GA-Gov: Donald Trump got his wish—and Brian Kemp earned a high-profile challenge—with former Sen. David Perdue's Monday announcement that he'll seek the GOP nod for governor next year.
The decision sets up a major clash between a man Trump already victimized and one he'd like to. Perdue, a wealthy businessman who made his fortune outsourcing jobs overseas, first entered politics in 2014 when he won a competitive open-seat race for Senate against Democrat Michelle Nunn, aided by that year's favorable winds. But six years later, with Georgia diversifying rapidly and Trump pushing many once-reliable suburban voters away from the party, Perdue was forced into a runoff against Democrat Jon Ossoff after narrowly failing to secure a majority in November.
It was during that runoff that Trump may have dealt his worst damage to Perdue: In his endless (and fact-free) ranting that the presidential election had been rigged, Trump all but sent the message to his supporters that it wasn't worth voting at all. We'll never know for sure whether that was the difference-maker—the senator's own highly questionable stock trades, as well as Mitch McConnell's refusal to send Americans another COVID relief check, also loomed large—but with a final losing margin of just 55,000 votes, Perdue will always be left wondering.
The same election that sent Perdue to his runoff, of course, is also what earned Kemp Trump's undying enmity. Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, refused to participate in the Big Lie despite Trump's interference, immediately putting them on Trump's shitlist. Raffensperger soon earned a Trump-backed primary from Rep. Jody Hice in March, though Kemp sought a reprieve by signing a wide-ranging new voter suppression bill just days later.
It didn't work: Trump berated the bill as "far too weak and soft" and charged that Kemp had "caved to the radical left-wing woke mob who threatened to call him racist if he got rid of weekend voting." At a September rally in Georgia, Trump even disdainfully sniffed that electing Kemp's Democratic opponent from 2018, Stacey Abrams, "might be better than having your existing governor."
Trump may just get to find out. Abrams recently launched a second bid of her own, which explains why Perdue, who'd reportedly been pressed to run by Trump, focused so heavily on attacking her in his kickoff video. He also blamed Kemp for his own loss, whinging, "Instead of protecting our elections, he caved to Abrams and cost us two Senate seats, the Senate majority, and gave Joe Biden free rein."
Kemp instantly fired back, naturally faulting Perdue for losing the election that, well, Perdue ran in. He charged that ex-senator's "only reason for running is to sooth [sic] his own bruised ego" and sneered, "It may be difficult" for Perdue to see "over the gates of his coastal estate."
Democrats have every reason to root for a nasty, expensive battle for the GOP nomination that leaves the winner bloodied and bruised. Even better might be a primary runoff—a possibility, since former state Rep. Vernon Jones and several other minor candidates could stop Kemp or Perdue from securing a majority in May and thereby drag things out until July.
But no matter how much the eventual winner abases himself in a show of fealty to Trump, that may not be enough to render them unpalatable to a sufficient number of voters. After all, Perdue very nearly won in Georgia last year—and so did Trump.