off-year elections last year, but the EI-ISAC plans to offer one this year. All members will be invited, but no one from DHS will be there.
If the federal government wants a role in election security again at some point, said Lux, the Florida voting official, they’ll be invited back — skeptically.
“[They’ll] probably be that uncle that we keep at arm’s length at Thanksgiving rather than giving him a big bear hug,” Lux said. “But, you know, we’ll have to see. Certainly, the relationship has been damaged. And how long it takes to rebuild that trust will depend on how dedicated they are to trying to rebuild that trust.”