The University of Georgia poll released last week showed that likely Republican voters were decidedly mixed in their top priorities for choosing the next GOP presidential nominee.
Just one-third said that the ability to defeat President Joe Biden was the most important factor while choosing a nominee, while 46% said they want someone who aligns with their stances on major issues. Roughly 20% said they value both equally.
It hints at the age-old question of “electability” that surfaces every campaign cycle, as voters debate whether they should favor someone who has the best prospects of winning office or line up with someone they feel is the best candidate for the job, regardless of whether they win.
Jason Getz/AJC
Jason Getz/AJC
Gov. Brian Kemp, in his appeal to Republicans to move on from Donald Trump, has clearly taken sides.
“I’m looking for someone who can win,” he said Tuesday after an event. “You can’t govern if you don’t win.”
He continued: “We’ve got to tell people what we are for. I believe that one of the things we learned running is that we didn’t just contrast with our opponent, we told people what we were for and what we were going to do.”
The electability question is a perennial one for both parties, but especially for Republicans heading into 2024 since the man leading this poll for the next election in Georgia lost the last one in the general election to Joe Biden.
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LISTEN UP. Gov. Brian Kemp’s truth bomb to Republican donors over the weekend, that it’s time to move past the 2020 elections and Donald Trump, is the topic of today’s Politically Georgia podcast. We’re looking at what Kemp said, and why getting past Trump may not be so easy, even in Georgia.
Listen and subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
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LEGAL FEES. The Georgia GOP has now spent about $310,000 in legal fees to defend phony Republican electors who could face criminal charges amid Fulton County’s probe of Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 defeat in Georgia.
Recent filings show that the state party paid a firm representing the fake electors another $87,000 in February. That’s in addition to roughly $220,000 that it paid last year to law firms representing the phony electors.
The “alternative” slate of electors has become a major point of interest of the Fulton County special grand jury, as some legal experts say those GOP electors may have violated election fraud and forgery statutes, among other crimes. They may also have insight into the roles of Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who all allegedly had major roles in the electors scheme.
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Taylor Croft/AJC
Taylor Croft/AJC
RESULTS ARE IN. Runoff elections were held Tuesday in the city of Mableton and in Clayton County. The unofficial results show that Michael Owens was elected Mableton’s inaugural mayor.
Four of six city council seats were settled in the runoff. The city’s first city council members will be Ron Davis in District 1; Dami Oladapo in District 2; Keisha Jeffcoat in District 3; Patricia Auch in District 4; TJ Ferguson in District 5; and Debora Herndon in District 6, according to the AJC’s Taylor Croft.
In Clayton County, our colleague Leon Stafford reports that interim sheriff Levon Allen appeared to narrowly win the special election runoff. Allen is the handpicked successor of former Sheriff Victor Hill, who was convicted in October of violating the civil rights of detainees at the county jail.
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Miguel Martinez for the AJC
Miguel Martinez for the AJC
TUITION HIKES CONSIDERED. University System of Georgia officials are considering tuition increases to offset cuts in state funding for the upcoming fiscal year.
The AJC’s Vanessa McCray reports the Georgia Board of Regents will consider potential tuition and fee increases for the state’s 26 public colleges at its May meeting. Regents will also consider strategically allocating state funds to schools most in need and dipping into universities’ rainy day funds.
The University System’s budget was reduced by $66 million on the final day of the legislative session. Those cuts, initiated in the state Senate, are contained in the state budget now awaiting Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature.
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Hyosub Shin/AJC
Hyosub Shin/AJC
HUMAN TRAFFICKING. The Rescuing Hope nonprofit will partner with the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association and the CareSource health plan on a new initiative to train law enforcement officials to spot signs of human trafficking.
Gov. Brian Kemp and First Lady Marty Kemp, who have made legislation that targets human trafficking a priority, both attended an event Tuesday at GracePointe Baptist Church to highlight the initiative. The first lady also leads the GRACE Commission, a committee of statewide government leaders dedicated to stopping human trafficking in Georgia.
The GracePointe event came days after the governor signed a measure that amps up the penalties for businesses that don’t post mandatory notices advertising resources for victims of human trafficking.
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Alyssa Pointer/AJC
Alyssa Pointer/AJC
LOEFFLER DINNER. Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s conservative Greater Georgia voting rights group will hold its first legislative awards dinner next week — and is expected to draw a prominent crowd.
Among the expected attendees at the April 26 dinner at Canoe are Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and House Speaker Jon Burns.
Loeffler also has been named to the board of the Republican State Leadership Committee, the Washington-based group dedicated to winning state legislative chambers around the country.
She headed up a similar effort for the Georgia state Senate ahead of the 2022 elections and has made local legislative races a focal point of her Greater Georgia Action group.
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Scott McIntyre/The New York Times
Scott McIntyre/The New York Times
DESANTIS DROP IN. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis met behind closed doors with House Republicans in Washington Tuesday, but don’t expect that to translate into a groundswell of support for the likely-but-not-declared presidential candidate.
Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk wasn’t among the handful of Republicans who had been listed as attending the private event, but he told one of your Insiders Tuesday that he planned to be in the audience. The Cassville Republican said he usually doesn’t endorse in GOP primaries but that he saw no harm in hearing DeSantis out.
At least one lawmaker, Texas’s U.S. Rep. Lance Gooden, endorsed former President Donald Trump immediately after meeting with DeSantis.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, is among Trump’s most prominent backers in Congress, but even she said she was open to hearing from DeSantis if her schedule allowed.
“I don’t see any problem with going,” she told reporters Tuesday afternoon prior to the meeting. “I’m not donating any money. But again, he’s not running for president.”
Greene said that DeSantis should remain governor of Florida, where she said he’s done a great job. She said the best Republican candidate for president will always be Trump.
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Chip Somodevilla via The New York Times
Chip Somodevilla via The New York Times
TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- The House will vote on legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Athens, that would repeal the District of Columbia’s new police accountability measures.
- Senators will attend a closed-door briefing on the recent leak of secret military documents related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- President Joe Biden will travel to Accokeek, Maryland, where he will deliver remarks from a union training facility on his economic agenda, contrasting it with House Republicans’ proposals to reduce federal spending.
- Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Lithonia, will join other Democrats for a news conference calling on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign.
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Nathan Posner for The Atlanta-Journal-Constitution
Nathan Posner for The Atlanta-Journal-Constitution
PUSHING FAIR TAX. House Republicans have begun drafting a list of proposed budget cuts they want to push through as part of any deal with Democrats in the Senate and in the White House on increasing the nation’s debt limit.
U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter is using this as an opportunity to renew his campaign to approve legislation to abolish the IRS, create two new tax collecting agencies, and implement a national sales tax.
The Pooler Republican was joined by Georgia’s U.S. Reps. Andrew Clyde and Mike Collins, R-Jackson, and others for floor speeches Tuesday afternoon on the “fair tax” proposal. They said the fair tax would simplify the tax code, eliminate a costly federal bureaucracy and give Americans more control over their money with a flat 30% tax on goods and services.
“Today could be the last tax day our country ever has,” Carter said.
Left unsaid was criticism from conservatives of dusting off the decades-old idea. Earlier this year the Wall Street Journal editorial board called renewing the effort “masochistic.”
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NOT SORRY. Just as opening statements were about to begin, Fox News agreed to a nearly $800 million settlement to end Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the cable network.
Beyond the $787.5 million paying Fox will make to Dominion, it’s not clear what else the network agreed to, the Associated Press reported.
Fox acknowledged in a statement “the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” But the Washington Post reported that the settlement doesn’t require Fox or any of its hosts to apologize on air or retract previous statements. Instead, Fox media reporter Howard Kurtz read the company’s statement on air Tuesday and said statements made on the network after the 2020 election were “obviously false” and “conspiracy theories.”
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Courtesy photo
Courtesy photo
DOG OF THE DAY. Speaking of not being sorry, it’s time to meet Ellie Hansen, the chocolate-loving chocolate Labrador retriever of longtime AJC writer, Jane Hansen.
Jane reports that the angel-faced Ellie recently consumed an entire Easter basket full of chocolate candy, a bad idea even for dogs with an iron constitution. After a quick trip to the canine E.R. and a veterinarian retrieving both candy and candy wrappers from Ellie’s insides, she’s just fine and is pictured here, “licking her chops, just thinking about it.”
You’re our kind of girl, Ellie.
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.
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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.
