This marked the first primary debate between Purdue, whose most prominent supporter is former President Donald Trump, and Kemp, whom the former president says betrayed him because he refused to help him undo his 2020 defeat and whom he he set out to dethrone.
Although there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in any state during the 2020 election, Perdue returns to the topic – the central theme of his campaign – several times during the one-hour debate and argues that Kemp did not has done enough to challenge the election results.
Perdue was defeated by Democrat John Osoff in the Georgia Senate election, and Democrat Raphael Warnock won the special election for second place in the state Senate, giving Democrats a majority in the House. Their victory in the January 2021 runoff, combined with President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in Peach State, has made Georgia central to Republican efforts to challenge the election.
Trump has backed and vigorously backed Perdue in an attempt to return to Kemp for refusing to help undo his defeat in 2020.
Kemp said in response to Perdue’s line of attack on Sunday that he had no power to challenge the election results and had repeatedly fired on Perdue’s loss to Ossoff. “I was secretary of state for eight years and I don’t need to be lectured by someone who lost their last election,” he said. The governor of Georgia also defended himself as best positioned to defeat Democrat Stacey Abrams in November, promising to make sure she “is never your governor and your next president.”
“There is only one person who has defeated Stacey Abrams, and that is me,” Kemp said, referring to his first campaign for governor in 2018, when Abrams won with difficulty. But Perdue remained focused on reconsidering Kemp’s conduct in the 2020 election.
“The only reason I’m not in the United States Senate is because you backed down and gave the election to Stacey and the Liberal Democrats in 2020,” he said.
Purdue accused Kemp of shifting the blame onto others, saying it made him a “weak” leader. Kemp immediately responded to the attack.
“Weak leaders blame everyone else for their own losses, instead of blaming themselves,” he said.
Speaking to CNN after the debate, Purdue said he had revealed a “weak manager”. Kemp, meanwhile, declined to answer CNN’s questions when he left the debate site at the WSB-TV studio in downtown Atlanta.
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