Former President Donald Trump has never accepted that he lost the state of Georgia. And he never forgave the Republicans in the state for letting that happen.
Therefore, Tuesday’s primary election – when the parties will actually nominate their candidates for the midterm elections in November – is about both the 2020 election and the power over the electoral apparatus in the 2024 presidential election.
The incumbent Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger will face Trump candidates David Perdue and Jody Hice.
According to opinion polls, there will be no great triumph for Trump Camp. Brian Kemp is popular with Republicans in Georgia. He has been backed by other Republican governors – and former Vice President Mike Pence.
The primary election in Georgia will thus be a battle via a representative between the former radar pair in the White House. Mike Pence was loyal to Donald Trump for four years, until the days before the storming of the Capitol. As vice president, he held the club when Congress was to confirm Joe Biden’s victory. The Trump camp tried in vain to get him to intervene in the process. When the crowd stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Pence was one of the targets.
He kept a low profile for a long time after the riot. But in recent months, he has gradually raised the tone against Trumplägret.
At a performance in Florida last winter, he made it clear that attempts to overthrow the election were at odds with the very idea of the United States. When Trump later in February portrayed Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strategic genius, Pence chose to attack what he described as Republican “apologists.”
With his commitment to Georgia, he clearly indicates that he wants to be part of the discussion about Republican presidential candidates in 2024. But Brian Kemp is also a politician who is close to the deeply conservative Mike Pence. The governor of Georgia has, among other things, supported liberal gun laws, strict abortion bans and restrictions on schooling about racism and gender. He has also introduced restrictions on the right to vote.
Also Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger campaigns to tighten regulations around the election – while emphasizing that he stood up to Trump and refused to tamper with the 2020 election.
It was Raffensperger who received the famous phone call from Donald Trump in the New Year 2021, when the White House wanted to “find” 11,780 votes and overthrow the election result in Georgia. President Trump appealed and threatened. Raffensperger refused.
It remains to be seen whether voters will punish or reward him. Numerous opinion polls show that a majority of Republicans believe Trump’s unfounded allegations about the stolen election. But that does not mean that people in general are deeply involved in the debate about electoral fraud.