Georgia election results: Trump foe Brian Kemp wins primary as Herschel Walker secures GOP Senate nom
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Your support makes all the difference.Key primaries in several US states today saw high-profile Republican candidates facing off against each other and in some cases trying to triumph over rivals endorsed by Donald Trump.
In Georgia, incumbent Governor Brian Kemp won a decisive victory over his main challenger, Trump endorsee David Perdue, whose campaign failed to catch fire despite the ex-president’s interventions. Mr Trump’s former deputy, Mike Pence, campaigned for Mr Kemp.
The state’s GOP senate primary saw the nomination of controversial ex-footballer Herschel Walker, a very popular grassroots figure coaxed into the race by Trump himself whose sometimes erratic behaviour, business dealings and history of personal problems have left some Republicans worried about his general election chances.
And in Alabama, Congressman Mo Brooks hopes to make a comeback in the Republican senate race despite having lost Mr Trump’s endorsement earlier this year. At the time he was sinking in the polls, and also called on his supporters to start “moving on” from the 2020 election, thus provoking Mr Trump’s disdain.
Five things to watch in the Georgia, Texas and Alabama primaries
Anti-abortion Democrat Henry Cuellar primary race is too close to call against progressive challenger
Ken Paxton beats George P Bush in Texas attorney general’s race
Brian Kemp staves off Trump’s effort to oust him in Georgia
Trump-backed Herschel Walker wins Republican nomination for US Senate in Georgia
Is Brian Kemp’s likely victory the start of a turn against Trump?
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp looks set to survive his challenge from Trump-backed ex-senator David Perdue – and if he does, it will be with the help of none other than Mike Pence, who has been steadily cultivating a personal image of integrity by defending his decision not to try and overturn the 2020 election in Congress.
For some, the two men’s apparently successful link-up raises the prospect that Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican Party might not be quite as tight as it once seemed.
As The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes described it on MSNBC last night: “You have the party rallying around a very conservative Republican governor who is in no way a RINO, but has been targeted specifically and really solely because of his refusal to go along with the Big Lie. So this is a pure referendum on Donald Trump’s most important obsession, and he’s going to lose badly in a crucial state.”
Watch his remarks below.
Pence to North Carolina
Fresh off his appearance with Georgia’s Brian Kemp, a Trump target who looks set to survive, Mike Pence is continuing his campaign roadshow by stumping for North Carolina’s Tedd Budd, the GOP nominee for the state’s open Senate seat.
Unlike Mr Kemp, Mr Budd had Mr Trump’s backing over former governor Pat McCrory. The seat is crucial to Republicans’ efforts to retake the Senate.
Trump-backed Ted Budd beats former governor McCrory in North Carolina Senate primary
Victory was clean show of Trump’s power in Tar Heel State
Marjorie Taylor Greene set to hang on as challengers make little headway
Far-right Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the highest-profile Republicans facing a primary today, but her race has gotten little attention. That’s partly because none of her five challengers is particularly well known, but more because her incredible fundraising power (she’s raked in $9.2m this cycle) makes her the envy of candidates across the country.
Here’s a write-up of the race, such as it is, courtesy of The Hill.
Trump offers Perdue last-minute boost
As turnout in Georgia’s primary reportedly runs high, Donald Trump has blasted out an email reiterating his endorsement of David Perdue, whom the polls say is set to lose heavily in his challenge to incumbent Brian Kemp.
Here’s the former president’s message:
David Perdue is a Conservative fighter who isn’t afraid of the Radical Left, and is the only candidate in Georgia who can beat Stacey “The Hoax” Abrams in November. Brian Kemp has failed Georgia. He caved to Stacey Abrams before the 2020 Election and allowed massive Election Fraud to take place. The signing of the Stacey Abrams-backed Consent Decree, so stupidly giving her and the Democrats everything they wanted, was a monumental mistake for not only Georgia, but also for our Nation!
Kemp has been a very weak Governor—the liberals and RINOs have run all over him on Election Integrity, and more. Most importantly, he can’t win because the MAGA base—which is enormous—will never vote for him. We need strong leaders who will fight, and time is running out! David Perdue will eliminate the Income Tax, secure the Elections, defend the Second Amendment, support our great Farmers, get crime in Atlanta and other places under control, take care of our great Vets, and put parents back in charge of the schools.
David Perdue and Herschel Walker (who I have already strongly endorsed) will make an unstoppable team for Georgia. Trump supporters will turn out to vote for these great leaders in big numbers. David Perdue has my Complete and Total Endorsement. He will not let you down!
Herschel Walker says he’s never heard Trump say the election was stolen
Herschel Walker looks set to be the Republican nominee to take on Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock in November, but many Republicans are worried about his habit of making odd statements in public that scramble his own and his party’s campaign narrative.
Among those is this resurfaced clip in which Mr Walker claims he has never heard Donald Trump say the 2020 election was stolen – the entire basis for the ex-president’s endorsement of David Perdue in the simultaneous governor’s race.
Analysis: Democrats row in public in Texas, Georgia and beyond
The Republican primaries in Alabama and Georgia are getting most of today’s attention, but as Eric Garcia writes, what’s going on on the Democratic side deserves attention too. Incumbent members of Congress are duking it out for the chance to represent redrawn districts, and simmering resentments over the non-passage of Joe Biden’s Build Back Better legislation are spilling over into public rows.
Read his full analysis below.
Democrats turn on each other in primaries as Build Back Better acrimony lingers
Incumbent Democrats are fighting it out in redrawn districts as rows over immigration, abortion and the Biden agenda increasingly play out in the open
ICYMI: Georgia is test for Donald Trump, one he may fail
Georgia’s primary elections represent a dual test for Donald Trump: On one hand, he is hoping to see Herschel Walker, his favoured US Senate candidate, prevail in the primary election to determine who will challenge Raphael Warnock in November.
On the other hand, he is also hoping for a victory by David Perdue in the governor’s race, an outcome that has grown increasingly unlikely as the Trump-endorsed candidate has slipped further behind incumbent Gov Brian Kemp in the polls.
As a result, Tuesday could be the first major example of Donald Trump failing to oust a state-level GOP official who broke with him during his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
ICYMI: Meet Herschel Walker, the man who will likely take on Raphael Warnock
Herschel Walker, the three-time Heisman trophy winner, had far from your typical path to Tuesday’s Republican Senate primary in Georgia.
But he stands to advance to November’s general election regardless, thanks in no small part due to the endorsement of Donald Trump.
Learn more about the man likely to become the GOP’s next US Senate nominee in Georgia:
Meet Herschel Walker, the football-player-turned-Trump-acolyte in Georgia
Walker hopes to flip one of Georgia’s two Senate seats back red in November
Mo Brooks grilled by reporter on January 6 subpoena
Rep Mo Brooks, who is surging in the polls and could be headed to victory or a runoff Tuesday in Alabama’s US Senate primary, battled with an MSNBC reporter over his participation in the January 6 committee’s investigation.
Speaking with the network’s Vaughn Hillyard as the primary concluded on Tuesday, Mr Brooks denied that he had been served with a subpoena by the committee and denounced it as an effort to “affect the 2022 election”.
Watch more, from MSNBC:
Marjorie Taylor Greene faces crucial test
Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, the conspiracy-spewing congresswoman stripped of her committee memberships for comments about violence against Democrats, is up for renomination to the US House on Tuesday.
She faces a wide primary field in Georgia’s 14 district, which was recently redrawn to include more left-leaning areas of the state in Cobb County.
The district is one of the least-polled in the country, and therefore is hard to predict. But Ms Greene has a crucial incumbency advantage, and has avoided earning the ire of any members of Georgia’s congressional delegation, a lesson her fellow far-right House member Madison Cawthorn failed to heed in North Carolina.
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