Trump’s failure against responsible GOP officials is encouraging

Former President Donald Trump chalked up some victories in Tuesday’s primaries, but he suffered a trio of defeats where it most mattered: Georgia, epicenter of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Three Republicans on whom Mr. Trump had declared war for refusing to do his vote-fixing dirty work — Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr — all cruised to victory, trouncing Trumpbacked challengers who had endorsed Mr. Trump’s election fraud lies.

Given the heavy emphasis Mr. Trump’s ploys played in these campaigns, Georgia Republicans have spoken loud and clear about their abhorrence of election manipulation. They have done Republicans elsewhere a huge favor by showing them it’s OK to stand up for what’s right while still being loyal to the party.

Mr. Trump narrowly lost Georgia to Mr. Biden in November 2020. His subsequent efforts to get Georgia’s Republican leaders to overturn the results was in itself justification for impeachment and, arguably, criminal charges. Most infamously, Mr. Trump — then a sitting president, remember — personally called Mr. Raffensperger, Georgia’s top election official and a member of the president’s party, to pressure him into committing fraud.

“All I want to do is this,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Raffensperger in the recorded call: “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” one more than Mr. Biden’s margin of victory in the state. “There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated.” This was a blatant attempted overthrow of democracy, and Mr. Raffensperger’s refusal to yield should make him a political hero to both parties.

But Mr. Trump villainized him for it and backed one of his challengers, U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, who was among House members who objected to the valid election results on Jan. 6, 2021, and who backed Mr. Trump’s lies. Mr. Raffensperger on Tuesday beat Mr. Hice by almost 20 percentage points.

Mr. Kemp won an even wider margin over former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, another backer of Mr. Trump’s lies who garnered Trump’s support for it. Ditto with Carr, who easily beat back a challenge from Trumpbacked attorney John Gordon, whose campaign was almost entirely about promoting Trumpian conspiracy theories.

Georgia’s experience should spur Republicans of conscience to coalesce around serious candidates who are courageous enough to reject Mr. Trump’s fantasies.