Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan’s decision to endorse President Joe Biden’s reelection furthered his split with the GOP and disgusted Georgia Republicans who once saw him as a rising political star.
The one-term Republican has long been a critic of Donald Trump, but his op-ed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday cemented a deep schism with the party over the former president’s comeback bid.
“I think we all agree Donald Trump is not future of the party. There’s just different strategies to get there,” Duncan said during Tuesday’s “Politically Georgia” broadcast. “Mine is to get him out as quickly as possible, even if that includes voting for Joe Biden.”
Response from party leaders has been swift.
“Every village has a useful idiot,” said Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Trump loyalist who has feuded with his predecessor for years. “I guess the Democrat Party has found theirs.”
Democrats, meanwhile, welcomed Duncan’s stance, mindful that Biden’s narrow 2020 victory in Georgia hinged on support from disaffected Republicans and swing voters. With polls showing a tight rematch, state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, said Duncan’s views represent “moral clarity.”
“I know he doesn’t agree with everything we’re doing,” Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff said of Duncan’s endorsement during a Tuesday stop in Atlanta. “But he knows we’re on the right side of freedom, the right side of our Constitution, the right side of our democracy.”
Duncan’s endorsement also raised speculation that he could be auditioning for a role as a de facto GOP spokesman for Biden, much as former Georgia Gov. Zell Miller, a Democrat, played for President George W. Bush when he delivered the keynote speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
While many Georgia Republicans who faced Trump’s wrath are reluctantly supporting him, Duncan wrote that the former president “has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character” by seeking to overturn his election defeat and encouraging the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life,” he wrote. “This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Duncan’s declaration marked a clear break from Gov. Brian Kemp, Attorney General Chris Carr and other Republicans who are backing Trump’s reelection bid despite their personal differences. Trump recruited loyalists who unsuccessfully challenged Kemp and Carr in 2022.
Kemp, for one, has repeatedly said he’ll vote for Trump in November “because he’s better than Biden” — though it’s a tenuous truce. The governor hasn’t campaigned with Trump in four years, and the former president only dropped his vendetta against Kemp — who refused efforts to overturn the 2020 election — after Trump’s hand-picked challenger was humiliated in the 2022 primary.
Duncan’s stance brought eye rolls and shrugs from key Republicans. Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon, a former state senator who has sparred with Duncan, responded with a shrug.
“Literally no Republican is surprised by the former lieutenant governor’s support of Joe Biden,” he said, before referring to Duncan’s television deal as a political commentator. “It must be contract renewal time at CNN.”
Debbie Dooley, a Trump ally and grassroots activist, echoed McKoon: “The Georgia GOP has already moved on from Duncan in 2021. That is why he chose not to seek reelection. He knew what would happen.”
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
Indeed, to many Georgia political observers, Duncan’s stance was expected. Once a Trump supporter, he became a critic of the then-president after the 2020 election and wrote a book detailing his vision of a “GOP 2.0″ that moves beyond divisive rhetoric.
He is also a frequent contrarian within his party. He refused to endorse Herschel Walker, the Trump-backed U.S. Senate nominee in 2022, and he also wouldn’t support the campaign of Jones, his successor. Both were Trump loyalists.
And he was a key witness in the Fulton County election interference trial against Trump and his allies, testifying before a grand jury shortly before District Attorney Fani Willis announced indictments against the former president and 18 co-defendants.
Earlier this year, Duncan met with key donors and leaders of the No Labels movement to weigh a possible third-party presidential bid. But he passed on a run in March, telling the AJC the “math got too personally difficult.”
“I didn’t want to go in and be somebody who barely tipped the scales one way or another and took America from where they wanted to be from a voting standpoint,” Duncan said.
During Tuesday’s interview, Duncan said he hasn’t given any thought to the possibility of promoting Biden on the campaign trail. But he said most Republicans with a “truth serum” will admit the GOP is ailing.
And backing Trump, even reluctantly, he said, is “just going to extend the infection if we don’t cut this out now as quickly as we possibly can.”
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