Ga. voters decide on Trump’s pick
Recruited ex-senator may be no match for incumbent governor
ATLANTA — Former President Donald Trump hoped to avoid a stinging defeat in the Georgia governor’s race Tuesday as Republican primary voters decided the fate of his handpicked candidate to lead one of the most competitive political battlegrounds in the country.
In all, five states were voting, including Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Minnesota. But none had been more consumed than Georgia by Trump and his lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
After incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp refused to accept Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in Georgia, the former president recruited former Republican Sen. David Perdue to mount a primary challenge. But Kemp emerged as a powerful fundraiser who tapped into the benefits of incumbency. In the final days of the campaign, he unveiled plans for a $5.5 billion Hyundai Motor plant near Savannah.
Perdue’s allies were bracing for a lopsided defeat, the only question being whether Kemp would win the 50% majority he needed to avoid a runoff election .
“We’re not going to have a runoff,” said Matha Zoller, a longtime Republican activist and northeast Georgia talk show host with ties to Trump and Perdue.
The results could raise questions about where power resides within the GOP. While Trump remains popular among the party’s most loyal voters, the opening stage of the midterm primary season has shown they don’t always side with
his picks.
Other prominent Republicans, meanwhile, are growing increasingly assertive.
Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, rallied with Kemp on Monday in suburban Atlanta. Trump, meanwhile, held a telephone rally for Perdue, describing him as “100% MAGA.”
As Brody Nelson voted Tuesday in the Atlanta suburb of Woodstock, he said Trump’s influence was a “big deal” in his decision to back Perdue.
“When Trump was in office, he did a lot for this country, and he did a great deal to help small businesses and the people who were struggling in the world compared to the rich and the powerful,” Nelson, 19, said.
But Nathan Johnston, a 42-year-old land surveyor, said he was voting for Kemp
because of his leadership during “a tough four years.”
Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats elsewhere were grappling with ideological and strategic divisions that will determine what kind of candidates to nominate and which issues to prioritize for the November general election.
Democrats were especially focused on a runoff election in South Texas, where longtime incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar was facing a challenge from progressive Jessica Cisneros in a race where abortion was a prominent issue.
Cuellar is the last anti-abortion Democrat serving in the House.
Republicans were deciding a series of lower-profile primaries.
In Arkansas, former Trump aide Sarah Huckabee
Sanders was expected to claim the Republican governor’s nomination. And in Alabama, conservative firebrand Rep. Mo Brooks was running to represent the GOP in the race to replace retiring Sen. Richard Shelby. Brooks, a leading figure at the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, initially won Trump’s endorsement, although Trump later rescinded it.
No state had more consequential elections this week than Georgia, a longtime Republican stronghold that has shifted Democratic in recent elections. Biden defeated Trump in Georgia by less than 12,000 votes in 2020, and Democrats narrowly won both Senate seats two months later.
This year, Trump’s obsession with his 2020 loss has loomed over GOP primary elections for governor, Senate and secretary of state.
Trump-backed former NFL star Herschel Walker was poised to win Georgia’s GOP Senate nomination after fending off conservative opponents who raised questions about his history of domestic violence. Walker would face the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Raphael Warnock, this fall.
Leading Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was also expected to win her primary election in the state’s 14th congressional district, despite a first term notable for her conspiracy theories and controversy.
On the Democratic side in Georgia, two congressional incumbents, Reps. Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bourdeaux, were running against each other in suburban Atlanta, forced into a rare incumbent-on-incumbent primary after Republicans re-drew the congressional map.
Meanwhile, the Georgia Republican primary for governor — and the GOP’s secretary of state contest — will have a direct impact on Georgia’s election system for the 2024 presidential contest.
In the GOP primary for secretary of state, Trump has railed against GOP incumbent Brad Raffensperger, who refused to support the former president’s direct calls to overturn the 2020 election. Raffensperger faces three primary challengers, including Trumpbacked Rep. Jody Hice.
The winner will serve as Georgia’s chief election officer in the 2024 presidential election.