To borrow from the “Meet the Press” tagline, if it’s a Monday in June, it’s another Primary Eve.
Tonight, we’ll focus on the national implications of Senate runoff elections tomorrow in Georgia and Alabama. (And here’s what else is on the ballot tomorrow.)
Alabama will offer a new test of Trump’s influence …
Last month, President Trump repeatedly flexed his power in Republican primaries.
But, as we wrote on Friday, June has so far been a rougher month for the president. And even in staunchly pro-Trump Alabama, voters in tomorrow’s Republican Senate primary runoff are wrestling with how to weigh a Trump endorsement against a desire to elevate political insurgents, my colleague Tim Balk wrote.
“Many Republican voters deeply trust President Trump’s judgment on endorsements,” he wrote, “and many are hungry for outsiders.”
In Alabama, they are choosing between Representative Barry Moore, who has Trump’s endorsement, and Jared Hudson, a retired Navy SEAL and political newcomer. Hudson — who, it must be noted, is a Trump fan himself — is running an anti-establishment campaign.
And so will Georgia.
Over the weekend, Trump also plunged into the Republican Senate primary runoff in Georgia.
He sought to anoint Representative Mike Collins — whom Tim and my colleague Patricia Mazzei described as a Trump loyalist and immigration hard-liner — over Derek Dooley, a former University of Tennessee football coach, who has cast himself as the stronger general-election candidate.
Adding to the intrigue: Dooley is family friends with Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and has his support. Kemp — who was widely seen as the strongest possible Republican Senate candidate but decided not to run — has clashed with Trump before, refusing to join his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
(The two are, however, aligned on the Republican primary to succeed Kemp, both backing Lt. Gov. Burt Jones over Rick Jackson, a billionaire health care executive.)
Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former mayor of Atlanta, is the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia.
The stage will be set for a marquee general-election battle — and a source of 2028 buzz.
The winner of the Senate Republican runoff will face Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, in the general election.
Ossoff began the 2026 cycle regarded as an endangered incumbent, seeking re-election in a conservative-leaning state that Trump won in 2024.
But Ossoff has proved to be a prodigious fund-raiser with a knack for going viral, and I rarely hear much Democratic angst about him these days (Republicans, too, acknowledge what a formidable candidate he has become). In fact, you’re more likely to hear Democrats talking him up as a potential presidential candidate — that is, if he wins this fall.
Meantime, Senator Raphael Warnock, Ossoff’s fellow Georgia Democrat, is also raising his national profile, touring to promote his new book, “The Crooked Places Made Straight.” And over the weekend, he spoke at the Democratic state convention in Nevada, traditionally an early-voting presidential primary state.
quote of the day
“People may stay home in November. People may leave the party.”
That was Elijah Manley, a Black Democrat who is running to represent Florida’s historically Black 20th Congressional District.
He and other Black Democrats in the race are bemoaning the candidacy of Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a white Democrat who is running in the district after Republican lawmakers redrew Florida’s congressional map and eliminated her seat.
My colleague Patricia Mazzei lays out the drama.
One Number
80
That’s how old President Trump turned yesterday.
He has been intent on projecting an image of relentless energy, my colleague Katie Rogers writes, and keeps a schedule that seems devised to ward off questions about age and stamina as he begins his ninth decade.
But even for a president known for imposing his own reality on every situation, she writes, Trump is facing scrutiny over his age that has grown more intense with each passing year.
Graphic of the day
Blue-collar white voters are, for the first time, seriously doubting Trump’s handling of the economy.
My colleague Shane Goldmacher writes that a New York Times review of polling shows an extraordinary swing on that issue among white voters without college degrees between Trump’s first midterm election and now.
Then, working-class white voters approved of his management of the economy by margins of 30 percentage points or even more. Now, recent polls show them disapproving by anywhere from 14 to more than 30 points.
ONE LAST THING
Hunter Biden sits down with Gov. Gavin Newsom
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has welcomed a series of colorful guests to his podcast. The latest: Hunter Biden.
The two men have both been trying to cultivate a larger online footprint, as Newsom prepares for a widely expected 2028 presidential bid and as Biden defends his father amid many Democrats’ newly negative views of his legacy.
On the episode, Newsom and the younger Biden discussed Graham Platner; the politics of Israel; and a book, “kind of like a thriller,” that Biden wrote about his father’s time in the White House.
My colleague Reid Epstein has more.
Taylor Robinson contributed reporting.
www.nytimes.com