Republican voters in Georgia’s primary on Tuesday could move the party — at least temporarily — out from under former President Donald Trump’s shadow.
Gov. Brian Kemp, the Republican whom Trump has targeted over his refusal to embrace the lie that widespread fraud cost the former President the 2020 election, is expected to easily fend off a challenge from Trump-backed former Sen. David Perdue. A Kemp victory would showcase the limits of Trump’s influence in a state that will be home to some of the 2022 midterm election’s most important contests.
“You’re going to have a lot of very strong Trump supporters who are going to vote for Brian Kemp,” said Martha Zoller, a talk radio host in Georgia who previously worked for both Perdue and Kemp.
The problem for Trump — and for the candidates he is backing here — is that in the lead-up to Tuesday’s primary, Georgia Republicans have largely not seemed interested in fighting the former President’s backward-looking battles. And the steady stream of governors hitting the trail with Kemp — plus former Vice President Mike Pence — suggests some in the national GOP aren’t either.
Zoller said when Perdue was considering running for governor, she advised him to find meaningful ways to differentiate himself as a candidate, beyond airing Trump’s grievances. She said she told Perdue that “it couldn’t just be about the 2020 election.” That never happened, and Perdue enters Tuesday’s primary outspent and trailing badly in the polls.
Georgia could offer the clearest indication yet of the limits of Trump’s influence during a stretch of primaries that has underscored the extent to which he remains the center of the Republican Party as most GOP candidates, even those who don’t receive his backing, profess their loyalty to him.
His endorsement has proven decisive in some GOP primaries, such as Ohio’s Senate race, where a late Trump endorsement catapulted venture capitalist and author J.D. Vance to victory. And in West Virginia, his support lifted Rep. Alex Mooney in a race against Rep. David McKinley as the two faced off for a single congressional seat after the state lost one following the 2020 Census.
And his falsehoods about election fraud have paved the way for restrictive new voting laws in states such as Georgia, Florida, Texas and Iowa, and have led to the party nominating candidates such as state Sen. Doug Mastriano, an election denier, for Pennsylvania governor, positioning them to potentially take over the election machinery of key swing states if they win in November.
But Trump has also racked up a series of losses. Flawed candidates, such as the scandal-plagued North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn and Nebraska gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster, who faced allegations of sexual misconduct, have lost despite Trump’s support. In Nebraska, the endorsement of outgoing Gov. Pete Ricketts proved more consequential than Trump’s, with Ricketts’ candidate winning earlier this month.
In Pennsylvania’s Senate primary, the Trump-backed celebrity heart surgeon Mehmet Oz is in a razor-tight race with former hedge fund executive David McCormick, with ballots still being counted and a recount possible.