Primary preview: Will Trump get his revenge on Georgia Republicans?

Primary preview: Will Trump get his revenge on Georgia Republicans?

  • Post author:
  • Post category:News
  • Post comments:0 Comments

Donald Trump’s revenge campaign on Republicans who didn’t help him try to overturn the 2020 presidential election will face perhaps its biggest test Tuesday.

In Georgia’s primaries, Trump-endorsed candidates are challenging Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as they seek reelection. 


What You Need To Know

  • Donald Trump’s revenge campaign on Republicans who didn’t help him try to overturn the 2020 presidential election will face perhaps its biggest test Tuesday
  • In Georgia’s primaries, Trump-endorsed candidates are challenging Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as they seek reelection
  • In Alabama, voters are deciding who will replace retiring longtime U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby
  • Primaries also are being held Tuesday in Arkansas, Texas and Minnesota

Georgia is one of five states holding primaries Tuesday. Here’s a look at the top races in the Peach State as well as in Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Minnesota.

Georgia

Trump has sought to vilify Kemp since the Republican governor certified the presidential election results in 2020. The former president has not only endorsed former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, he recruited him to take on Kemp. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence — who, like Kemp, has found himself in Trump’s wrath for not trying to overturn the election — has endorsed Kemp. That sets up an interesting proxy war between Trump and Pence. Pence might use the race to gauge whether to challenge his former boss in 2024.

According to the polls, Kemp has a decent chance of clearing the 50% mark and avoiding a runoff. A poll by Fox 5 Atlanta and InsiderAdvantage on Monday had the incumbent with 52% support and a 14-point lead over Perdue. Three other Republicans also are seeking the nomination.

The Republican winner will face Democrat Stacey Abrams, a former state House minority leader, in the general election. Abrams, who lost a close gubernatorial race to Kemp four years ago, is unopposed for the Democratic nod. Abrams, a staunch voting rights advocate, is credited with helping to deliver the Peach State to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, the first time since 1992 a Democrat won the state, and building the momentum to send two Democrats to the Senate from Georgia in a January 2021 runoff, swinging control of the chamber.

In the Secretary of State race, Raffensperger is trying to survive challenges from three fellow Republicans, most notably U.S. Rep. Jody Hice.

While Trump spread false claims about election fraud in the weeks after the vote, Raffensperger forcefully pushed back in media interviews and shared stories about threats he and his family received from people motivated by Trump’s lies. Raffensperger famously was on the other end of a January 2021 call with Trump, in which the then president pressed him to “find” the 11,780 votes needed to win the state — a call now under investigation by the Fulton County district attorney.

Trump has endorsed Hice in the race. Hice, who has served four terms in Congress, has promoted Trump’s election lies and voted against certifying the vote.

There also are five Democrats running for secretary of state.

In Georgia’s U.S. Senate race, former NFL star Herschel Walker, a longtime Trump friend, appears as though he will cruise through the GOP primary and face Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock in November.

Despite being accused of threatening to kill his ex-wife, exaggerating his business resume and lying about his education, Walker holds a wide lead in the polls. 

Warnock is facing one challenger Tuesday — business owner and activist Tamara Johnson-Shealey.

In Georgia’s bright-red 14th Congressional District, controversial incumbent Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene faces several Republican challengers. The House stripped Greene of her committee assignments last year, and she has since been banned from Twitter for sharing misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and come under fire for speaking at a conference organized by a white nationalist. 

Greene’s biggest threat appears to be Jennifer Strahan, the owner of a health care consulting company whose campaign has received an infusion of cash from conservative PACs, including one led by Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy. 

In the 7th District, in the Atlanta area, two Democratic incumbents — Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bordeaux — are squaring off. McBath switched districts after Georgia Republicans approved a new congressional map that made her current district harder to win.

Alabama

In Alabama, voters are deciding who will replace retiring longtime U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby.

The polls show a tight three-way race between former Business Council of Alabama President Katie Britt, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and former Army helicopter pilot Michael Durant, whose 1993 capture in Somalia was chronicled in the movie “Black Hawk Down.”

Trump withdrew his endorsement of Brooks after the congressman told a rally crowd to “put (the 2020 election) behind you,” although some observers believe Trump’s decision might have been prompted by Brooks’ plummeting poll numbers at the time. Brooks had helped push Trump’s false election fraud claims by becoming the first member of Congress to say he’d object to the results and by addressing the crowd of Trump supporters just before many of them stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Since Trump dropped his support for him, Brooks’ poll numbers have rebounded. A poll by Alabama Daily News and Gray TV last week had Brooks trailing Britt, a former Shelby chief of staff, 31% to 29%. Durant was in third at 24%.

With no candidate having a clear path to a majority Tuesday, there likely will be a runoff July 26.

Three candidates are vying for the Democratic nomination in the race.

In Alabama’s gubernatorial race, Republican incumbent Kay Ivey has found herself defending her conservative credentials. GOP challengers have attacked Ivey for not allowing Trump to hold a rally aboard a historic battleship, for issuing a mask mandate in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, for urging residents to get vaccinated against the virus and for allowing an LGBTQ-affirming charter school. She has countered by promoting Trump’s stolen-election claims and stressing her stands against abortion and for gun rights.

Ivey’s GOP opponents include Trump’s former ambassador to Slovenia, Lindy Blanchard, and businessman Tim James, whose father, Fob, was the state’s governor from 1995-99.

Ivey is up comfortably in the polls, but they’ve been mixed on whether she might clear the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff.

Six Democrats are running for governor. An Emerson College/The Hill poll last week had retired rehabilitation specialist Yolanda Flowers in the lead with 29% support — 22 percentage points higher than anyone else — but nearly half of those polled said they were undecided.

Arkansas

There appears to be little drama in Arkansas’ major primaries Tuesday.

In the race to replace term-limited Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders holds a commanding lead in the polls for the Republican nomination. The daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sanders had support from 72.5% of likely GOP primary voters, according to poll earlier this month by Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College.

Trump endorsed Sanders shortly after she announced her candidacy.

She is expected to face Democrat Chris Jones in the general election. Jones, a former executive director of the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub, also has a wide lead in the polls.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. John Boozman is facing three challengers in the Republican primary, including former New England Patriots player Jake Bequette and journalist-turned-activist Jan Morgan. Boozman held a 26-point lead over the second-place Bequette in the latest Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College poll. 

Three hopefuls are seeking the Democratic nomination, but nearly two-thirds of surveyed Democrats were still undecided earlier this month.

Texas

Voters in Texas, which on March 1 was the first state to hold its primaries, are headed to the polls to decide runoffs. 

The race for the Republican nomination for secretary of state pits embattled incumbent Ken Paxton against state Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

Bush, the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, finished 20 percentage points behind Paxton in the four-way primary. Bush has been trying to gain ground — one recent poll had him down six points — by attacking Paxton’s integrity. Paxton is the subject of an FBI corruption investigation and was indicted on security fraud charges in 2015 that still have not gone to trial. He has denied wrongdoing.

Bush sought Trump’s endorsement, but the former president threw his support instead behind Paxton, who led a lawsuit contesting the 2020 presidential election results that the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately rejected.

In the 28th Congressional District, in southern Texas, nine-term incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar is trying to fend off a challenge from 28-year-old immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros in the Democratic primary.

Cisneros and other progressives have sought to call attention to Cuellar’s anti-abortion views, with the runoff coming about three weeks after a Supreme Court draft opinion leaked showing the justices might soon overturn Roe v. Wade.

In January, the FBI raided Cuellar’s home and campaign office. Cuellar has denied wrongdoing, and his attorney said the congressman is not the target of a federal investigation.

Cuellar received 49% of the vote in March, while Cisneros had 47%. The two also faced each other in a close race in 2020.

Minnesota

Minnesota’s regularly scheduled primaries are not until August, but the state’s 1st Congressional District is holding a special election primary Tuesday to fill the seat of Republican Jim Hagedorn, who died in February after battling cancer. 

Hagedorn’s widow, Jennifer Carnahan, is among 10 candidates running for the GOP nomination. She resigned under pressure as state party chair last year after a close associate and top donor was indicted on child sex trafficking charges. 

Carnahan also was caught on a recording speaking callously of her husband before his death. “I don’t care,” she said. “Jim, he’s going to die of cancer in two years,” she can he heard saying. “So be it.”

Carnahan later said the comments were made “in grief” and “it’s absolutely regrettable.”

Other Republicans in the field include state Rep. Jeremy Munson and former U.S. Agriculture Department official Brad Finstad. 

Democratic hopefuls include former Hormel Foods CEO Jeffrey Ettinger and University of Minnesota law professor Richard Painter, who was a White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush.

Leave a Reply