RESULTS: Alabama holds Republican primary runoff elections

Alabama is holding runoff elections on Tuesday for a US Senate seat and the secretary of state’s office. Polls close at 7 p.m. local time.

The race and the stakes:

The former chief of staff for retiring Sen. Richard Shelby, Katie Britt, is primed to win the Republican primary runoff in the race against Rep. Mo Brooks to fill the open Senate seat that was held by Shelby for over three decades.

Last April, Brooks earned the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, but he later withdrew his support of the congressman. Earlier this month, Trump announced that he would instead be endorsing Britt.

In the statement pulling his endorsement, Trump blamed Brooks for going “woke.”

“Mo Brooks of Alabama made a horrible mistake recently when he went “woke” and stated, referring to the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, “Put that behind you, put that behind you,” despite the fact that the Election was rife with fraud and irregularities,” Trump said.

The former president called Britt a “fearless America First Warrior” who strongly supports “our under siege Second Amendment, Stands Up for Parental Rights, and Will Fight for our Military, our Vets, and Election Integrity.”

Trump’s endorsement of Britt comes less than two weeks before voters return to the polls to determine the candidate who will face Rev. Will Boyd, a minister and engineer who clinched the Democratic nomination for Alabama’s open Senate seat with more than 60% of the vote.

According to the experts at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, the general election in November will almost assuredly be won by a Republican, as the group rates the race as “safe R.”

Secretary of State:

State Auditor Jim Zeigler and state Rep. Wes Allen, a former county probate judge, are facing off in the Republican primary runoff to replace current Secretary of State John Merrill, who is term-limited.

Both candidates running for Alabama’s chief election official have cast doubt on the integrity of the state’s elections.

Zeigler is endorsed by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a leading election denier who attacked the integrity of Alabama’s elections and is currently being sued for defamation by two voting machine companies.

“I’m not an election denier. I’m an election questioner. There are many questions about the 2020 election,” Zeigler told the Associated Press.

And Allen has pledged to withdraw Alabama from ERIC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit consortium of states who share voter data to keep their voter rolls more accurate and up-to-date.

Allen has also supported legislation to prohibit curbside voting and ban election officials from receiving private grants, according to the AP. In his previous role as a county official, he also stopped giving out marriage licenses after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.