Political outsider and retired Army Brigadier Gen. Don Bolduc was the projected winner of New Hampshire’s Tuesday Senate Republican primary around 11:20 p.m. with about 50 percent of the vote reporting.

Gen. Bolduc was projected to win the highly contested primary with 38 percent of the total vote counted. State Senate President Chuck Morse appears to have come in second with 34 percent.

Gen. Bolduc, who served ten tours of Afghanistan, will now likely face embattled Democrat Maggie Hassan (D-NH) on November 8 in a swing state election that could determine which party controls the Senate.

During the primary, Gen. Bolduc overcame challenger Morse, who was dubbed Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) “handpicked candidate.” Endorsed by establishment Gov. Chris Sununu (R), Morse lost despite being backed by more than $4 million in ad spending from the Washington, DC, establishment uniparty.

According to AdImpact, about $33 million was spent in total on advertising for the swing Senate seat in New Hampshire. “The influx includes $13 million from Ms. Hassan and Democratic super PACs aimed at shoring up her image,” the New York Times reported.

In the days leading up to the GOP primary election, former President Donald Trump reportedly had lunch with Morse to consider endorsing him. But Trump never weighed in on the race, as Bolduc mounted a 21-point lead over Morse.

“He said some great things, strong guy, tough guy,” Trump reportedly said of Gen. Bolduc. “I think he’s doing very well, too. I hear he’s up, he’s up quite a bit.”

Radical Democrat Hassan, who was thanked in a newspaper ad last week for keeping the southern border open to invasion, is an endangered Democrat seeking her second Senate term.

Throughout New Hampshire, Hassan has had a difficult time differentiating her immigration policies from the Biden administration. Hassan claimed over the weekend to oppose the Biden administration’s open border policies but has ignored its “catch and release” policy.

In May, more migrants illegally crossed the southern border than in any other month in the Department of Homeland Security’s history, according to the Republican National Committee’s research team. Many of those migrants were apprehended at the border and later released into the interior based on Biden’s “catch and release” policy.

The November 8 general election will be a toss-up race between Hassan and Bolduc.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.