In these downbeat times, we’re big on upbeat news. Heck, we’ll take anything that puts a spring in our step. So let’s put our hands together for the peachy GOP primary results in Georgia.
Donald Trump, being a malignant narcissist, is solely motivated by the aggrandizement of himself, and anyone who undercuts his life’s mission is thereby a target for his vengeance. That explains why he was so determined to march on Georgia. He was the first Republican presidential candidate since 1992 to lose the state, so naturally he became fixated on taking down the key elected Republican officials who refused to rig the ’20 results in his favor.
With this week’s GOP primaries in mind, he gave his magisterial blessing to two challengers who were tasked to defeat his designated enemies: Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, and the Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. And for good measure, he recruited challengers to oust the Republican attorney general and the Republican insurance commissioner.
On Tuesday night, Trump went 0-4.
The MAGA-endorsed candidates still peddled his detestable lie that he’d actually won Georgia and that he was deprived of victory only because there was fraud somewhere. (Despite multiple recounts that had found fraud nowhere.) Gubernatorial challenger David Perdue went all in on Trump’s lie – and Gov. Brian Kemp crushed him by a whopping 52 percentage points. Trump’s attorney general candidate was buried by 47 points. Trump’s insurance commissioner candidate was slaughtered by 54 points.
And Trump’s chosen chump for Secretary of State – a congressman named Jody Hice, who still insisted that Trump’s (non-existent) Georgia victory was stolen – was decisively beaten by the incumbent, the much-maligned Mr. Raffensperger. The latter’s victory was the sweetest of all, because it signals that even Republican voters are fed up with Trump’s lies and are anxious to move on. As Georgia GOP consultant Brian Robinson reportedly says, “Raffensperger’s election is a great barometer for the intensity of that issue with Republican voters today. It just shows that a lot of the air is out of the balloon.”
You might remember Raffensperger. He’s the guy Trump tried to muscle into changing the ’20 election results; we know this because Raffensperger recorded the phone call. This quote from Trump was the piece d’ resistance: “I have to find 12,000 votes and I have them times a lot. And therefore, I won the state…So what are we going to do here folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.”
Raffensperger replied: “Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong.”
Trump insisted (falsely) that Raffensperger was protecting the (non-existent) election fraudsters: “You know what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you.” Trump was basically threatening Raffensperger with (a baseless) prosecution – and Raffensperger shrugged it off. He simply told Trump: “Um, we don’t agree that you have won.”
Trump wanted Jody Hice to oust Raffensberger for two reasons: Hice was one of the 147 House Republicans who refused to certify Joe Biden’s victory; and he kept insisting (without evidence, of course) that Raffensberger had created “cracks in the integrity of our election.” But none of that played well with the voters. Raffensberger won on Tuesday night by 20 points. So much for Trump’s recent boast that he’s “the king of endorsements.”
Granted, some of his endorsees are thriving elsewhere – starting with Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano – and lawmakers in at least 33 states are pushing Trump-inspired bills that would “politicize, criminalize, or interfere with elections,” according to a non-partisan watchdog group. Indeed, as anti-Trump Republican activist Sarah Longwell recently pointed out, “Even those who (don’t) win his endorsement still mention his endorsement. Trump might not have endorsed them, but they all endorse him” – if not his ’20 election lies, then certainly his “particular brand of combative politics.”
And Trump didn’t entirely strike out in Georgia, because ex-footballer Herschel Walker, his preferred candidate for the U.S. Senate, won the senatorial primary with ease – although Walker, by dint of his celebrity, would’ve won with or without Trump’s blessing. Walker, besides being a notorious liar, is also clueless and incoherent (his response yesterday to the Texas shootings: “What I like to do is see it and everything and stuff”), which makes him the perfect candidate to galvanize the Republican base.
But I promised to focus only on good news today. Georgia will be a key state in the 2024 presidential race, and at least the votes will be tallied without any MAGA conspiracists in charge. Our fragile democracy can use all the help it can get.