This Tuesday is the turn of Alabama, Arkansas and up to two ballots of Texasbut the focus is on Georgiaa state that has become the epicenter of Trump’s disinformation campaigns and where the stakes are high in November.
After the Democrats won there in 2020, a Republican victory might win them back one of the senators, which would have a strong impact on a Biden presidency.
But in Georgia, Trump has a particular unfinished business with Governor Brian Kemp (also with the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger), whom he has not forgiven for fulfilling his legal duty to certify the result that gave Joe Biden the winner.
Trump’s desire for revenge led him to personally recruit Kemp’s opponent, former Sen. David Perdue, who has made the 2020 voter fraud lie a central part of his effort.
The former president has also been very committed to the campaign. not only participating in rallies but, as reported Political, putting money. His PAC and other close groups have paid for Perdue’s pro-Perdue TV ads.
Thus, this strong involvement can make Georgia the clearest example of Trump’s limits when it comes to “making kings” and transferring his popularity to the candidates of his convenience and the power of resistance of the most traditional sectors of the party.
Pence faces Trump in Georgia
In this pulse, it is notable that whoever was Trump’s second, former Vice President Mike Pence, sided with Kemp, in what is seen as the greatest gesture of rupture with his former boss, who failed to convince him to launch a maneuver parliamentary to ignore the result of the 2020 elections.
Pence joined other Republican leaders, such as Arizona Governor Doug Ducey; Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts; and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the latter of whom was a member of the Trump campaign team. All have visited Georgia in recent days to help Kemp once morest the former president’s vindictive campaign.
A poll published last week by Fox News gives Kemp a 32-point lead (60-28), a dramatic advance from 50-39 in March.
In fact, the more his “Trumpism” has radicalized, the worse Perdue has done in polls and in collections, who lost his seat in the federal Senate at the hands of Democrat Jon Ossoff in the second round in January 2021.
This is why Kemp is confident that Republican voters will choose him to once once more be the rival of Stacey Abrams, whom he already beat in a controversial election in 2018 whose results the Democrat technically did not recognize.
The unusual importance of the primary for Secretary of State in Georgia
Trump’s quest for revenge extends to Kemp’s deputy, the secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump came to call “enemy of the people” for not helping him make up the result of the 2020 elections.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because I won in the state. I just need 11,000 votes, guys, I need 11,000 votes, give me a break (…). There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, they’ve recalculated it,” Trump is heard saying on the recording.
Faced with the refusal of the Secretary of State, the former president goes so far as to affirm that what they were doing was a crime and that it would have consequences.
The official, who limited himself to applying the law, now faces a tough rival in the representative jody i didof course, another promoter of the electoral fraud lie.
Herschel Walker: soccer star with a past of sexist violence and Trump’s candidate for the Senate
Probably more important at the national level is the primary for the Senate seat he occupies Raphael Warnock since he won it in the second round in January 2021 to the Republican Kelly Loeffler.
If the Republicans were able to wrest him away from the Democrats, they would take a giant step towards achieving a majority in the Upper House, with the enormous influence that this would generate in national politics: it might virtually derail Biden’s already very battered legislative agenda.
But, and it is not a minor but, Trump’s candidate is the legend of American football Herschel Walkerwho seems to have everything in his favor to get the nomination despite the fact that not a few Republican leaders consider him a huge risk if not an assured defeat in November once morest Warnock.
In addition to his poor communication skills and apparent political inconsistencies, Walker has been accused of threatening to kill his ex-wife, exaggerating his business history and lying regarding graduating from the University of Georgia.
Marjorie Taylor Green tests voters’ tolerance
In Georgia, the representative also has an appointment with the primaries Marjorie Taylor Greenewhose passage through the polls is always a way of testing voters’ tolerance for controversy: last year she was stripped of her assignments in Congress for her racist comments.
Greene, a newcomer to politics, with incendiary rhetoric and much given to conspiracy theories, reaches the primaries despite the fact that a group of voters tried to veto her for alleged involvement in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
And he does so, moreover, without the favor of his party’s apparatus, which did not sit well with his participation in a conference of white supremacists.
Abrams to fish in rough river
Meanwhile, in all this troubled river that the Republican Party has become in this pre-Trump post-rumpism, Stacey Abrams hopes to fish, for whom everything is very different this time.
In contrast to 2018, Abrams has no rival in the Democratic primary and is no longer a virtual unknown: no one disputes that his work once morest voter suppression in his state laid the foundation for Biden’s victory in the presidential elections.
The polls, which put Abrams behind both Kemp and Perdue, speak of a very close race.
If his rival is the governor in November, we would have a revalidation of the 2018 election, in which Abrams suffered a narrow defeat (1.4 points) whose legitimacy he did not recognize. He accused Kemp, who remained secretary of state (highest electoral authority) while he was a candidate, of serious irregularities.
In any case, Abrams will arrive in November with two not insignificant points in her favor: the division in the Republican Party and that she is now a well-known face among voters, even her rivals consider her a “rock star” of politics on an international level.
In addition to Georgia, this Tuesday there are elections in Alabama, Arkansas, Minnesota and two important ballots in Texas, which held the first primary of 2022 in March, leaving two pending definitions.
One set involves the Bush family dynasty: Republican George P. Bush, son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, is running once morest Paxton for the attorney general job. Paxton is the favorite because of the support he has both from the party, as well as from Governor Gregg Abbott and former President Trump.
Among Texas Democrats, Rep. Henry Cuellar’s candidacy for a 10th term hinges on how he fares once morest Jessica Cisneros, a 28-year-old immigration attorney. The revival of the abortion issue following the leak of a draft Supreme Court decision might damage the aspirations of Cuellar, one of the few anti-abortion Democrats in Congress.
The Democratic leadership supports Cuéllar, who did not reach the 50% threshold to avoid this second round.
