Perdue won’t challenge Warnock in Senate race

Former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia has decided he will not run against an incumbent Democrat, Sen. Raphael Warnock, in 2022, just a week after Perdue announced he had filed paperwork for a possible new campaign and just days after a visit to former President Donald Trump.

Perdue, 71, a Republican and a former businessman who lost in a January runoff election to the state’s other newly elected senator, Jon Ossoff, said in a statement that he had reached the decision after “much prayer and reflection” with his wife, Bonnie.

Warnock defeated Kelly Loeffler, who was also a Republican incumbent, in January, winning a term that expires in January 2023.

There were conflicting signals from people close to Perdue about how much a 2022 campaign was something he was interested in versus something some of his advisers were pushing.

But the announcement came just days after Perdue made what is becoming a ritualistic trip for Republicans — to Trump’s private club in Florida last Friday. That raised questions among some Republicans about what Trump had said to him during their time together.

The meeting did not go well, people briefed on it said. Trump was focused on retribution, particularly against Sen. Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, and Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican whom Trump views as having betrayed him.