In the final stretch before the May primary, a string of high-profile mainstream Republicans, all on Donald Trump’s bad side, rallied behind Gov. Brian Kemp’s final push to defeat former U.S. Sen. David Perdue.
Now the same cast of characters is set to return to Georgia next week to back Kemp over Democrat Stacey Abrams.
At the top of the list is former Vice President Mike Pence, who will join Kemp for events in Cumming and Gainesville on Tuesday. His endorsement of Kemp earlier this year represented Pence’s most significant split from his former political boss and powered Kemp to a final, 52-point victory on Election Day.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey plans a five-stop swing with Kemp on Wednesday across west Georgia. And ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has scheduled six stops with Kemp on Thursday and Friday.
As Kemp tries to expand the battleground map beyond just the GOP base, many of the stops are in suburban areas where he didn’t try to compete in 2018. With the GOP base mostly locked up, Kemp now has the luxury of going to more moderate voters in an effort to win outright on Election Night.
But before any of those Republicans come to town, former President Barack Obama will be in College Park tonight, making a final push to pump up voters for the full Democratic ticket.
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LISTEN UP. The Friday edition of the Politically Georgia podcast wraps up another wild week in Georgia politics today, including the latest allegations against Herschel Walker, a new argument from Stacey Abrams, and a preview of the final governor’s debate between Abrams and Gov. Brian Kemp, which happens at 7 p.m. Sunday.
Listen and subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
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Looking to stop Walker’s ascent, the pro-Raphael Warnock Georgia Honor PAC, which is funded by Schumer’s political committee, released a new attack ad this week targeting the Republican’s history of violence against women. It concludes: “Herschel Walker is violent. He shouldn’t be a senator.”
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ALARM BELLS. The signs of trouble for top Georgia Democrats are growing — and they extend beyond polls that show Stacey Abrams lagging Gov. Brian Kemp and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock neck-and-neck with Herschel Walker.
The loudest alarm yet wasn’t supposed to be heard. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was caught on a hot mic on a tarmac in Syracuse, N.Y., telling the president his concerns about Warnock’s chances.
“The state where we’re going downhill is Georgia,” Schumer told the president. “It’s hard to believe that they will go for Herschel Walker.”
Schumer gave a rosier assessment of the party’s chances in Nevada and Pennsylvania.
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Credit: Jason Getz/AJC/TNS
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC/TNS
TROUBLE ON THE GROUND. Key Georgia Democrats took to Twitter to promote a revealing Bloomberg story from earlier this month that highlighted the fact that donations to key get-out-the-vote groups, including the Abrams-founded New Georgia Project, have gotten about half the donations as they did in 2020.
Hillary Holley, a former Abrams aide, wrote that Warnock won the 2021 runoff with a strong ground game — not clever ads.
She said the coalition of grassroots organizers “has the ability to keep Warnock in office, but we need your support now. Any more money going towards paid media is malpractice. Organizing wins. Always.”
Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo responded by pointing to a 2020 story outlining Democratic concerns about the dual Senate runoffs swept by Jon Ossoff and Warnock.
“Keep knocking doors, keep working, vote early,” she wrote.
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NEW FACES. We’ve told you about the GOP statewide campaigns’ efforts to make inroads into Georgia’s growing Latino and Asian communities.
But a new memo to the state House GOP caucus obtained by the AJC describes Georgia Republicans’ focus on minority communities for legislative seats as well.
Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
With more than 40 minority candidates running for the House, “this is the most diverse slate of GOP candidates in state history,” the memo says.
Two of the candidates highlighted are Rey Martinez, who is running in House District 114, and Soo Hong, the GOP nominee in House District 103, where Republicans are running ads in Spanish voiced by Martinez and Korean, narrated by Hong.
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MOMS RESPOND. We told you yesterday about a mailer hitting suburban Atlanta mailboxes this week from former GOP state Rep. Deborah Silcox, who is running for the state House again. The pro-Silcox flyer says Silcox “can give the job her full attention because her children are grown.”
Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
That left more than a few moms with kids at home steaming mad, including several currently serving in the General Assembly.
By Thursday afternoon, four Atlanta-area Democrats, state Sen. Michelle Au and state Reps. Stacey Evans, Betsy Holland, and Shae Roberts, had penned an commentary for the Reporter Newspapers pushing back on Silcox’s suggestion.
“Deborah Silcox can’t lead the women of tomorrow if she is still living in the 1950s,” they wrote.
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GOOD NEWS FOR KEMP. New polling released by Monmouth University shows Gov. Brian Kemp with a healthy lead over Democratic rival Stacey Abrams.
Of the 615 registered voters polled, 55% said they were likely to vote for Kemp compared to 43% for Abrams. Kemp’s numbers were 10 percentage points higher than when Monmouth posed the same question to voters in September.
The survey conducted by telephone Oct. 20-24 has a margin of error of 5 percentage points.
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TRAIL MIX. Be sure to check AJC.com each afternoon through Election Day for our “On the Georgia Trail” feature, where we’ll recap the news and notes from the campaign trail in Georgia.
Among the highlights from Thursday:
- Herschel Walker drew large crowds at stops in Cumming, Monroe, and Dublin. Joining Walker on the trail were U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and a buffet of GOP bigwigs.
- U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock released a new video attacking Herschel Walker as the wrong person to represent Georgia. “If he can’t be serious and honest about his past, Georgians can’t count on him to represent them in their future,” Warnock says.
- Gov. Brian Kemp continued his Southeast Georgia swing through Darian, Jesup, Naunta, and St. Simons.
- Stacey Abrams’ stateside bus tour kept rolling, with stops in Milledgeville, Grovetown, and Augusta.
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ON THE TRAIL TODAY:
- U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock will rally in Dalton in the morning and be with former President Barack Obama in the afternoon;
- Herschel Walker’s Unite Georgia Bus Tour makes stops in Statesboro, Baxley and Waycross in south Georgia.
- Gov. Brian Kemp wraps up the south Georgia tour in St. Marys, Folkston and Brunswick.
- Stacey Abrams stops in Sparta before heading to College Park to rally with Obama.
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Credit: File photo
Credit: File photo
MCCORMICK’S D.C. ROADMAP. All but certain to win seats in Congress in November, Republicans Rich McCormick and Mike Collins are already thinking about how they want to spend their time in Washington.
Collins said he would like to serve on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Right now, the only member of Georgia’s delegation on that powerful panel is Democrat Sanford Bishop.
Meanwhile, McCormick tells us that he plans to put his military experience and background as an emergency room physician to use. Health care and veterans affairs will be among his priorities if elected to office.
One thing McCormick doesn’t plan to do: Live in the 6th District. He said he and his family will remain in their home in Suwanee in the 7th Congressional District regardless of the results on Election Day.
Collins is already a resident in the 10th Congressional District in east central Georgia. Both men are the Republican nominees in districts that lean heavily conservative, meaning their Democratic opponents have long odds of pulling out upsets on Election Day.
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GAY RIGHTS. Patrick Saunders of WABE notes that Herschel Walker and other top Georgia Republicans are moving further to the right on LGBTQ issues. More:
Walker refuses to answer questions about his stance on same-sex marriage, routinely misgenders transgender women in his stump speech and at two recent campaign events he blasted the prospect of transgender people in the military and questioned whether God would recognize transgender children when they get to heaven.
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Credit: John Spink / AJC
Credit: John Spink / AJC
GUN SAFETY. Community Justice Action Fund and Brady PAC, a political committee that supports candidates in favor of passing new gun control laws, have teamed up to encourage people of color who are concerned about gun violence to vote.
The “Elect Justice” campaign is happening in Georgia, Nevada and Florida and includes billboards, mailers, digital ads and canvassing.
The campaign is launching after a spate of gun violence at or near schools. A shooting in St. Louis left a student and a teacher dead, while a shooting near Norcross High School in Gwinnett killed a student this week.
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Credit: Nathan Posner for The Atlanta-Journal-Constitution
Credit: Nathan Posner for The Atlanta-Journal-Constitution
FRIENDS IN WASHINGTON. Visitors to U.S. Rep. Jody Hice’s office in Washington will come face-to-face with his furry friends Rocco, Lilly and Freya.
The three pups were all featured in a recent Roll Call article about the new dog-friendly culture on Capitol Hill.
Rocco, an English bulldog, comes in daily and is a favorite among constituents and fans of the University of Georgia, which is partially in Hice's district. Both Rocco and Lilly, a miniature goldendoodle, are 2 years old and were adopted during the pandemic.
Lilly and Freya, a cocker spaniel, come to work a few times a week.
“It has kind of permeated the culture," said Emma Settle, Hice's press secretary, adding the dogs are heavily involved in office life.
They will join meetings when Hice is in the office or sit on his lap. Lilly, in particular, can sense moods and is highly intuitive, said Settle.
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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.
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