(UVALDE, Texas) — A fourth-grade teacher was among those killed in a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday, ABC News has learned.
At least 14 children were also killed after a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, west of San Antonio, Gov. Greg Abbott said.
The alleged gunman — identified by officials as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a student at Uvalde High School — is dead, authorities said.
“When parents drop their kids off at school, they have every expectation to know that they’re going to be able to pick their child up when that school day ends. And there are families who are in mourning right now,” Abbott told reporters.
Here’s what we know about the victims so far.
Eva Mireles
Eva Mireles, a fourth-grade teacher at the elementary school, was killed in the shooting, her aunt, Lydia Martinez Delgado, confirmed to ABC News. She had been a teacher in the school district for approximately 17 years, Delgado said.
“I’m furious that these shooting continue. These children are innocent. Rifles should not be easily available to all,” Delgado said. “This is my hometown, a small community of less then 20,000. I never imagined this would happen to especially to loved ones.”
“All we can do is pray hard for our country, state, schools and especially the families of all,” she said.
(OXFORD, Mich.) — Victims and families of victims of the November Oxford school shooting in Michigan filed a lawsuit against the Oxford school district and school administrators, accusing them of violating legally mandated school safety policies and of violating students’ constitutional rights.
The lawsuit accused administrators of failing to notify law enforcement of the actions of the accused shooter leading up to the shooting.
Administrators named in the lawsuit include Superintendent Timothy Throne, principal Steven Wolf, dean of students Nicholas Ejak, student counselor Shawn Hopkins, Superintendent Kenneth Weaver and four teachers, including the teacher who caught the alleged shooter looking at ammunition for his gun online while in class.
The lawsuit was jointly filed by the parents of Justin Shilling and Tate Myre, who were killed in the shooting, and representatives for four minors who were injured in the shooting.
The lawsuit alleges that accused school shooter Ethan Crumbley had exhibited “concerning behavior that indicated psychiatric distress, suicidal or homicidal tendencies and the possibility of child abuse and neglect.”
On Nov. 11, weeks before the shooting, Crumbley brought a severed bird’s head to the Oxford high school and placed it in the boy’s bathroom. While other students found and reported it, school administrators including the principal and district administrators concealed this information from staff and parents, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit alleges that the school administration sent an email to parents on Nov. 12 telling them they have reviewed concerns they received and they have investigated all information provided to them and deemed there had been “no threat to our building nor our students.”
Several parents raised concerns about the threats to students made on social media and about multiple severed animal heads at the school to the principal on or around Nov. 16, the lawsuit alleges. But, the school district dismissed concerns raised by students and parents as “not credible,” according to the lawsuit.
Wolf, the principal, sent parents an email confirming that there was no threat at the school and assumptions made on social media “were merely exaggerated rumors,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit claims other students saw Crumbley with shell casings and live ammunition rounds one day before the shooting.
The suit also accuses one of the teachers, Pam Parker Fine, of violating the law by failing to contact child protective services, as required, in response to her being presented with evidence that Crumbley was researching ammunition in class and the refusal of Crumbley’s parents to respond to her call. The lawsuit alleges she was required to notify police, specifically the high school’s liaison officer, of the possibility that Crumbley was a victim of child abuse and neglect and posed a risk to himself and others.
Jacqueline Kubina, a second teacher named in the suit who found Crumbley looking up ammunition in class, is also accused of violating the law by failing to report it to law enforcement.
The suit also alleges that Ejak, the dean of students, and Hopkins, a student counselor, failed to search Crumbley’s backpack or have local law enforcement search it the day of the shooting despite having “reasonable cause to do so.” This was after teachers had found his drawings, including a drawing of people with gunshot wounds and text next to it saying, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”
The school had called Crumbley’s parents to the school to address the issue the morning of the shooting, but the Crumbley parents refused to take their child home. Hopkins had warned them the morning of the shooting that if they did not take Crumbley to counseling within 48 hours he would be “following up,” the lawsuit alleged.
The lawsuit alleged Crumbley’s parents refusing to address the issue was evidence of child abuse and neglect, which the dean of students and student counselor were legally required to report, but they did not.
Ejak and Hopkins “deliberately” conducted the meeting with Crumbley and his parents without the safety liaison officer or other local law enforcement, “preventing a proper and through investigation and lawful search of Crumbley’s backpack, which would have prevented this tragedy,” the lawsuit alleged.
The defendants’ actions were “reckless” and put the lives of the victims “at substantial risk of serious and immediate harm,” the lawsuit alleged. The lawsuit claimed that due to the school and district administrators’ knowledge before the shooting began, “it was foreseeable that [Crumbley] would carry out such acts of violence.”
The lawsuit also alleged that the district violated the victims’ constitutional right to be free from danger.
“While this new lawsuit won’t remedy the pain and suffering these families have gone through, it will certainly hold the school district and its officials accountable for their role in not properly supervising and training teachers and counselors, who have an obligation to ensure students remain safe,” said Ven Johnson, an attorney for the plaintiffs, in a statement.
Lawyers are requesting damages in addition to interest, costs and attorneys’ fees, as well as punitive and/or exemplary damages.
“With the alarming number of red flags and desperate cries for help that Ethan’s parents, teachers, counselors and administrators all somehow missed, this mass shooting absolutely could and should have been prevented,” Johnson said.
(NEW YORK) — New Coke bottles have started appearing in the U.K. as the popular soda brand continues on its path toward more sustainable packaging.
“As part of Coca-Cola’s journey towards a World Without Waste, we are transitioning to a new packaging system in Great Britain and other European markets,” a representative for the brand told “Good Morning America.” “The new packaging ensures the cap remains attached to the bottle — making it easier than ever for consumers to recycle the whole package, ensuring that no cap gets left behind.”
The attached caps debuted on select 1.5-liter bottles in the U.K., with more pack sizes to be introduced throughout the year.
The fresh design comes on the heels of a new regulation from the European Union intended to reduce waste and pollution. The regulation, which goes into effect in July 2024, states that caps on some non-returnable bottles holding up to three liters must have a cap that is firmly attached to the container.
According to The Coca-Cola Co., this new design is the result of “extensive research with our suppliers and consumer testing.”
The new cap allows someone drinking a Coke to retain the lid with the bottle, which ultimately prevents the cap from being littered, and offers “a positive drinking experience.”
All of the new caps remain 100% recyclable, along with the bottles, which have been 100% recyclable for several years.
In 2018, The Coca-Cola Co. announced its World Without Waste program to “reduce our global use of virgin plastic by 20% (the cumulative equivalent of 3 million metric tons) by 2025.” The company also pledged to “use at least 50% recycled material in our packaging by 2030.”
There are currently no immediate plans to bring the new attached-cap innovation to the U.S., a representative for the brand confirmed to “GMA.”
“By the end of 2024, we aim to have transitioned our entire production to attached caps as we progress to more sustainable packaging,” the company stated.
(WASHINGTON) — With the U.S. still reeling from the mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store, not even two weeks ago, President Joe Biden will address Americans in the terrible wake of Tuesday’s shooting at a Texas elementary school that left at least 14 young children dead.
He will speak to the nation at 8:15 p.m. from the White House Roosevelt Room about an hour after arriving back from a five-day trip to Asia and about two hours after ordering, from Air Force One, that the flag flying above the White House be lowered to half-staff.
“President Biden has been briefed on the horrific news of the elementary school shooting in Texas and will continue to be briefed regularly as information becomes available,” White House press secretary Jean-Pierre, traveling with Biden on the long flight back home, tweeted. “His prayers are with the families impacted by this awful event, and he will speak this evening when he arrives back at the White House.”
A teacher at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was also killed by the 18-year-old suspect, a student at Uvalde High School, who also died, according to Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, whom Biden spoke with on his way back to Washington.
Less than two weeks ago, just before Biden traveled overseas he was in Buffalo, condemning a suspected white supremacist accused of killing 10 Black people going about their daily lives at a local supermarket.
There, he called on Congress to “keep weapons of war off our streets.”
In February, on the fourth anniversary of the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a single gunman killed 17 students and staff, Biden, again, pushed lawmakers to pass legislation requiring universal background checks and banning assault weapons, among other measures to reduce gun violence.
And last December, on the ninth anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a single gunman killed 20 first-graders and six teachers, Biden spoke to victims’ families in a speech from the White House, demanding that lawmakers “owe them action.”
“Because of your leadership, we forged a broad coalition and enacted more than 20 executive orders,” Biden said. “We came close to legislation, but we came up short. It was so darn frustrating.”
While serving as then-President Barack Obama’s vice president, Biden was tasked in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting to lead the administration’s effort to enact tougher gun control laws — but in the nearly decade since the nation mourned for Newtown, no action on gun control has passed at a federal level.
Biden, like some of his predecessors, has repeatedly pushed for reforms to address gun violence but has faced a reluctance from Congress to engage on the issue.
Bills aimed at expanding and strengthening background checks have passed through the House’s Democratic majority but have failed to garner enough Republican support to pass the Senate filibuster’s 60-vote threshold.
As president, Biden has used some executive powers instead, like when he announced new regulations on so-called “ghost guns” last month.
But asked about what more he might do to address gun violence when leaving Buffalo last week, Biden conceded there was “not much” he could do through executive action.
“I’ve got to convince the Congress that we should go back to what I passed years ago,” Biden said, referring to the 1994 passage of an assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.
Since Sandy Hook in 2012, the U.S. has endured more than 3,500 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
(WASHINGTON) — May ends with another round of notable primary elections on Tuesday, this time in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Texas.
The most-watched races will be in Georgia, with primaries for governor and the Senate.
The results should give more insight into the strength of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement as well as the conservative appetite for the “big lie.”
Latest headlines:
Texas candidates respond to elementary school mass shooting
Here’s what time polls close in each state
Stacey Abrams speaks after David Perdue’s ‘go back’ attack
What races Republicans, Democrats will be watching closely in Tuesday’s primaries
Here is how the news is developing. All times Eastern. Check back for updates.
May 24, 7:19 pm
Stacey Abrams projected to win Democratic gubernatorial primary in Georgia
In the Georgia gubernatorial Democratic primary, ABC News projects Stacey Abrams will win.
Abrams’s victory in the primary means November’s general election could be a rematch between her and Gov. Brian Kemp. Kemp defeated Abrams in 2018 by a very narrow margin that she claimed was influenced by tactics that suppressed the vote.
Following her election loss, Abrams turned to advocacy and founded a voting rights group in Georgia. She’s credited as a main figure in helping Democrats flip the state from blue to red in the 2020 election cycle.
May 24, 7:07 pm
Polls close in Georgia
Polls have closed in Georgia, where voters are picking their party’s nominees in several highly-watched Senate, House and gubernatorial primary elections. Anyone already in line as of the 7 p.m. close will still be able to cast a ballot.
The Peach State has a fraught history of long lines and voting issues on Election Day, but Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told reporters Tuesday afternoon that “everything so far has been smooth sailing.”
Candidates must receive more than 50% of the vote to win the nomination, or they will face a runoff race on June 21.
May 24, 6:54 pm
Georgia elections are biggest test yet for Trump’s “big lie”
Former President Donald Trump has gone all-in on Georgia, where he’s desperately trying to oust sitting Republican officials who pushed back on his baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election.
His picks include fellow election deniers David Perdue, a former senator running against Gov. Brian Kemp; Rep. Jody Hice, who is challenging Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger; celebrity football star Herschel Walker, who’s seeking a Senate seat; and John Gordon, a businessman trying to unseat Attorney General Chris Carr.
May 24, 6:05 pm
Texas candidates respond to elementary school mass shooting
Democrats Jessica Cisneros and Henry Cuellar, who are competing in a runoff election for a South Texas congressional seat, issued statements after 14 students and one teacher were [killed in a shooting] () at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
“This is a devastating tragedy,” Cisneros wrote on Twitter. “How many more mass shootings do children have to experience before we say enough? Sending my condolences to the children and families in Uvalde who are experiencing this unthinkable tragedy.”
Cuellar said he was “heartbroken” and urged the public to come together to support the community.
May 24, 5:05 pm
Stacey Abrams speaks after David Perdue’s ‘go back’ attack
Stacey Abrams, a Black Democrat running for Georgia governor, declined on Tuesday to directly comment on Republican David Perdue saying she should “go back to where she came from.”
“No, not at all,” Abrams, said at a news conference in Atlanta, when asked by ABC News whether she wanted to respond to what was widely labeled as racist remarks from Perdue on Monday night while giving a campaign speech in which he also charged she was “demeaning her own race.”
“I will say this,” Abrams told ABC News at Tuesday’s press conference. “I have listened to Republicans for the last six months attack me. But they’ve done nothing to attack the challenges facing Georgia. They’ve done nothing to articulate their plans for the future of Georgia. Their response to a comment on their record is to deflect and to pretend that they’ve done good for the people of Georgia.”
Perdue, running to get the GOP nomination for Georgia governor, seized on Abram’s comments last week that Georgia was “worst state in the country to live,” citing residents’ disparities in mental health and maternal mortality, among other issues.
“She ain’t from here. Let her go back to where she came from,” Perdue, a former senator challenging Gov. Brian Kemp for their party’s nomination, said at a campaign event in the Atlanta suburbs on Monday night. “She doesn’t like it here.”
May 24, 5:03 pm
Early voting surges in Georgia as state navigates new election rules
A historic number of people have voted early in Georgia’s primary elections. According to the secretary of state’s office, approximately 857,401 people voted in-person or through an absentee ballot as of Friday — roughly three times as many as at the same point in the 2018 midterm election cycle.
Republicans are touting increased voter turnout as proof a controversial election law signed last year wasn’t as restrictive as its opponents described, while Democrats say the numbers are indicative of public pushback to the legislation.
“I think it tells us that Georgia voters got the message and the message was, ‘We gotta go vote, and we’ve got to go vote early, and we’ve got to go vote in person,’” Bee Nguyen, the leading Democratic candidate for secretary of state, told ABC News’ MaryAlice Parks.
May 24, 4:25 pm
Here’s what time polls close in each state
Here’s what time polls close in each state on Tuesday. All times Eastern.
Georgia: 7 p.m.
Alabama: 8 p.m.
Texas: 8 p.m. in most of the state, 9 p.m. in the western tip
Arkansas: 8:30 p.m.
Minnesota: 9 p.m
May 24, 5:07 pm
What races Republicans, Democrats will be watching closely in Tuesday’s primaries
Tuesday’s primary elections, stretching across four Southern states, will continue to test Republican voters’ appetite for former President Donald Trump and his push of the “big lie.”
Nowhere is that more apparent than in Georgia as Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — two Republicans who balked at Trump’s requests to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential race — face challenges from enthusiastic proponents of Trump’s baseless election claims. Kemp is hoping to fight off former Sen. David Perdue, while Raffensperger is looking to rebuff Rep. Jody Hice.
Another high-profile contest in the Peach State will be the Senate primary, where football star Herschel Walker is running for the Republican nomination to likely challenge Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock. Trump-endorsed Walker has been leading the pack despite several controversies, including prior accusations of domestic violence. (Walker has denied some of the allegations and said he doesn’t remember others.)
For Democrats, the most-watched race of the night will be a runoff in Texas’ 28th Congressional District as 29-year-old immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros tries for a third time to unseat nine-term incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar. The heated primary is the first clear test of how abortion rights may motivate voters this election cycle, given Cuellar’s position as the sole anti-abortion Democrat in the House.
And in Georgia, two Democratic incumbents — Rep. Lucy McBath and Rep. Carolyn Bordeaux — are running against each other because of redistricting.
(WASHINGTON) — Kellyanne Conway, former campaign manager to Donald Trump, sat down with “The View” co-hosts on Tuesday to discuss her new memoir, her husband’s attacks on then-President Trump and a moment with the former president that she says left her heartbroken.
When Trump won the 2016 presidential election, Conway, who served as Trump’s campaign manager and would become one of his longest-serving aides, became the first woman to successfully run a presidential campaign in America.
While she helped lead Trump to victory in 2016, Conway didn’t take on his 2020 campaign. She left her White House role in August 2020 to spend more time with her family, she announced at the time.
When Trump lost the presidential election in November 2020, he began offering his theory, the so-called “big lie,” of a stolen presidential election. It is a theory Conway does not subscribe to.
Conway, in her new memoir “Here’s the Deal,” writes that losing the presidential election in 2020 was more shocking to Trump than winning it in 2016. When asked if she agrees that Trump lost both the popular vote, the electoral vote and had a free and fair election with President Biden, Conway said, “It’s pretty obvious that Joe Biden is the president. I can’t believe we’re still talking about this, respectfully.”
Conway told “The View” that she “never” lied to former President Trump about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. “I’m the closest person to Donald Trump to tell him the earliest that he came up short. It broke my heart, I wanted him to get reelected,” she said.
“I only wish that the people who were in charge of his 2020 campaign, with the $1.4 billion that they wasted, had won outright and overwhelmingly,” she continued. “He should have won huge, he had all these accomplishments.”
On “The View,” Conway said that “President Trump was told again and again by people in his campaign, ‘You’re going to win in a landslide.'”
With rumors swirling that Trump is looking to run for president again, Conway told “The View” that Trump “would like to run in 2024” because he believes he has “unfinished business” and sees that “Biden is not doing a great job.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was the White House director of strategic communications and assistant to the president in the Trump administration in 2020, was a guest co-host on “The View” Tuesday. She resigned from her position on Dec. 4, 2020, and spoke out after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
The two former Trump staffers exchanged strong words at “The View” table.
Griffin asked, “How do you still defend [Trump]? Do you still think he could be a good president after he tried to overturn our democracy?”
“I left three months before you did for my children, I have four of them. And I said, ‘Less drama more mama,’ and that’s exactly what I did,” Conway responded. “I think you stayed a whole month after the election that you were having a problem with.”
Griffin quickly retorted, “I wanted to help my junior staff get jobs. I stayed for three weeks after.”
“I think people should know that,” Conway said. “Because I haven’t seen you since you’ve changed.”
“Just to be clear, I didn’t change,” Griffin said.
“Alyssa, I don’t want to argue,” Conway said. “You get to talk here every day, I’m here as a guest.”
Alyssa told Conway and the audience, “I swore an oath to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump.”
During Conway’s time as a counselor to Trump, her husband, George Conway, who supported her taking the job, was an outspoken critic of the president on Twitter. In her tell-all memoir, Kellyanne Conway wrote about her husband of nearly 25 years, “My husband abandoned me for Twitter.”
“Night after night, I would come home from a busy day at work,” she wrote in her memoir. “While I was minding dishes, dogs, laundry, managing adolescent dramas and traumas, George would be just steps away from me, tucked away in his home office, plotting against my boss and me.”
In the afterword of her memoir, Conway wrote, “Democracy will survive. America will survive. George and I might not survive.”
On “The View,” Conway made it clear that “George does not owe fealty or loyalty to Donald Trump or any political ideology. The vows were to me to love, honor and cherish. And I would not have been able to be Donald Trump’s campaign manager to the level I was had George not said, ‘You are taking your shot and I will help more with the kids and around the house … This guy can actually win with you. Go take your shot.’”
Co-host Joy Behar noted that Conway’s husband “turned” on her. Conway said that “the public nature” of her husband’s anti-Trump position was “so jarring” because of the values about George she appreciates, but he “became publicly bombastic.”
“I felt I couldn’t compete with the tweet, and why would I? Why would I compete with Twitter?” She’s not even hot, she doesn’t even have a personality,” Conway said of her husband’s many tweets bashing Trump. “I felt like there was another woman in our life.”
“George turned on Trump, which would be OK, except it took on this whole folk hero syndrome with the mainstream media,” she added.
George wasn’t the only Conway who took to social media to criticize Trump. Conway’s daughter Claudia, who had also become a critic of Trump, shared frequent posts about her mother and father on social media. Her mother spoke out about how her daughter was treated following her posts.
“Claudia was doing what a lot of teenagers do: pushing back on authority, mom and dad, posting TikToks and getting on Twitter,” Conway said of her daughter. “What I don’t appreciate and will never forgive or forget are a bunch of adults direct messaging my 15-year-old daughter without even trying to reach easy-to-reach parents.”
“It is outrageous. You can’t have a 15-year-old in your audience without a parent. She can’t get her ears pierced, go to an R-rated movie, drive, vote,” she continued.
“People just contacting my daughter. I would never contact your children. By the way, are we supposed to feel better if it were a 35-year-old man contacting Claudia at 1:00 a.m. and promising her fame, fortune, attention? But I’m so proud of her and her three siblings. They are resilient, they are hardy, they have more class, dignity, discretion and judgment in their pinkies than a lot of these adults.”
(UVALDE, Texas) — Fourteen students and a teacher are dead after a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, according to Gov. Greg Abbott.
The 18-year-old suspect, a student at Uvalde High School, is also dead, he said.
“He shot and killed horrifically and incomprehensibly 14 students and killed a teacher,” Abbott said during an unrelated press briefing.
The suspect also allegedly shot and killed his grandmother before entering the school and again opening fire.
Abbott said the shooter — identified by law enforcement sources and the governor as Salvador Ramos — had a handgun and also possibly a rifle.
“When parents drop their kids off at school, they have every expectation to know that they’re going to be able to pick their child up when that school day ends. And there are families who are in mourning right now,” Abbott said. “The state of Texas is in mourning with them for the reality that these parents are not going to be able to pick up their children.”
Two responding police officers were among those injured, Abbott said. They are expected to survive, he said.
Uvalde Memorial Hospital had said 15 students were being treated in the hospital’s emergency department in the wake of the incident. Two patients were transferred to San Antonio for treatment, while a third was pending transfer, the hospital said. A 45-year-old was also hospitalized after getting grazed by a bullet, the hospital said.
University Health in San Antonio said it had two patients from the shooting incident — a 66-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl — both in critical condition.
Two adult victims of the shooting, both in critical condition, are also being treated at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, according to an Army official.
A number of the shooting victims are children of Customs and Border Patrol agents, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin did not confirm casualties, but told ABC News in a text message that “this is a very bad situation.” He said the office is trying to contact parents before releasing any information.
Earlier, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District had said a shooter was located at Robb Elementary School and asked people to stay away from the area.
“There is an active shooter at Robb Elementary,” the school district said on Twitter. “Law enforcement is on site. Your cooperation is needed at this time by not visiting the campus. As soon as more information is gathered it will be shared.”
A school official initially told ABC News that the shooting took place off campus, and that Robb Elementary School was under lockdown.
The shooting occurred shortly after 11:30 a.m. local time, police said.
The school, which has students in the second, third and fourth grades, informed parents shortly after 2 p.m. that students had been transported to the Sgt. Willie Deleon Civic Center, the reunification site, and could be picked up.
Parent Ryan Ramirez told San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT he had gone to the civic center and the elementary school trying to find his fourth grade daughter in the wake of the shooting.
“[I’m] just confused and worried. I’m trying to find out where my baby’s at,” he told the station.
Uvalde, Texas, is located about 90 minutes west of San Antonio.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office and San Antonio Police Department are sending aid, and the FBI is responding.
The Houston Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also said it is assisting in the investigation.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been briefed on the situation and the agency “is actively coordinating with federal, state, and local partners,” a spokesperson said. Customs and Border Protection officials in the area also responded to the scene.
The National Counterterrorism Operations Center believes there is “no known terrorism nexus” at this time, according to a law enforcement bulletin obtained by ABC News.
ABC News’ Pierre Thomas, Luke Barr, Aaron Katersky, Nicholas Kerr and Mireya Villarreal contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — May ends with another round of notable primary elections on Tuesday, this time in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Texas.
The most-watched races will be in Georgia, with primaries for governor and the Senate.
The results should give more insight into the strength of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement as well as the conservative appetite for the “big lie.”
Latest headlines:
Texas candidates respond to elementary school mass shooting
Here’s what time polls close in each state
Stacey Abrams speaks after David Perdue’s ‘go back’ attack
What races Republicans, Democrats will be watching closely in Tuesday’s primaries
Here is how the news is developing. All times Eastern. Check back for updates.
May 24, 6:05 pm
Texas candidates respond to elementary school mass shooting
Democrats Jessica Cisneros and Henry Cuellar, who are competing in a runoff election for a South Texas congressional seat, issued statements after 14 students and one teacher were [killed in a shooting] () at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
“This is a devastating tragedy,” Cisneros wrote on Twitter. “How many more mass shootings do children have to experience before we say enough? Sending my condolences to the children and families in Uvalde who are experiencing this unthinkable tragedy.”
Cuellar said he was “heartbroken” and urged the public to come together to support the community.
May 24, 5:05 pm
Stacey Abrams speaks after David Perdue’s ‘go back’ attack
Stacey Abrams, a Black Democrat running for Georgia governor, declined on Tuesday to directly comment on Republican David Perdue saying she should “go back to where she came from.”
“No, not at all,” Abrams, said at a news conference in Atlanta, when asked by ABC News whether she wanted to respond to what was widely labeled as racist remarks from Perdue on Monday night while giving a campaign speech in which he also charged she was “demeaning her own race.”
“I will say this,” Abrams told ABC News at Tuesday’s press conference. “I have listened to Republicans for the last six months attack me. But they’ve done nothing to attack the challenges facing Georgia. They’ve done nothing to articulate their plans for the future of Georgia. Their response to a comment on their record is to deflect and to pretend that they’ve done good for the people of Georgia.”
Perdue, running to get the GOP nomination for Georgia governor, seized on Abram’s comments last week that Georgia was “worst state in the country to live,” citing residents’ disparities in mental health and maternal mortality, among other issues.
“She ain’t from here. Let her go back to where she came from,” Perdue, a former senator challenging Gov. Brian Kemp for their party’s nomination, said at a campaign event in the Atlanta suburbs on Monday night. “She doesn’t like it here.”
May 24, 5:03 pm
Early voting surges in Georgia as state navigates new election rules
A historic number of people have voted early in Georgia’s primary elections. According to the secretary of state’s office, approximately 857,401 people voted in-person or through an absentee ballot as of Friday — roughly three times as many as at the same point in the 2018 midterm election cycle.
Republicans are touting increased voter turnout as proof a controversial election law signed last year wasn’t as restrictive as its opponents described, while Democrats say the numbers are indicative of public pushback to the legislation.
“I think it tells us that Georgia voters got the message and the message was, ‘We gotta go vote, and we’ve got to go vote early, and we’ve got to go vote in person,’” Bee Nguyen, the leading Democratic candidate for secretary of state, told ABC News’ MaryAlice Parks.
May 24, 4:25 pm
Here’s what time polls close in each state
Here’s what time polls close in each state on Tuesday. All times Eastern.
Georgia: 7 p.m.
Alabama: 8 p.m.
Texas: 8 p.m. in most of the state, 9 p.m. in the western tip
Arkansas: 8:30 p.m.
Minnesota: 9 p.m
May 24, 5:07 pm
What races Republicans, Democrats will be watching closely in Tuesday’s primaries
Tuesday’s primary elections, stretching across four Southern states, will continue to test Republican voters’ appetite for former President Donald Trump and his push of the “big lie.”
Nowhere is that more apparent than in Georgia as Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — two Republicans who balked at Trump’s requests to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential race — face challenges from enthusiastic proponents of Trump’s baseless election claims. Kemp is hoping to fight off former Sen. David Perdue, while Raffensperger is looking to rebuff Rep. Jody Hice.
Another high-profile contest in the Peach State will be the Senate primary, where football star Herschel Walker is running for the Republican nomination to likely challenge Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock. Trump-endorsed Walker has been leading the pack despite several controversies, including prior accusations of domestic violence. (Walker has denied some of the allegations and said he doesn’t remember others.)
For Democrats, the most-watched race of the night will be a runoff in Texas’ 28th Congressional District as 29-year-old immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros tries for a third time to unseat nine-term incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar. The heated primary is the first clear test of how abortion rights may motivate voters this election cycle, given Cuellar’s position as the sole anti-abortion Democrat in the House.
And in Georgia, two Democratic incumbents — Rep. Lucy McBath and Rep. Carolyn Bordeaux — are running against each other because of redistricting.
(WASHINGTON) — The power of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement and lasting influence over Republican midterm voters faces its biggest test yet on Tuesday in Georgia, where Trump and his former vice president are on opposite sides in a significant statewide race and where Trump’s “big lie” is effectively on the ballot.
So, for Trump, it’s not just politics — it’s personal.
Incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, are defending their offices from challengers — but also from their most vocal critic, Trump, since both men resisted his pressure in 2020 to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory, in a state where three audits confirmed Trump lost by more than 11,000 votes.
Appearing to lay the groundwork for 2024, Trump has endorsed a slate of his loyalists who espouse his “big lie,” including former GOP Sen. David Perdue, relentlessly attacking Kemp in the process as a “sellout” and “coward.” But Trump appears headed for a showdown of his own, as some of his favored candidates, including Perdue, are behind in the polls.
“We have to win,” Trump said in a tele-town hall for Perdue in Georgia Monday night. “We want to win, and we have a governor that’s done the worst job of any governor in probably decades on election integrity.”
Cementing his break from Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence appeared in Kennesaw, Georgia, at the same time on Monday to rally behind Kemp and tout what he called “the Republican Party is the party of the future,” in what could be as an indirect swipe at Trump for continuing to falsely claiming 2020 election fraud.
“I know the polls look good — real good,” Pence said to applause. “But don’t let up, don’t slow down. Keep chopping.”
Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich, turning the heat on Pence, said in a statement to ABC News that the former vice president is “desperate to chase his lost relevance” and “parachuting in to races, hoping someone is paying attention.”
With Kemp polling better than 50%, according to data compiled by FiveThirtyEight, Pence’s endorsee is expected to not only win renomination but surpass the need for a runoff with Trump’s pick. Polling also suggests Perdue would be a weaker candidate in the general election this fall, where Republicans will face Stacey Abrams, running unopposed for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination — a point Pence hammered.
“I’m here because Brian Kemp is the only candidate in tomorrow’s primary who has already defeated Stacey Abrams, whether she knows it or not,” Pence said Monday, praising Kemp without once mentioning Trump.
Perdue lost a Senate runoff last year to Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. Georgia’s other senator, Rev. Sen. Raphael Warnock, will likely defend his seat in the emerging battleground against Herschel Walker, the Georgia college football legend Trump endorsed who is holding steady as the frontrunner in the GOP Senate primary, despite allegations of violent behavior, which Walker has denied.
Secretary of state race
In a closer, but arguably more consequential race, Trump has directed his ire at Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who famously refused in a January 2021 phone call to “find” the former president more votes, and endorsed challenger Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., who voted against certifying the 2020 election results.
The winner of the secretary of state race will play a key role in the next presidential election if Georgia again comes down to the wire.
Hice is one of at least 23 election deniers were running for secretary of state in 18 states, according to the States United Action, a nonpartisan advocacy group tracking the uptick in election deniers running for office. Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican critic of Trump and co-chair of the group, warned that if Trump were to get his loyalists in place for 2024, it would presumably be much easier to ensure a loss wouldn’t happen again.
“People tend to focus just on the federal races and federal elections but forget that they’re run by the states. And that’s why these elections are so important,” Whitman told ABC News, describing the thinking behind their strategy: “We change the laws, so we can change the referee, so we can change the outcomes.”
So far, more than 850,000 votes have already been cast in Georgia – surpassing the early vote in the 2018 and 2020 elections, despite new election rules inspired by unproven claims of fraud surrounding the 2020 election which Democrats argue have restricted the vote.
“We know that increased turnout has nothing to do with suppression,” Abrams said at a press conference on Tuesday morning. “We know voters want their right to vote to be made real and be held sacrosanct. And so they are showing up.”
Raffensperger, providing reporters with an update on voting in Georgia on Tuesday, declined to answer a question about his race from the state capital, saying “Since we’re in this building, I really have my secretary of state hat on right now.”
(ATLANTA) — Stacy Abrams, a Black Democrat running for Georgia governor, declined on Tuesday to directly comment on Republican David Perdue saying she should “go back to where she came from.”
“No, not at all,” Abrams, said at a news conference in Atlanta, when asked by ABC News whether she wanted to respond to what was widely labeled as racist remarks from Perdue on Monday night while giving a campaign speech in which he also charged she was “demeaning her own race.”
“I will say this,” Abrams told ABC News at Tuesday’s press conference. “I have listened to Republicans for the last six months attack me. But they’ve done nothing to attack the challenges facing Georgia. They’ve done nothing to articulate their plans for the future of Georgia. Their response to a comment on their record is to deflect and to pretend that they’ve done good for the people of Georgia.”
Perdue, running to get the GOP nomination for Georgia governor, seized on Abram’s comments last week that Georgia was “worst state in the country to live,” citing residents’ disparities in mental health and maternal mortality, among other issues.
“She ain’t from here. Let her go back to where she came from,” Perdue, a former senator challenging Gov. Brian Kemp for their party’s nomination, said at a campaign event in the Atlanta suburbs on Monday night. “She doesn’t like it here.”
Abrams grew up in Mississippi but has deep ties to Georgia, a state she moved to during high school and where she previously served as the House minority leader. She said last week that “when you’re No. 48 for mental health, when you’re No. 1 for maternal mortality, when you have an incarceration rate that’s on the rise and wages that are on the decline, then you are not the No. 1 place to live.”
Perdue’s dismissal that she “go back” somewhere else echoes comments by his party’s standard-bearer, former President Donald Trump, who notoriously told four progressive, non-white lawmakers in 2019 to “go back” to the “broken and crime infested places from which they came.” The lawmakers Trump targeted are all U.S. citizens and his tweet sparked a firestorm of criticism. (Perdue’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News on Tuesday about the fallout of his attack on Abrams.)
While Abrams did not address Perdue directly at Tuesday morning’s press conference, she conceded that what she said last week about Georgia’s problems was “inelegant.” Still, she reiterated her larger point about what she called the many health and social challenges Georgians, especially voters, face.
“I had an inelegant delivery of the statement that I was making, and that is that Brian Kemp is a failed governor and doesn’t care about the people of Georgia,” she said. “Look at his record. Look at the results under his four years of leadership.” Kemp, for his part, has continued to assail Abrams as an out-of-step leftist while touting how he addressed COVID-19 and more.
Perdue on Monday also criticized comments Abrams made during her 2018 campaign for governor when she said she wanted to diversify the state’s economy beyond agriculture and hospitality.
But Perdue responded to her comments by claiming Abrams had “told Black farmers, ‘You don’t need to be on the farm,’ and she told Black workers in hospitality and all this, ‘You don’t need to be.'”
“She is demeaning her own race when it comes to that. I am really over this,” Perdue said. “She should never be considered material for governor of any state, much less our state where she hates to live.”
According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Abrams actually said in 2018: “I want to create a lot of different jobs. Because people shouldn’t have to go into agriculture or hospitality in Georgia to make a living in Georgia. Why not create renewable energy jobs? Because, I’m going to tell y’all a secret: Climate change is real.” (Even then, she was dinged by the GOP as “brash and condescending,” with her aides at the time calling the criticism “absurdly misleading.”)
Perdue, who has been endorsed by Trump, is hoping to overtake what polls show is a significant deficit behind Kemp in order to win the Republican nomination and face Abrams in November.
Abrams, the only major Democrat running for her party’s nomination, is preparing for a rematch with Kemp, whom she ran against in 2018 — losing by a very narrow margin that she claimed was influenced by tactics that suppressed the vote. The GOP has repeatedly highlighted Abrams’ criticism of the election she lost, saying it is hypocritical given how Democrats have renounced Trump’s election lies.
“In 2018, voters across the state were denied access to the right to vote,” Abrams said Tuesday. “They were denied the ability to register and stay on the rolls. They were denied the ability to cast the ballot and the ability to have that ballot counted In 2018.”
Even in the face of high voter turnout, she said, “We know that … has nothing to do with suppression. Suppression is about whether or not you make it difficult for voters to access the ballot.”
ABC News’ Miles Cohen, MaryAlice Parks, Brittany Shepherd and Briana Stewart contributed to this report.
