He remains the dominant force within the GOP, and his ideas are widely mimicked by many GOP elected officials and candidates. He continues to instill fear in some elected officials. He might become the party’s 2024 nominee. But the past week showed that a growing number of Republican voters are ready to move on.
The strongest evidence came last Tuesday in Georgia, where Trump suffered a double defeat in the Republican primaries. These were not small losses; they were a rebuke to a former president who has focused substantial attention on that state and its elected Republican leaders in his campaign of lies about his 2020 reelection loss.
Trump had endorsed challengers to Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the two most prominent Republican officials who were vocal in dismissing Trump’s false claims about the 2020 vote there and who defended the certified results that showed Joe Biden the winner by 11,779 votes.
Kemp certified Biden’s victory after multiple recounts confirmed the outcome. Raffensperger stood up to Trump when he called the secretary of state days ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and badgered him to “find” enough votes to overturn the results. Trump eagerly sought their defeat in last week’s primaries. Instead, he ended up being humiliated.
In the gubernatorial primary, Trump supported former senator David Perdue against Kemp but backed out of an election-eve appearance when it was clear that his candidate was on the...
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