Donald Trump hopes to avoid a stinging defeat in the Georgia governor’s race on Tuesday as Republican primary voters decide the fate of the former president’s hand-picked candidate to lead one of the most competitive political battlegrounds in the U.S. In all, five states are voting, including Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Minnesota. But none has been more consumed by Trump and his lie that the 2020 election was stolen than Georgia. After incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp refused to accept Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in Georgia, he sought retribution by personally recruiting former Republican Sen. David Perdue to mount a primary challenge. But that may prove to be a bad bet as Kemp has emerged as a powerful fundraiser who has tapped into the benefits of incumbency. In the final days of the campaign, he unveiled a $5.5 billion, 8,100-job Hyundai Motor plant near Savannah. On the eve of the election, Perdue’s allies were bracing for a lopsided defeat, the only question being whether Kemp would win the 50% majority he needs to avoid a runoff election next month. “We’re not going to have a runoff,” said Matha Zoller, a longtime Republican activist and northeast Georgia talk show host with ties to both Trump and Perdue. “It’s going to be embarrassing.” The results could raise questions about where power resides within the GOP. While Trump remains deeply popular among the party’s most loyal voters, the opening stage of the midterm primary season has shown they don’t always side with his picks. Other prominent Republicans, meanwhile, are growing increasingly assertive. In a clear illustration of the divide among top Republicans, Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, rallied with Kemp in the Atlanta suburbs on Monday evening. “Elections are about the future,” he told the crowd, adding that “when you vote for Brian Kemp tomorrow, you will say yes to a future of freedom here in Georgia. You will say yes to our most cherished values at the heart of everything we hold dear.” Perdue, for his part, ended the day saying Stacey Abrams, who is Black and running unopposed for the Democratic nomination for governor, was “demeaning her own race.” Republicans have stepped up their criticism of Abrams since she told a Democratic dinner on Saturday that “I am tired of hearing about being the the best state in the country to do business when we are the worst state in the country to live.” Abrams has said her comments were meant to address Georgia’s dismal rankings for mental health access and maternal mortality. But in an interview Monday with conservative radio host John Fredericks and former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, Perdue went further. He likened the comment to remarks Abrams made in 2018 arguing “people shouldn’t have to go into agriculture or hospitality to make a living in Georgia.” He asserted that she was referring to Black farmers. “When she told Black farmers, you don’t need to be on the farm, and when she told Black workers in hospitality and all this … she is demeaning her own race when it comes to that,” Perdue said. Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats elsewhere are grappling with ideological and strategic divisions that will determine what kind of candidates to nominate and which issues to prioritize for the November general election. […]

The post Trump’s Bid to Reshape GOP Faces Biggest Hurdles in Georgia appeared first on The Yeshiva World.