Georgia GOP feud over Raffensperger’s governor bid takes another turn
Today’s newsletter highlights:
- The Atlanta Press Club announces a series of general election debates.
- Rick Jackson weighs in on campaigning with Mike Collins.
- The Atlanta Jewish Times publisher escalates a rift over Jon Ossoff’s Israel stance.
Republican enough?
One of the strangest fights in Georgia Republican politics has somehow gotten stranger.
A year ago, Georgia GOP delegates overwhelmingly approved a resolution to bar Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger from qualifying to run as a Republican, the latest punishment for his refusal to help President Donald Trump overturn his 2020 defeat.
Party Chair Josh McKoon promptly said at the time he wouldn’t “purchase a lawsuit” by defying state ballot-access laws. Sure enough, Raffensperger walked into the state Capitol in March and paid his qualifying fee without so much as a procedural hiccup.
The lawsuit arrived anyway. A group of hard-line GOP activists want a Fulton County judge to declare that party officials exceeded their authority when they allowed Raffensperger on the May primary ballot.
Georgia GOP attorneys responded this week with a legal version of: What exactly do you want us to do about it now? Raffensperger ran and lost. There’s no announced future candidacy for a court to block. The party’s lawyers argue that makes the entire case moot.
But the filing goes further. GOP attorneys say the plaintiffs are essentially asking a judge to referee an internal power struggle, noting that courts usually keep out of those sorts of fights.
It’s the latest chapter in a long-running struggle over who gets to decide who is Republican enough to run as a Republican.
Hard-line activists have pushed for years to give party officials more power to police the GOP ballot, including an unsuccessful effort in Catoosa County.
This case could be yet another important front in that fight.
Things to know
Good morning! Here are three things to know for today:
- Democrats are hosting a series of meetings throughout the state aimed at listening to voters about what they should do if they win a majority in November, David Wickert reports.
- Republican U.S. Senate nominee Mike Collins’ response to a Jan. 6 rioter quickly ricocheted across social media this week. Now, Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff is trying to turn the exchange into a defining issue of the race, Greg Bluestein reports.
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has apprehended foreign nationals and at least one U.S. citizen who was mistaken by agents for someone else at the Atlanta airport, Lautaro Grinspan reports.
Israel rift
The publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times is escalating a long-running rift between Ossoff and parts of Georgia’s Jewish community over his approach to Israel.
Michael Morris published a scathing open letter Wednesday accusing the Democratic senator of “lying” to Jewish Georgians when he describes his support for Israel as “ironclad.”
Morris pointed to Ossoff’s repeated votes for resolutions seeking to block certain U.S. weapons sales to Israel, including measures backed by Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“You campaigned as a supporter of Israel. You were elected to stand with our allies. You continue to claim that you support Israel,” Morris wrote. “Demonstrate your support with your vote on the Senate floor.”
The broadside touches on one of Ossoff’s most politically sensitive fault lines. As the first Jewish U.S. senator in Georgia history, he has faced criticism from some Jewish leaders over his Israel votes even as other Jewish Georgians have defended his calls for limits on military aid amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
His campaign declined to comment on Morris’ letter, though he’s sharply rejected the notion that his votes amount to abandoning Israel.
Collins quickly seized on it, calling Ossoff a “sellout who is too afraid to stand up for what’s right when his next political promotion is on the line.”
“I’ve stood with Israel by voting to fund its missile defenses, punish Hamas and their financial backers, and bring the October 7 hostages home,” Collins said, “while Ossoff has voted against Israel’s right to defend itself at every opportunity.”
In a separate Atlanta Jewish Times piece published Wednesday, editor Sasha Heller wrote about a closed-door gathering at the home of philanthropist Kirk Halpern where Collins was directly asked to denounce white supremacy.
Collins responded that “hate has no place in America,” but did not specifically condemn white supremacy, according to her account.
“Please note that he did not denounce white supremacy, even when put on the spot in a room filled with approximately 80 Jews,” Heller wrote.
Debate schedule
The Atlanta Press Club announced a series of general election debates for October. Here’s the lineup. The first time is when the debate will happen. The time in parentheses is when the debate will air on Georgia Public Broadcasting.
Monday, Oct. 12
- 1:30 p.m.: Lieutenant governor (7 p.m.)
- 2:45 p.m.: Attorney general (7:30 p.m.)
- 3:45 p.m.: Secretary of state (Oct. 13 at 7:30 p.m.)
- 5:30 p.m.: Public Service Commission District 3. (Oct. 13 at 4 p.m.)
- 6:30 p.m.: Public Service Commission District 5 (Oct. 13 at 4:30 p.m.)
- 8 p.m.: Governor (live)
Tuesday, Oct. 13
- 2:30 p.m.: School superintendent (Oct. 14 at 3 p.m.)
- 3:45 p.m.: Agriculture commissioner (Oct. 14 at 3:30 p.m.)
- 4:45 p.m.: Insurance commissioner (Oct. 14 at 4 p.m.)
- 6 p.m.: Labor commissioner (Oct. 14 at 4:30 p.m.)
- 8 p.m.: U.S. Senate. (live)
Jackson’s plan
Republican nominee for governor Rick Jackson used Wednesday’s rollout of his new economic development plan to sketch out something broader, too.
Asked whether he plans to campaign as a tandem ticket with Collins, Jackson made clear he’s focused on his bid.
“Well, first of all, focus is the way I’ve been successful. So I’m focusing on this race — period — from that standpoint,” Jackson said. “There’s no other agenda other than whatever it’s going to take to win.”
As we’ve noted before, that’s a clear distinction from the Democratic tag-team of Keisha Lance Bottoms and Ossoff — and another clear sign of Collins’ troubles.
When pressed about potential conflicts involving his healthcare empire and roughly $1 billion in state-linked business, Jackson said a major ethics overhaul plan is in the works. He said he did not want even the “appearance that there’s an impropriety here.”
“I’m going to have the biggest legislative ethics reform bill in the world,” he said.
Jackson said lawmakers should be barred from promoting or voting on legislation that could enrich them personally.
“We should not have people downtown promoting bills that help them personally to make money,” he said. “That’s going to stop when I put our ethics bill together.”
Senate battle
Ossoff is getting help from two very different corners of the political spectrum as he works to build a broader coalition against Collins.
Ahead of Collins’ campaign stop in Valdosta on Thursday, Ossoff’s campaign released a new video highlighting praise from Republicans.
It’s timed as a reminder that Valdosta Mayor Scott James Matheson crossed party lines last week to endorse the Democratic incumbent.
And former Vice President Kamala Harris also headlined a Zoom event for Ossoff on Wednesday night, offering an expansive endorsement of the Atlanta Democrat as an emerging national voice for the party.
She said Ossoff has a unique ability to “deconstruct the chaos of what is happening, and help them with some clarity about what the problems are, but also where they fit into the solution.”
“A lot of people are feeling a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness that comes with hopelessness, and when we can have elected leaders who not only represent their state with the passion and the sense of duty that Jon does, but also can have a profile that helps the people feel some sense of hope about the future. It’s good for the entire country,” she said.
Collins responded with a video mocking their alliance by criticizing his votes against measures that would ban transgender girls from competing in women’s sports.
“How can there be a Women for Ossoff event when Ossoff and Harris still don’t know what a woman is in the first place?” he asked.
Listen up
Today on the “Politically Georgia” podcast Republican John Cowan joins the show to talk about his campaign for Georgia’s 11th Congressional District after losing to former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene back in 2020.
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Cybersecurity
Raffensperger is concerned about cybersecurity heading into the midterms.
“We’ve kind of kicked the one hornet’s nest of the Iranians, and they’ve got some really smart folks over in the cyber space,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday.
The Trump administration has overseen substantial cuts to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, including to election security work. But the agency recently said it plans to rebuild election security operations mere months before November, according to CNN.
Raffensperger’s remarks come after a string of cyberattacks on U.S. water systems hit Georgia and other states, which experts believe Iranian hackers could be behind.
Raffensperger is leaving office in January following an unsuccessful bid for governor. He did not say if voters can expect his name to be on the ballot in the future, saying he wants “to talk today about making sure people understand we’re going to have free, fair and fast elections.”
Shoutout
Today’s birthday:
- Atlanta City Council member Alex Wan.
Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.
Before you go
Raffensperger launched a bipartisan task force on Wednesday aimed at building voter confidence and examining election issues and processes ahead of the midterms.
That’ll do it for us today. As always, you can send your best scoops, gossip and insider information to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.