Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan says the 2022 midterm elections will be a “fight” for the heart of the Republican Party.
The spread of disputed allegations of fraud in the 2020 election by members of his own party, some of whom are winning endorsements from former President Donald Trump, will ultimately pay the price, Duncan said in a phone interview with the Washington Examiner earlier this week.
“We’re in a fight for our party right now, like other states are, we’re in a fight to make sure and remind our folks here at Georgia, our Republicans, and that this is a center-right state. This is a center-right country,” Duncan said. “We just got to make a few tweaks and adjustments to once again be back in these majority positions.”
TOP GEORGIA OFFICIAL SAYS GOP CANDIDATES’ 2020 SKEPTICISM FUELED BY TRUMP ENDORSEMENT HOPE
Following the 2020 election, Trump’s campaign and allies contested the results in various battleground states he lost, but their efforts were largely rejected by the courts. The situation in Georgia became direr for Republicans after its two Republican incumbent U.S. senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, lost to Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in January runoff contests and gave Democrats the control of the Senate.
Many Republicans who maintain the belief that fraud occurred have pinned their hopes on a partisan audit in Maricopa County, Arizona, and potential copycats in other states to find problems in the election.
Georgia is one of these states where certain Republicans are pushing for additional investigations into the election results. Top officials (Gov. Brian Kemp, Duncan, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger) are all Republicans who defended the state’s election outcome despite pressure from the former president and his supporters.
“I would just encourage people to take up the value of honesty,” Duncan added. “I think there’s such value to honesty in these elections. And the quicker we turn our backs on any sort of conspiracy theories or election fraud was the reasons for the loss, the quicker we take that medicine, the better off we’re going to be. My hope is it begins to really gain momentum here and Republicans not only in Georgia, but all over the country, can move on and start to look for solutions to real problems.”
The former president has not yet weighed in on Kemp’s race, but Vernon Jones, a Republican state representative who switched parties earlier this year and is now running for governor, has repeatedly amplified allegations of election wrongdoing and called for an Arizona-style audit.
Some political commentators in Georgia view Kemp as safe, for now, despite Trump’s promise for revenge and Jones’s campaign that appears to be in lockstep with what Trump is looking for in candidates whom he’d endorse.
There is “a small number [of Georgian Trump supporters] that is really anti-Kemp because of Trump,” while there’s “another small faction that is open to challenging him, but wants a good candidate,” conservative radio host Erick Erickson told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview. The “prevailing consensus really outside of a small group is that Vernon Jones probably isn’t the guy who can beat Kemp,” he added.
Eric Tanenblatt, a top national Republican fundraiser and a principal at the law firm Dentons, also said he believes Kemp will win the primary in a phone interview with the Washington Examiner.
Erickson also said Kemp would benefit in the GOP primary because of the potential for a gubernatorial rematch against Stacey Abrams, a voting reform advocate who for a time was considered to be in the running for President Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020, because Republicans know he is capable of defeating such a high-profile Democrat.
Kemp “is blessed by having Stacey Abrams out there,” Erickson added. “So, you’ve got a lot of people who are, like, why go after Kemp and possibly help Abrams when we can stick it to Raffensperger?”
Trump endorsed Rep. Jody Hice, who is challenging Raffensperger in the primary election. Hice touted his skepticism about the election in his campaign announcement.
Additionally, Sen. Butch Miller, a Republican, is running to succeed Duncan. However, Trump said he won’t be “supporting or endorsing him” because of “his refusal to work with other Republican Senators on voter fraud and irregularities in the State. Hopefully there will be strong and effective primary challengers for the very important Lieutenant Governor position!”
State Sen. Burt Jones, a Republican on the Senate Government Oversight Committee, urged committee Chairman Marty Harbin to call Raffensperger to testify last week about a litany of election-related issues emerging in recent weeks. He is also expected to enter the race for lieutenant governor in the next few weeks, according to a source familiar with the situation.
“I absolutely 100% think [Trump is] going to support Burt. I think the bigger issue is what does he do in the governor’s race — that he hasn’t come out for Vernon and is trying to find someone else to run tells me a great deal about Vernon’s chances,” Erickson said.
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Trump’s influence on the GOP primaries in the lead-up to the midterm elections may not be as powerful as some expect because he’s “not on the ballot,” Tanenblatt said.
Although Trump “still has a lot of support among the base of the Republican Party in the state,” there are “also a lot of Republicans in the state that [hold] President Trump accountable for the fact that Republicans lost two Senate seats that they have had for the last two decades,” he said.
