Former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger couldn’t help but note the political significance of the backdrop as he stood at the foot of a marble staircase at the south end of the Georgia Capitol.
A few feet from where he stood, Republican electors gathered more than three years ago to cast an illegitimate slate contending that Donald Trump had won Georgia’s vote.
A few floors above him sits a conference room where Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani gave sworn testimony promoting election fraud claims now at the center of Fulton County’s pending election interference case.
And, the Illinois Republican added, election official Gabriel Sterling used the setting in 2020 to warn that rampant conspiracy theories about Georgia’s vote would lead to violence.
On Wednesday, Kinzinger joined a small group of prominent Republicans at the state Capitol to endorse President Joe Biden’s reelection bid. Beside him was former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who backed Biden a few weeks ago.
“If you would have told me three years ago that you would be endorsing a Democrat for president in three years, I probably wouldn’t have believed you,” said Kinzinger. “But the stakes of the moment are too high.”
Duncan and Kinzinger are going against the party’s grain and they acknowledged potential repercussions.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Polls show Trump with overwhelming support from the party’s base, and even Trump’s biggest critics have rallied behind his comeback bid. Among them is Gov. Brian Kemp, who has said he’ll vote for Trump because “he’d be better than Joe Biden.”
Kinzinger, who last year promised to campaign against Trump in Georgia, said he wanted to use the eve of the first presidential debate to tailor a message directly to mainstream Republicans and swing voters who can’t stomach Trump.
“We’ve become a country where our political stripes have become our identity and it’s really hard to shed our identity,” he said.
“But I want to make sure that Republicans, in particular, understand you don’t have to agree with everything Joe Biden says,” he said. “It’s about defending the greatest country in the world.”
As they wrapped up, Republican state Sen. Shawn Still appeared. He is facing criminal charges for his role as one of the GOP electors in 2020, and has pleaded not guilty to any wrongdoing.
Still said he was in the building already for a committee hearing and wanted a closer look at the spectacle. Asked what he thought about the two GOP defectors, he offered a few sharp words before walking away.
“Lies, all lies.”
Staff Writer Michelle Baruchman contributed to this report.
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