Politics

(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.”

Here is how the news is developing. All times Eastern. Check back for updates.

 

May 24, 9:20 pm
Ken Paxton projected winner of Texas attorney general runoff

ABC News projects that in the Texas Republican primary runoff, incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton will win. As of 9 p.m. Eastern, with 29% of the expected vote in, Paxton leads with 66% of the vote, while George P. Bush follows with 34% of the vote.

This race was both a test of Trump’s endorsement and the power of political dynasties, in this case: the Bushes.

Paxton received former President Donald Trump’s endorsement in July 2021 but went into the runoff engulfed in scandals that include indictment for securities fraud, FBI investigations into malfeasance and marital infidelity, among others. He denies all allegations.

His opponent was Bush, who is George H. W. Bush’s grandson and son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. He is the only member of his famous family still in public office, currently serving as commissioner of the Texas General Land Office.

May 24, 9:04 pm
Marjorie Taylor Greene projected GOP winner in Georgia’s 14th district

ABC News projects that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is the winner of the Republican primary in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District.

Greene edged out five Republican competitors and overcame a legal challenge to her reelection despite her turbulent tenure in Congress.

As ABC’s Hannah Demissie reported, a group of Georgia voters said that Greene was not eligible to run for reelection due to her alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol, citing the 14th Amendment. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger agreed in early May with the court’s recommendation that Greene is allowed to stay on the ballot.

May 24, 9:03 pm

 

All polls are now closed

The final polls of the night have closed in Arkansas and Montana.

In Arkansas, voters are picking their party’s nominees for governor and Senate. In Minnesota, there is a special election to choose a replacement for Rep. Jim Hagedorn, who died in February.

May 24, 8:31 pm
Brian Kemp projected winner of gubernatorial primary

ABC News has projected that sitting Gov. Brian Kemp will win the Republican nomination in Georgia, defeating former President Donald Trump’s pick David Perdue.

Trump personally courted Perdue to challenge Kemp after the governor refused to indulge his baseless claims about the 2020 election. Despite the former president’s backing, Perdue consistently lagged in polling and fundraising against Kemp.

Kemp’s presumptive victory sets up a rematch between him and Democrat Stacey Abrams, who ABC News has projected to win the Democratic nomination for Senate. Their bitter 2018 race for the governorship was decided by less than 55,000 votes. Abrams admitted defeat but said she refused to call it a “concession,” citing tactics she said were used to suppress the vote.

May 24, 8:13 pm
Polls close in Alabama, most of Texas

Polls are now closed in Alabama and most of Texas.

In Texas, all eyes are on a runoff election between Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar and immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros in the state’s 28th Congressional District. Cisneros is backed by the progressive wing of the party, while Cuellar has maintained support from the Democratic establishment despite his anti-abortion stance.

In Alabama, Sen. Richard Shelby’s retirement has resulted in a competitive Republican primary between Rep. Mo Brooks, attorney Katie Britt and former Army helicopter pilot Mike Durant. Brooks initially won former President Donald Trump’s endorsement in the race, but later lost it after suggesting it was time to move on from the 2020 election. Trump has not made another endorsement in the contest.

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.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — With the U.S. still reeling from the mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store, not even two weeks ago, President Joe Biden addressed Americans in the terrible wake of Tuesday’s shooting at a Texas elementary school that left at least 18 young children dead.

A clearly emotional Biden spoke to the nation 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.

“I’d hoped, when I became president, I would not have to do this again. Another massacre. Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school. Beautiful, second, third, fourth graders,” he said.

“As a nation we have to ask when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby,” he said raising his voice.

“I am sick and tired of it — we have to act,’ he said.

Two adults, including a teacher at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, were also killed by the 18-year-old suspect — said to be 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.”

A short time before Biden was scheduled to speak, Vice President Kamala Harris, fighting back tears, commented on the shooting as she began her pre-scheduled remarks at a Washington gala.

“Tonight is a rough night, we planned for a great celebration, but I’m sure most of you have heard the tragic news about what happened in Texas,” she said.

“Every time a tragedy like this happens, our hearts break. And our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of those families — and yet it keeps happening. So, I think we all know and have said many times with each other: Enough is enough. Enough is enough,” she said.

“As a nation, we have to have the courage to take action and understand the nexus between what makes for reasonable and sensible public policy to ensure something like this never happens again,” she said.

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.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(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.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(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.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(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.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(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.

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(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.”

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(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.

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(NEW YORK) — National attention turns next to the South as Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Texas voters head to the polls on Tuesday, rounding out a consequential string of May contests.

Months-long, sometimes contentious battles to be governor, attorney general, secretary of state and for U.S. Senate and House seats will come to a head. The results should give more insight into the strength of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement with the Republican base as well as conservative voters’ appetite for election lies.

The most-watched races will be in Georgia, an emerging battleground state, with primaries for governor and the Senate that will preview closely fought races come November’s midterms.

At the top of the ticket — where he hopes to stay — sits incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, an establishment Republican who shot to national prominence after the 2020 election when he refused to promulgate Trump’s debunked theory of a stolen election. Happy to take up that drumbeat, though, is Kemp’s challenger David Perdue, a former senator who lost to Jon Ossoff but who has embraced a MAGA-edge in his campaigning to return to office.

Perdue has spent most of his time on the trail pushing for sweeping electoral change, parroting Trump’s debunked talking points about voter fraud and a somehow-stole election. Despite Trump’s endorsement, though, Perdue’s message hasn’t seemed to stick with primary voters, at least not according to recent polling that shows Kemp with a major lead.

Trump-backed “big lie” believers continue down-ballot with Republican secretary of state candidate Rep. Jody Hice, who has said he would look to decertify the last presidential election — an extraordinarily undemocratic move that further highlights the possible ramifications of such candidates taking control of election administration.

Polling puts Hice in a neck-and-neck battle with incumbent Ben Raffensperger, who like Kemp was a popular establishment Republican-turned-enemy of the former president for refusing to act on the 2020 election conspiracy.

Not only are these races a test of Trump’s endorsement, they will also indicate how enthusiastically Georgia GOP voters will embrace the election mistrust that has become central to Trump’s pitch.

Another high-profile race is the GOP Senate primary, with the Trump-approved Herschel Walker leading the pack. Walker — a businessman and college football legend in Georgia — has been press shy, in part perhaps due to his headline-making past, including allegations of violent behavior and his diagnosis with dissociative identity disorder, or D.I.D., a complex mental health condition characterized by some severe and potentially debilitating symptoms.

Walker has denied some of the past allegations of domestic violence, physical threats and stalking; others he claimed not to remember. His campaign referred ABC News to his 2008 memoir, which detailed his D.I.D. diagnosis, and a 2008 interview he did with ABC News in which he discussed its effects on his marriage.

Democrats have two candidates who are likely to sail to victory Tuesday, with Stacey Abrams again up for governor — eyeing a possible rematch with Kemp in November — and Sen. Raphael Warnock up for re-election.

Across state lines in Alabama will see similar primary matchups for governor and an open Senate seat.

The three-way contest for the Senate slot evolved significantly over the campaign cycle: Rep. Mo Brooks earned Trump’s endorsement early in the race, only to have Trump withdraw it two months ago following disagreements over 2020 election claims.

Trump’s rescinded backing could prove consequential as Brooks now trails in the polls behind Katie Britt — a former chief of staff for retiring GOP Sen. Richard Shelby. Businessman Mike Durant was polling ahead of both candidates at certain points during the race but is now behind Britt and Brooks after Brooks saw a final-hour surge in recent voter surveys.

Brooks may still be campaigning off of Trump’s name, however. Campaign mailers obtained by the Alabama Political Reporter feature quotes from Trump during the time he supported Brooks.

Earlier this month, Brooks said he wouldn’t cooperate with the House’s Jan. 6 committee and was subpoenaed shortly thereafter. (He had spoken at the rally earlier on Jan. 6, 2021, before deadly rioting broke out at the U.S. Capitol; he has continued to try to delegitimize the 2020 election results.)

“I wouldn’t help Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney cross the street — I’m definitely not going to help them and their partisan Witch Hunt Committee,” Brooks previously told ABC News. “At this moment in time, right before an Alabama U.S. Senate election, if they want to talk, they’re gonna have to send me a subpoena, which I will fight.”

Brooks’ soon-to-be vacant House seat is a contest between former Trump Assistant Army Secretary Casey Wardynski, endorsed by the House Freedom Caucus, and Madison County Commissioner Dale Strong. Strong has been outraising Wardynski.

Another matchup in Alabama will be between incumbent Republican Gov. Kay Ivey and several primary challengers. That race — previously expected to be won handily by Ivey — has grown more combative after a term where Ivey bent away from some GOP messaging surrounding COVID-19 and gas taxes.

Lindy Blanchard, a former Trump-appointed ambassador running in the primary, called Ivey a “tax-hiking Fauci-loving” liberal in a recent ad. Ivey is also being challenged by the son of former Gov. Fob James — businessman Tim James — as well as former Morgan County Commissioner Stacy Lee George, pastor Dean Odle and others.

In Arkansas, races are shaping up to be somewhat less competitive. Former Trump White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the clear front-runner in a race where she’s eclipsing her competitors in fundraising and also received Trump’s endorsement. She’s up against Doc Washburn, the former host of a radio show in Little Rock.

Trump-backed Sen. John Boozman is on track to be reelected against several primary challenges, including from Army veteran and former NFL player Jake Bequette.

And in Texas, voters will decide more of the their 2022 nominees on Tuesday, determining the results of the runoff elections from the March 1 primaries.

The GOP race for attorney general is between incumbent Ken Paxton and Land Commissioner George W. Bush, a member of the state’s most prominent political family.

Paxton’s vulnerability from scandals — including indictment for securities fraud, FBI investigations into malfeasance and marital infidelity, among others, even as he has denied all allegations — will be tested against the grandson of former President George H.W. Bush and nephew of former President George W. Bush in a party that is more and more anathema to the Bushes’ brand of conservatism.

Tuesday’s sole competitive Democratic race will be in Texas. Progressive Jessica Cisneros, endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., will face nine-term Congressman Henry Cuellar in the run-off election in the 28th district.

Sanders traveled to Texas to stump for Cisneros on Friday in a last-ditch effort to defeat Cuellar, the sole pro-life Democrat in Congress.

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(WASHINGTON) — Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend, she announced Monday.

“I’m experiencing mild symptoms and will be working remotely from home per CDC guidance,” she tweeted. “I am thankful to the @StateDept MED team for taking excellent care of me and all our colleagues around the world during this pandemic.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Sherman were together for a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s deputy minister of defense in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

Blinken, who recently recovered after testing positive for the virus earlier this month, is currently abroad with President Joe Biden in Asia.

It was initially unclear how frequently Sherman is testing, or if she is considered a close contact by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standards to anyone currently in the delegation overseas.

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