“You will have very strong Trump supporters who will vote for Brian Kemp,” said Martha Zohler, a Georgia radio presenter who previously worked for both Perdue and Kemp.
Zoller said that when Purdue was considering running for governor, she advised him to find meaningful ways to differentiate himself as a candidate, in addition to broadcasting Trump’s complaints. She said she had told Perdue that “it can’t just be the 2020 elections.” This never happened and Perdue entered the primary cost on Tuesday and lagged badly in the polls.
Georgia can offer the clearest indication so far of the limits of Trump’s influence during the primary, which underscores the extent to which he remains the center of the Republican Party, as most Republican candidates, even those who do not receive his support, profess their loyalty to him.
His approval proved crucial in some Republican primary elections, such as the Ohio Senate race, where Trump’s late approval catapulted the venture capitalist and author JD Vance to victory. And in West Virginia, he was backed by Alex Mooney’s representative in the race against MP David McKinley as the two rose to one seat in Congress after the state lost one after the 2020 census. And his lies about election fraud paved the way for restrictive new laws. to vote in states such as Georgia, Florida, Texas and Iowa, and led the party to nominate candidates as senator from Sen. Doug Magriano, who is running for office, as governor of Pennsylvania, positioning them to potentially take over a machine from key swinging states if they win in November. But Trump also suffered a series of losses. Insufficient candidates, such as the infamous North Carolina representative Madison Cotorne and Nebraska Gov. Charles Herbster, who faced sexual misconduct charges, lost despite Trump’s support. In Nebraska, the approval of outgoing Gov. Pete Ricketts has been more consistent than that of Trump, with the Ricketts candidate winning earlier this month. In the Pennsylvania Senate primary, Trump-backed celebrity Mehmet Oz is in a tough race with former hedge fund chief executive David McCormick, with ballots still being counted and a recount possible.
Peach’s power struggle
In recent years, Georgia has emerged as one of the nation’s most important political battlefields. Demographic change has turned what has long been a reliable red state into a competitive one. The Democrats’ two Senate run-off victories in January 2021 gave the party full control of Congress.
That’s also zero in Trump’s vendetta against Republicans who did not support his election fraud lies. Trump helped clear and clear the field for Purdue, the former senator who lost in one of those run-offs last year. He also backs Republican Secretary of State Jody Hayes in his attempt to oust Republican Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger, who became a national figure after Trump’s phone call in early January 2021, urging him to “find” enough votes to change the results. of Georgia and to hold its 16 elections. college voted for Trump.
But not all voters are interested in re-contesting this election.
“I wish he would not run in our election,” said Chuck Horton, a retired police officer and commissioner from Oakouney County, after a rally at Kemp on Saturday. “I voted for him in 2020. There is no option on the other side. But I think he’s wrong. I don’t think the election was stolen and he doesn’t support the right person. ”
Georgia is scheduled for a series of races in November. Democrat Sen. Rafael Warnock is facing an election for a full six-year term and is likely to face Trump-backed former football star Herschel Walker, who is preferred to win the Republican primary on Tuesday. In the race for governor, the Democrats will nominate Stacy Abrams, who is running without resistance, for the second time in a row after her narrow loss to Kemp in 2018.
Some Republican voters say they would rather stick to the governor who won this upcoming election in 2018 than follow a former president who they say is at least partly responsible for the party’s losses in Georgia in 2020. Some have cited constant criticism. of Trump to the ballot papers in the mail, claiming that he damaged his own chances and suppressed Republican turnout in the Senate runoff.
“I don’t think we would be in this mess with our senators and representatives if he had done one thing: if he had stayed out of his Twitter for three days out of seven – just stay away – then he wouldn’t have alienated his own supporters because of things. “We were looking for 11,000 votes,” said Eddie Drinkard, a land broker in Okoni County, referring to President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory margin. “But he didn’t have enough sense to do that.”
Kemp positioned for victory on Tuesday, carefully avoiding any criticism of Trump on political issues and making sure he doesn’t say anything that would anger Trump’s loyalists.
He was joined in his campaign by a raft of Republican governors, including Arizona’s Doug Ducey, Ricketts and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Pence will appear with Kemp at an election rally on Monday.
Shutting down his campaign, Kemp argued that he was the strongest alternative to Abrams and the one around whom Republican voters would unite after the race narrowed to a head-to-head election.
“I think Stacey Abrams is a great unifier. “I think every Republican in Georgia will be united after Tuesday,” Kemp told reporters Saturday afternoon.
Kemp and his supporters spent more than $ 12 million on television commercials targeting Tuesday’s primary election, nearly doubling Perdue’s side.
Elections for more than 2020
In a sense, Kemp’s actions more accurately reflect the views of today’s Republican electorate: in April 2020, he hurried to reopen the country during the Covid-19 pandemic, a position widely attacked at the time by public health experts and even from Trump, who said, “I think it’s too early.”
Although he dismissed Trump’s lies about election fraud, he also signed a new restrictive voting measure passed by Georgia’s legislature last year, which imposed new restrictions on mailing ballots, a ban on offering food and water to people, waiting in line to vote, etc. This law will be tested for the first time this year.
Kemp, meanwhile, used the power of his service to punish opponents through the redeployment process, and his allies’ insistence on Purdue’s cousin, former Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue, to run the state’s higher education system split and remove parts of the political system. Purdue family infrastructure.
Supporters of Kemp argue that Trump’s criticism of Kemp ignores the reality that the governor has pursued conservative policies despite the state’s shift to the left.
“These comments are actually about him, not the governor,” said Carol Williams, a real estate agent in Athens. “I think the former president has no skin in the game in Georgia. He does not understand what is best for our country. We stayed open. We did the right thing here in this Covid. His approvals need to stay longer, so in Florida. “
Meanwhile, Perdue has built his entire campaign around the lie that Republican losses in 2020 are the result of fraud.
“I’m not sure his heart was all in it,” said Soller, the current radio host. “I think Senator Purdue is basically running for office because he was angry about the loss in 2020 than what he could have done as governor.
Sarah Palin, a former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008 who is now running for Congress, joined Perdue during Friday’s election campaign.
“Kemp had the opportunity to do something about the fraud that happened in this last election. I don’t know why he was so hesitant, why, you know, he just agreed to agree, and that’s unfortunate. And we can count on David Purdue to do the opposite, “Palin said at a rally in Savannah.
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