In the aftermath of the defeat of GOP U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, Republicans are 1) talking about who will oppose Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, up for re-election in 2022, and 2) wondering about the candidate that former President Donald Trump would endorse and promote to defeat Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary.
Furthermore, the former president and other Republicans are encouraging primary opponents against Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
It is no secret that University of Georgia football legend and Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker, a proud Georgia native, is being urged by Trump and many other Georgians to return home to run against Warnock. And as InsiderAdvantage reported last month, he is looking to establish residency in the Atlanta area.
At the same time, various sources inform InsiderAdvantage that former Senator Perdue is seriously considering a run for the Republican gubernatorial nomination next year against incumbent Kemp. They say the topic has come up in conversations between the former president and Perdue. (It should be pointed out that, last November 3rd, Perdue actually outpolled his Democratic opponent Jon Ossof statewide. It was only in the January 5th runoff that Perdue was narrowly defeated by Ossoff due to a GOP voter drop off.
Fmr. U.S. Sen. David Perdue
Make no mistake, Trump is deeply involved in 2022 Georgia GOP primary politics. He wants Kemp defeated for the party’s gubernatorial nomination, feeling that he was betrayed by the governor last year and believing that another GOP nominee could defeat probable Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams.
As for lieutenant governor, incumbent Duncan has surprisingly taken stridently anti-Trump positions and has been feuding with his GOP state Senate caucus of late. A Trump-backed political action committee called “Dunk Duncan” will be announced soon. And could state Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, be mulling a race for lieutenant governor with Trump’s blessing? In any event, Trump and his influential Georgia allies will be looking to recruit a primary candidate against Duncan. Republican activist Jeanne Seaver is the first candidate to throw her name into the primary ring.
Yet it is Secretary of State of State Raffensperger who is particularly in hot water with the GOP base. He is condemned by most Republicans of all stripes for approving a legal settlement last March that weakened the signature verification requirements for mail-in absentee ballots, as well as for weakness and ineptness regarding efforts to expose and crack down on vote fraud. Leading Republicans are vocal about knocking Raffensperger out in a primary, and Trump is said to favor U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, R-Greensboro, getting into the race. Also, former Alpharetta Mayor David Belle Isle is announcing today that he will run.
With Trump’s popularity sky-high among Georgia Republicans according to a recent InsiderAdvantage/Trafalgar Group poll, it interesting that some big announcement from the Trump camp relating to Georgia could come as early as today.
Another measure of the former president’s popularity with the GOP base will be whether staunchly pro-Trump state GOP Chairman David Shafer will be re-elected at the party’s state convention in June. Shafer will have the blessing of the former president, and should have the edge among the delegates to remain in his post.
