In these early days of the 2024 election campaign, a split is emerging in Georgia.
On the Republican side, polls and interviews show former President Donald Trump with strong support from the party’s grassroots, even as GOP leaders and key activists urge the party faithful to leave him behind.
At the same time, Democratic leaders are rallying behind President Joe Biden’s reelection bid even as many in the party’s base indicate they’re worried about the 80-year-old’s second-term campaign.
A new poll obtained by your Insiders shows why a debate over electability is only going to grow sharper.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has a narrow edge over Biden in a hypothetical matchup in the battleground state of Georgia, according to the poll, while Trump is in a neck-and-neck race against the Democrat. DeSantis is not an official candidate for president, but he has been raising his national profile and is widely expected to enter the race.
The poll, conducted by the GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies, showed DeSantis with a 46-41 lead over Biden.
In the same poll, which involved 500 registered voters between April 25-27, Biden was at 43% and Trump was at 42%. That’s within the poll’s margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.
You can see the memo here and the findings here. It’s one of several recent polls from the firm that show DeSantis with a slight advantage over Trump, and it comes as Republicans begin a fraught debate over which candidate is more electable.
Among the other findings:
- DeSantis ran better than Trump in the hypothetical matchup among white voters, independent voters, metro Atlanta residents and Georgians aged 65 and older.
- Among the 13% of voters who disapprove of both Biden and Trump, the former president trails Biden by 7 percentage points.
The dynamic of the race could change fast. It’s early, and moods shift. After all, around this time in the 2022 cycle, Gov. Brian Kemp was peppered with boos at GOP gatherings and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was left for dead by many in his party.
***
Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
NO REGRETS. Georgia GOP chair David Shafer spoke to the ultra-conservative Georgia Republican Assembly this weekend about his tenure as the party’s head — and his decision not to stand for another term.
Shafer is facing potential criminal charges for his role in the fake elector plot. He’s alienated Gov. Brian Kemp and other Republican leaders to the point where they’re boycotting the state convention in June.
Meanwhile, far-right conspiracy theorists like Kandiss Taylor have won key party posts, sidelining more mainstream conservatives who are now buzzing about joining the parallel structure that Kemp is building.
Shafer brushed aside those concerns.
“I’ve taken some very strong stands in favor of election integrity, and they’ve been costly stands for me personally,” he told a friendly crowd, adding:
“In the last four years, I’ve been visited at my home by the FBI. I’ve been subpoenaed to testify before Congress. I’ve been subpoenaed by federal grand juries. I’ve been subpoenaed by a Fulton County special purpose grand jury. I’ve been written a target letter by the Fulton County district attorney. … I will tell you this: I don’t regret a single thing I did in the four years I was state chairman.”
***
Credit: Jenni Girtman for the AJC
Credit: Jenni Girtman for the AJC
HOT MESS? David Shafer did not mention the elephant in the room during his remarks to the Georgia Republican Assembly, namely the split between the Georgia GOP and Gov. Brian Kemp during Shafer’s tenure.
But the rift hasn’t escaped the notice of Michelle Cottle with the New York Times. In a recent column, Cottle writes that the Kemp dynamic of circumventing a state party that has “become mostly a bastion of wingnuts, spiraling into chaos and irrelevance” is a cautionary tale for politicos across the country.
Republicans elsewhere should keep watch. Democrats, too. What's happening in Georgia is a cautionary tale for pluralism, an example of how the soul of a party can become warped and wrecked when its leadership veers toward narrow extremism. And while every state's political dynamics are unique, a variation of the Peach State drama could be headed your way soon — if it hasn't begun already.
***
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
BUDGET CUTS. Gov. Brian Kemp gave a few hints about how he’ll respond to the Senate-backed slashing of $66 million from the higher education budget amid squabbling with Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.
In an interview with Tim Bryant’s Mission TimPossible podcast over the weekend, Kemp said the “cut is going to have to stand for now” but that he’s exploring alternatives to salvage the cuts.
“There’s other ways you can make adjustments to the budget to prepare us to be in a really good spot going into next year with the amended budget,” he said.
***
BUDGET BUMP. Keep an eye on your bank accounts. The tax rebates that Gov. Brian Kemp campaigned on, promised and passed this session with bipartisan support, are hitting soon.
Our colleague James Salzer writes that the rebates, between $250 and $500, are possible thanks to a $6.6 billion tax surplus from the state’s booming economy during fiscal 2022, which ended June 30.
***
Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Supreme Court ethical standards in the wake of media reports about questionable activities by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch as well as the wife of Chief Justice John Roberts.
- U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson will hold a virtual news conference to reintroduce his signature legislation, a bill that would prohibit employers from forcing employees with claims of harassment or discrimination to go through arbitration instead of suing in court.
- The Senate has more nominations coming to the floor for votes.
- President Joe Biden has no public events scheduled and the U.S. House is in recess this week.
***
DEBT CEILING. Amid new estimates that the United States could reach its debt limit as early as June 1, threatening a default that could rock international financial markets, there is an uptick in urgency in Washington.
President Joe Biden invited the four top lawmakers — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell — to the White House for a May 9 meeting on the issue.
But there is no sign that Biden and fellow Democrats are budging from their stance that raising the debt ceiling should be done in a stand-alone bill and that any discussions on reducing federal spending should be handled separately. Schumer and Jeffries put out a statement saying time is of the essence to do so.
“We do not have the luxury of waiting until June 1 to come together, pass a clean bill to avoid a default and prevent catastrophic consequences for our economy and millions of American families,” they wrote.
House Republicans say they want Democrats to take seriously their debt ceiling offer, which calls for rolling back recent Democratic spending proposals and reducing the federal budget to 2022 levels in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling for about a year.
But Schumer has taken steps to fast-track a bill that would lift the debt ceiling through the end of 2024 without addressing budget cuts.
And he also has scheduled hearings on the House debt limit legislation, not to advance it but to highlight provisions that Democrats say would harm Americans by slashing the budgets of Veterans Affairs and other agencies.
A Thursday meeting of the Senate Budget Committee has been titled: “The Default on America Act: Blackmail, Brinkmanship, and Billionaire Backroom Deals.”
***
Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
DOG OF THE DAY. Politics can occasionally have a few elements of show business, just like today’s Dogs of the Day. Doc Holliday and Ms. Ginger Grant are the dynamic duo of Michael Smith, Mayor Andre Dickens’ spokesman at City Hall.
Doc is, of course, named for the famous Georgian gambler and gunslinger. His hobbies include watching TV and lying in laps.
Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
Meanwhile, Ms. Ginger Grant is named after the raven-haired movie star, Ginger, from Gilligan’s Island. The Rhodesian Ridgeback-boxer mix weighs in at a slim 100ish pounds. She spends her days sunbathing, howling at fire trucks and being gorgeous.
Send us your pups of any political persuasion — and cats on a cat-by-cat basis, to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, or DM us on Twitter @MurphyAJC.
***
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
