Georgia losses add to a losing record for Trump’s candidates, but his hard-right politics is winning among Republicans.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has easily defeated Donald Trump’s hand-picked challenger – former US Senator David Perdue – in a Republican primary that demonstrated the limits of the former president’s influence in a critical United States swing state.
“Even in the middle of a tough primary, conservatives across our state didn’t listen to the noise. They didn’t get distracted,” Kemp told cheering supporters on Tuesday evening, before calling on his party to rally behind his campaign.
Kemp will face Democrat Stacey Abrams in November in a rematch of their 2018 contest, which Kemp won amid controversy over Black voter purges he had orchestrated.
Kemp’s race was one of a number of intra-party contests among Republicans and Democrats in Georgia, Texas and Alabama on Tuesday that will determine candidates for US congressional elections in November.
Abrams has spent the last few years registering Black voters in Georgia and was credited with helping President Joe Biden win the state in 2020.
Kemp was backed by former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and other establishment Republicans who viewed Trump’s campaign in Georgia as a “vendetta”.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger – the state’s top election official, who had rebuffed Trump’s demands to alter the 2020 election outcome in the state – also won re-nomination by...
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