As he sought to test his political clout, former President Donald Trump made a major bet on Georgia this year, endorsing a slate of candidates up and down the ballot who all echoed his belief that the 2020 elections were stolen.
But what’s become clear as ballot counting continues is that a Trump endorsement is not necessarily a golden ticket in Georgia politics, even though some three-quarters of GOP primary voters here have a favorable opinion of the former president.
Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, arguably the Georgia candidate whom Trump directed the most money and attention towards, was quickly routed by Trump’s nemesis, Gov. Brian Kemp.
John Gordon, a conservative lawyer who announced his run for attorney general with effusive praise for Trump, was distantly trailing incumbent Chris Carr. Ditto for Patrick Witt, who challenged Insurance Commissioner John King, a Kemp appointee.
That said, a Trump endorsement wasn’t a dealbreaker either.
Trump’s biggest Georgia victory on Tuesday came from former University of Georgia football great Herschel Walker, who cruised past his primary opponents to secure the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate. But Walker was well-known to many in the state already due to his football stardom.
All of the congressional incumbents that Trump endorsed, including conservative lightningrods Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andrew Clyde, made it through their primaries unscathed.
More than three hours after polls closed, it appeared that several other Trump-endorsed candidates were headed to runoffs.
Vernon Jones and Jake Evans, whom Trump respectively endorsed in the 10th and 6th congressional districts, were both trailing frontrunners in their respective contests but appeared firmly in runoff territory.
Even closer were the races for lieutenant governor and secretary of state.
State Sen. Burt Jones, who has Trump’s backing, appeared to be on the cusp of avoiding a primary runoff for the state’s No. 2 position late Tuesday.
But in the secretary of state’s contest, fortunes appeared to be reversed. Trump’s enemy Brad Raffensperger, the incumbent who rebuffed the president’s requests to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia, was in striking distance of defeating Trump’s hand-picked challenger without a runoff.
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