Much of the national media have reported the thumping primary victories Tuesday of Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and two other statewide officials as setbacks for the best-known supporter of all of their opponents — Donald Trump.
Along with nominating Kemp with 73% of the vote over former Sen. David Perdue, Peach State Republicans gave victories to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (who beat Rep. Jody Hice by 52% to 22%) and State Attorney General Christopher Carr (who beat attorney John Gordon with 73%).
Perdue, Hice, and Gordon all ran with the blessings and campaign assistance of Trump, who denounced all three of their opponents for failing to stop the certification of Georgia's electoral votes for Joe Biden in 2020.
But Georgia Republicans who spoke to Newsmax concluded the renomination of the incumbents was less about Trump himself than a result of superior fundraising and a failure of the challengers to discuss much else other than the 2020 election they deemed fraudulent.
"Kemp outspent Perdue heavily on TV and that helped him avoid the runoff," InsiderAdvantage publisher Phil Kent of Atlanta told Newsmax.
Kent also noted that on virtually every issue — from abortion to greater security at the ballot box — the governor came down on the conservative side.
"Incumbency is huge and leads to the ability to raise cash," said former Rep. John Linder, R.-Ga., a past chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "But the losing candidates ran, largely, on the 2020 election. We saw the same thing in Virginia when [Democrat Terry] McAuliffe ran against Trump rather than [Republican winner Glenn] Youngkin. Politics is always about tomorrow. Never yesterday."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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