Raffensperger and Kemp Crush Trump-Backed Challengers in Georgia Primaries!

Dear Commons Community,

Former President Donald Trump’s crusade for vengeance suffered two devastating blows after Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger won their primaries yesterday despite rejecting Trump’s entreaties to reverse his 2020 election loss.

It’s a huge warning sign for the way Republican voters view the former president’s crusade to punish those who were not willing to overturn the will of the voters in 2020.

Voters also demonstrated an openness to embracing scandal-plagued candidates — depending on the candidate, and the scandal.

Here are some takeaways from yesterday’s primary elections in Georgia courtesy of the Associated Press.

Trump had hoped to turn  Brian Kemp into an example of the danger in defying him. Instead, Kemp  became an example of how Republican incumbents might not have as much to fear from Trump as the former president would like.

Kemp cruised past former U.S. Sen. David Perdue in the Republican primary. The victory came a year and a half after Kemp rejected Trump’s demands to help overturn the presidential election by declaring Trump the winner in Georgia instead of Joe Biden, who actually won.

Perdue’s campaign fixated on Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, but Kemp won by flexing the power of his office. To rally the base, he signed laws allowing most Georgians to carry guns without a permit and banning most abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. He also announced an investment by Hyundai in a new plant in the state to make batteries for electric vehicles.

Now Kemp will face Democrat Stacey Abrams in a rematch of their 2018 gubernatorial clash. Unlike Trump in 2020, Perdue accepted his defeat last night, even seeming to brush aside some supporters who took up a chant suggesting there was fraud.

“I’m sorry, but what we’re going to do right now is make sure Stacey Abrams is not governor of this state,” Perdue said.

The Georgia governor’s race wasn’t the only Trump grudge match that backfired on the former president. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who personally rejected Trump’s call to “find” enough votes to declare him the winner in Georgia, defeated his Trump-backed primary challenger as well.

Trump recruited U.S. Rep. Jody Hice from a safe congressional seat to face Raffensperger in the Republican primary, but Hice lost. Trump endorsed primary challengers to the insurance commissioner and attorney general, and they, too, lost.

It’s clear the former president’s harping on 2020 simply did not speak to Republican voters in Georgia, the country’s newest battleground state.

“Georgia underscores one of Trump’s big problems if/when he runs again,” Brendan Buck, a former spokesperson for onetime House Speaker Paul Ryan, tweeted Tuesday. “He, of course, won’t be able to let go of the 2020 nonsense, and nobody wants to hear his whining about it anymore.”

Trump has scored some primary victories with election deniers — most significantly last week in Pennsylvania, when Republican voters there chose his preferred gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who said he wouldn’t have certified Biden’s 2020 win of the state.

But multiple Republicans have made clear they’re eyeing 2024 presidential bids, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. And they have distanced themselves in ways large and small from Trump’s election allegations. Elections are usually about the future, and by the time the 2024 GOP primary rolls around, November 2020 will be ancient history.

The country will be in a better place when Trump is ancient history!

Tony

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