Former President Donald Trump is barreling ahead with plans Tuesday to announce he’s launching a comeback bid for the White House despite concerns from senior Republicans that it will distract attention from U.S. Senate hopeful Herschel Walker’s runoff campaign in Georgia.
Meanwhile, Republicans plan to continue their strategy of tying U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock to President Joe Biden as often as they can in hopes that Biden’s low approval ratings will drag the Democratic incumbent down in the race against Walker.
The conventional wisdom is that Democrats believe a Biden visit to Georgia could hurt Warnock by energizing GOP voters who want to see the president’s power in Washington blunted by flipping control in the Senate. Biden stayed away during the run-up to the general election even as he stumped for candidates in other swing states.
Credit: Nicole Craine/The New York Times
Credit: Nicole Craine/The New York Times
But Republicans are almost daring the president to come down now. Appearing with Walker during a rally Thursday night was U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who issued an invitation.
“Joe Biden, come to Georgia,” the Texas Republican said. “Come campaign alongside Raphael Warnock.”
He added onto that sentiment in remarks to the media afterward.
“What does it tell you that Raphael Warnock is hiding from the president of the United States?” Cruz said. “The reason is Raphael Warnock’s record in Washington is wildly out of step with the values of the people of Georgia.”
Trump was also dissuaded from holding a rally in Georgia during the general election phase after Walker’s allies warned he could hurt the former football star more than help — and that it would bring attention to his feud with Gov. Brian Kemp and other GOP figures.
Georgia Republicans are still sore over Trump’s two rallies in the state during the last runoff in January 2021. Back then he focused far more on false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from him than boosting the fortunes of then-Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
But the former president remains committed to the plan to make an announcement next week. Some of his allies warn that launching his candidacy amid the Georgia election could help Warnock rally his Democratic base and keep split-ticket voters in his camp ahead of the Dec. 6 vote.
It also sharpens the possibility that Trump could join a parade of surrogates headed to Georgia that may include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another potential 2024 candidate.
Senior Republicans haven’t ruled out a Trump return in a runoff when campaigns typically focus more on turning out the base than appealing to irregular voters. Some Walker allies hope he can help rev up turnout that was lower than expected on Tuesday.
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, a Lithonia Democrat, was among the 200 supporters who attended Warnock’s runoff campaign launch Thursday. He salivated over the idea of a Trump rally in Georgia on Walker’s behalf.
“I’d love for Donald Trump to come into this state and campaign vigorously for his candidate who he parachuted into Georgia just to run so that he could have an acolyte in the Senate,” Johnson said. “I really hope that Trump decides to come in; that will motivate even more people to come out against him.”
***
LISTEN UP: What a week it was in Georgia politics, and we’re not done yet. In our Friday episode of the Politically Georgia podcast, we look at where things stand now, and the final sprint to the 2022 Senate runoffs.
Listen and subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
***
NO QUESTIONS. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz spoke to reporters after stumping with Herschel Walker Thursday night.
That made it even more obvious that Walker himself did not. Walker talked to Fox News right before the event, one of several recent appearances on the conservative network.
Credit: Daniel Vernando for the AJC
Credit: Daniel Vernando for the AJC
But he didn’t speak with the other reporters who gathered in Canton on Thursday. Walker hasn’t taken questions from the general news media for weeks.
Warnock, whose speech ended moments before a rain shower, also did not take questions after Thursday’s kickoff. But that was a rarity for a candidate whose staff generally does make him available to the media during campaign stops.
***
KEMP MACHINE. In yesterday’s Jolt, we questioned what steps Gov. Brian Kemp will take to help Senate hopeful Herschel Walker’s campaign despite their frosty relationship. Now we have an answer.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell brokered an agreement with Kemp to transfer his expansive ground-game apparatus — which includes his micro-targeting program and door-knocking data — to the Senate Leadership Fund.
The arrangement, first reported by Politico, will require the fund to finance the $2 million effort. Kemp’s top advisers will run the effort, just as they did during his campaign, and it will be staffed by about 100 field workers.
Politico reported it was the first time that the fund, a McConnell-backed super PAC, has financed a get-out-the-vote effort. But with Senate control potentially on the line, McConnell is willing to innovate.
***
OUTSIDE GROUPS. Expect a rush of third-party groups to try to influence the Senate runoff. We’re told that Herschel Walker’s campaign is encouraging allies to donate to two of them: The Senate Leadership Fund and 34N22, best known for provocative ads and grocery and gas voucher giveaways.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, sent 34N22 a $500,000 check from his PAC to bolster it for the runoff.
***
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
ELECTION AUDIT. Georgia law requires one race to be audited by hand, but it won’t be the close U.S. Senate contest that’s heading to a runoff.
Instead, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Thursday that the audit will cover his own not-so-tight race, the AJC’s Mark Niesse reported. Raffensperger, a Republican, defeated Democrat Bee Nguyen by 9.3 percentage points, the largest margin of any statewide race.
Raffensperger said he chose the secretary of state’s race because a tighter race would require a more extensive audit as election workers are preparing for the runoff. With a bigger margin in the secretary of state’s race, election workers will need to review fewer ballots to confirm the outcome.
The audit will take place next Thursday and Friday in every Georgia county, involving a manual review of as many as 300,000 paper ballots in total to ensure that they reflect computer-generated numbers.
Meanwhile, there will be no audit nor recount of the U.S. Senate race.
Under state law, candidates can only request a recount when they trail by less by 0.5 percentage points, and Republican Herschel Walker was behind Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock by 0.9 percentage points.
***
Credit: Alyssa Pointer/AJC
Credit: Alyssa Pointer/AJC
GAVEL GAMES. Don’t count state Rep. Barry Fleming out of the hunt to succeed House Speaker David Ralston just yet.
Even as Ralston’s allies are coalescing around Majority Leader Jon Burns, Fleming is said to be gaining rank-and-file support. He told us that state Rep. Sam Watson, who chairs the influential Rural Caucus, plans to nominate him at the caucus meeting on Monday.
In other developments, state Rep. Matt Dubnik of Gainesville told colleagues he joined the competition to succeed Burns as majority leader. He wrote that he can get House Republicans reelected while “balancing what is good” for Georgians.
“I hope I have demonstrated that I can do all of this with a steady hand, a fair approach and an open-door policy, of which I will continue as Majority Leader,” he wrote.
Other contenders for the majority leader spot include state Reps. Kasey Carpenter of Dalton, Chuck Efstration of Dacula, and state Rep. Jesse Petrea from Savannah.
***
Credit: Alyssa Pointer/AJC
Credit: Alyssa Pointer/AJC
GOLD DOME. We told you yesterday about two Democratic lawmakers swapping chambers next year in the Georgia General Assembly. A few other notes about the new members:
- While Democrats picked up one seat in the state Senate and at least two in the state House, control of the chambers remains squarely with Republicans.
- GOP state Rep. Ed Setzler will also cross over to the state Senate after winning his Cobb-based seat.
- Tim Fleming, former chief of staff to Gov. Brian Kemp, returns to the Capitol as a member. The Republican won a state House seat east of Atlanta.
- Former GOP state Rep. Scott Hilton won his comeback bid over Democratic state Rep. Mary Robichaux to represent a newly drawn Gwinnett House seat.
- A record five Nigerian Americans — Democrats Segun Adeyina, Gabe Okoye, Solomon Adesanya, Phil Olaleye and Tish Naghise — won seats in the Georgia House representing metro Atlanta voters.
- Ruwa Romman will become the first Muslim woman and sworn in to the state House. The 29-year-old Democrat, whose family came to the United States as Palestenian refugees, had an American flag cake at her victory party.
***
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
NEW MEMBER ORIENTATION. The two newest members of Georgia’s congressional delegation are headed to Washington for a weeklong orientation. U.S. Reps.-elect Mike Collins and Rich McCormick are due to arrive on Sunday. Throughout the week they will receive tours, training on setting up their offices and take official photos.
The entire House Republican Conference is also expected to travel back to D.C. for leadership elections early in the week, even if it is not yet confirmed that they will be in the majority come January. Several House races are still unsettled, and right now neither party has enough members to confirm majority rule.
U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson, a West Point Republican, remains in the running for the position of GOP whip.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are also scheduled to gather next week to vote on their leadership for the upcoming session of Congress. Mitch McConnell is not expected to face a serious challenge for that role. That election also could happen with several races and the majority control still unsettled with counting continuing in Arizona and Nevada, and Georgia’s contest headed to a runoff.
Senate Democrats have not yet scheduled their leadership elections. House Democrats have to determine whether long-standing leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi will step down and allow a new generation to take the reins. Those debates are not expected to occur until after Thanksgiving.
***
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
RURAL ROUT. Our pal Charlie Hayslett over at Trouble in God’s Country crunched the numbers on Tuesday’s results in the rural counties well outside of Metro Atlanta.
The results show Democrat Stacey Abrams could not keep up with the popular Republican incumbent and fared worse than their first matchup in 2018 when she made a point to visit all 159 Georgia counties:
To her credit, Stacey Abrams, the party's gubernatorial nominee for the second time, made a game effort in rural Georgia, including sparsely populated counties south of Macon …
Abrams's reward for her efforts was that she actually did worse this year in literally every single small rural county than she did four years ago. In the 110 Georgia counties with fewer than 15,000 registered voters, incumbent Republican Brian Kemp's advantage rose by a combined total of 3.4 points.
In 2018, he carried those counties 71.5 percent-to-27.8 percent over Abrams; this year, his margin was 74.9 percent-to-24.4 percent. (If there is a silver lining for Democrats in these numbers, it's that the total number of votes cast in small rural counties south of the gnat line actually shrunk; it dropped from just under 474,000 in 2018 to just under 460,000 this year.)
***
VETERANS DAY. We’re wishing a happy and meaningful Veterans Day to all active duty and former service members, with an added salute to military families and caregivers.
***
AS ALWAYS, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.
About the Authors
