Georgia Republicans face a “stark choice,” according to The New York Times. That choice? As they approach two January 5 Senate runoffs, they can embrace Donald Trump after their state’s voters rejected him, or court Trump’s wrath—and that of his base—by distancing themselves from him. Potentially suppress moderate turnout, or potentially suppress far-right turnout. It’s a tough one.
”Whether people like it or not, this is Trump’s party,” a Republican ad-maker told the Times. “And nothing that happened on Election Day or since then has done anything to change that.” That means continued infighting, because Donald Trump is not a guy who’s going to think of the good of Republicans beyond himself.
Let’s push this over the finish line and win the Senate. Can you chip in $3 each to Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff?
Trump could accept his loss and try to help Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, but instead, he’s keeping Republicans wrapped up in drama over his efforts to overturn the elections, from attacks on Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to Tuesday night’s attempt in Michigan to block the certification of election results. And he’s got Perdue and Loeffler wrapped up in that drama, attacking Raffensperger along with him.
This process—Trump making every election about himself at whatever cost to his party—could continue to 2022 and 2024, with him making everything into an internal battle that goes viciously public, alienating one group or another of voters increasingly exhausted by it all. But right now, it’s about Georgia, and about building strength toward electing Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff while Republicans fight among themselves.