Primary elections live updates: Latest on South Carolina, Maine, Nevada races
Primary elections live updates: Latest on South Carolina, Maine, Nevada races The Washington Post
Welcome to special coverage of primary elections in Maine, Nevada, South Carolina and North Dakota and a special congressional election in Texas from Post Poltics Now.
Today, voters are heading to the polls in four more states, including in South Carolina, which poses the latest test of former president Donald Trump’s influence on the Republican Party. Trump is backing GOP primary opponents of two Republican incumbent members of Congress — Reps. Tom Rice and Nancy Mace — who did not back his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Trump is also playing in other GOP primaries Tuesday, including races for governor and U.S. senator in Nevada, where Democrats currently hold both seats. Meanwhile, Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) is facing a challenger from her left, Amy Vilela, a former state co-chair for the 2020 presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Here’s what to know
Walker’s profile rises along with the falsehoods he’s told
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week reported on past speeches Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker made in which he claimed to have worked for law enforcement and as an FBI agent.
“I worked for law enforcement, y’all didn’t know that either?” he said in 2019. “I spent time at Quantico at the FBI training school. Y’all didn’t know I was an agent?”
The problem with these anecdotes? They aren’t factual. According to reporting by our colleague Timothy Bella, a spokesman for the Cobb County Police Department — with which Walker claimed to work — says there is no record of the former football player working with the department.
A campaign spokeswoman told the Atlanta newspaper that Walker had led “women’s self-defense training, participating in the FBI Academy at Quantico” and also held the title of “honorary deputy” in Cobb County.The title of “honorary deputy” holds no power at all and is seen as a “political token” for people supportive of the sheriff who might want to get out of a traffic ticket, former DeKalb County district attorney J. Tom Morgan told The Post. Morgan is a Democrat.“It absolutely means nothing,” he said. “It’s the equivalent of a junior ranger badge.”
These are the latest in a string of falsehoods that have been uncovered about the candidate backed by former president Donald Trump. Others include Walker’s claim that he finished his degree at the University of Georgia after going pro in the NFL, which, according to the Journal-Constitution, Walker acknowledged did not happen.
He also said in a 2020 podcast interview that he was promoting a “mist” that would “kill any covid on your body,” even though there is no known spray that can prevent covid-19.
Read more on Walker’s mounting pile of falsehoods here.
