SAVANNAH, Ga. — When Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) addressed the local Rotary Club here this month, he eagerly reminded the audience that he was the guy who resisted former president Donald Trump’s pleas to find enough votes to reverse the 2020 election.

As the Rotarians lunched on chicken pot pie, the Republican ticked through the “rumor whack-a-mole” of fraud allegations that had surfaced in Georgia and explained why they were false.

But in the next breath, the state’s top election official offered Trump voters concerned that elections could be compromised reasons to vote for him in Tuesday’s hotly contested primary: He supported legislation to tighten up the security around balloting — despite resistance from voting rights groups — and has made cracking down on noncitizen voting the No. 1 issue of his campaign, even though the evidence shows it is already quite rare.

That dual message reflects the delicate balance Raffensperger is trying to strike to win in a state where most Republicans still love Trump and believe his false narrative about the 2020 election. Squaring off against an ardent Trump acolyte, Raffensperger has chosen the path of political pragmatism, courting the former president’s base while not completely abandoning his image as the rare Republican willing to take Trump on.

Whether Raffensperger can pull it off could help set the direction for the Republican Party at a time when Trumpism remains very much alive even as Trump himself is...

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