GOP leaders should listen to Republican voters — including those who cast ballots for billionaire Donald Trump — when it comes to backing the party’s presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. David Perdue said Thursday.
Without mentioning Trump by name, Georgia’s junior senator indicated that the party’s efforts of countering Trump — criticizing him or rolling out endorsements for his competitors — won’t work with frustrated voters who feel abandoned by elites.
“People know already that they’re disenfranchised, they know they’re frustrated with Washington, and I don’t think any endorsements or criticisms are going to change that. This is a movement, if you will, about people who are disenfranchised saying ‘hey, listen to us,’ ” Perdue told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the sidelines of a gathering of conservative activists here.
Perdue’s image as a political outsider helped tap into a wave of anti-establishment sentiment that propelled him to the Senate in 2014, a theme that has also come to dominate the current presidential cycle.
Trump’s blunt, anti-establishment message built him a coalition of evangelicals, tea partyers and rural conservatives that led him to win seven of the 11 Super Tuesday states, including Georgia. The victories widened his lead in the Republican presidential race and ignited a civil war within the GOP about whether he should be stopped.
Many party officials have mobilized against the front-runner in recent days in order to stop him from running away with the nomination.
Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was the latest to take a swing at Trump, calling him a “phony” and a “fraud” unfit for the White House in an eviscerating speech Thursday in Utah.
“His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University,” the former governor of Massachusetts said. “He’s playing members of the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.”
Trump quickly countered, calling Romney a “failed candidate” and a “lightweight.”
The divide threatens to split the party in two, just as Democrats begin to coalesce around former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Perdue said he doesn’t plan on endorsing a Republican candidate but that he’s preaching unity and debate on substantive policy issues in the weeks ahead.
“I’m trying to tell our guys on the Republican side, ‘Look, whoever our candidate is, it was the Republican system, this was the Republican primary, this is the Republican candidate.’ Why can’t we get behind whoever comes through that process and make sure that the Democrats don’t get to double down on these failed policies of the last seven years?” Perdue said.
Perdue added that Republican leaders “won’t be in power very long” if they don’t listen to their party’s voters. “The majority rules,” he said.
“Whoever the nominee is on the Republican side, we have got to pull together and make sure that Hillary Clinton is not the next president,” he said, adding that he’s pleased by the record voter turnouts the recent primaries have generated.
About the Author
