Georgia GOP’s Texas unity tour runs into old party feuds
Today’s newsletter highlights
- Test your knowledge with our news quiz.
- Republican Party leaders don’t mention Georgia in meeting with donors.
- Justice Department asks Georgia to preserve 2024 election records.
Come together?
Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon led the state Republican contingent at the party’s first midterm convention in Dallas, a gathering aimed at showcasing unity.
Back home, though, McKoon keeps getting reminders of the fissures inside his own party.
First came Vernon Jones, the party-switching former Democrat who lost his Republican bid for secretary of state in June. Jones spread a false rumor that McKoon planned to step down as state party chair.
McKoon’s response was withering:
“This is a lie. It is also a statement from Vernon Jones. But I repeat myself.”
Then came the Georgia Republican Assembly, the far-right faction that has feuded with McKoon for years. The group is pressing ahead with its lawsuit over the state party’s decision to let Brad Raffensperger qualify for the governor’s race despite a 2025 convention resolution seeking to bar him from running as a Republican.
McKoon warned at the time that enforcing the resolution would “purchase a lawsuit.” Raffensperger qualified anyway, then lost the May primary.
The lawsuit arrived regardless. The Georgia GOP is trying to get it dismissed, arguing in part that Raffensperger’s defeat rendered the dispute moot and that courts shouldn’t referee an internal party power struggle.
But in a filing Thursday, the plaintiffs argued the case is bigger than Raffensperger. They want a judge to decide whether resolutions passed by state convention delegates should be applied to future elections. McKoon, a lawyer and former legislator, was unimpressed.
“There probably are things that could be done eight weeks before Election Day that are dumber than this, but none come to mind at the moment,” he wrote.
McKoon threatened to seek attorneys’ fees and sanctions if the party prevails. Then he invoked the State Ethics Commission decision this week to fine the GRA and its affiliated PAC nearly $150,000 for campaign finance violations.
“None of the ‘plaintiffs’ can pretend they have any interest in winning this year when they pull this sort of absurd stunt,” McKoon wrote, “but I guess they need a gimmick to raise money to pay the fines assessed by the Ethics Commission against the GRA.”
Friday news quiz
Good morning! How closely did you follow the news this week? Find out by taking our quiz. You’ll find the answers at the end of the newsletter.
Democratic nominee for governor Keisha Lance Bottoms unveiled a new policy position this week that few other candidates for governor have taken. What was it?
- A) Legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes.
- B) Replacing the gas tax with a “miles driven” tax.
- C) A new 2% tax on people with incomes $1 million or higher
- D) Dedicated state funding for MARTA.
It’s now been one year since Gov. Brian Kemp deployed Georgia National Guard members to Washington, D.C, at President Donald Trump’s request. How much is it costing taxpayers to keep them there?
- A) $607 per day
- B) $200 per day
- C) $1,062 per day
- D) $825 per day
Republican nominee for governor Rick Jackson proposed a new way to use Medicaid funding. How would he spend it?
- A) To help people stay on their private insurance plans.
- B) To pay for nontraditional healthcare expenses, like housing.
- C) Create health savings accounts for some people on Medicaid to use for their health expenses.
- D) Use Medicaid money to cover GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic, for weight loss.
Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger joined a bipartisan group of elected officials this week to file a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court. What are they asking the justices to do?
- A) Reject the Trump administration’s plan to create a database of registered voters for the U.S. Postal Service to deliver absentee ballots.
- B) Quash a subpoena from the U.S. Justice Department seeking access to Georgia’s voter rolls.
- C) Order the Trump administration to return 2020 ballots to Fulton County election officials.
- D) Prevent the Trump administration from decertifying the electronic voting machines Georgia uses.
Off the map?
When U.S. Senate Republican leaders gathered privately in Dallas to assess the midterm battlefield, Georgia didn’t even merit a mention.
That’s according to a Politico report Thursday that offered another sign of the GOP’s growing concern about U.S. Rep. Mike Collins’ challenge to Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.
Politico reported Senate Majority Leader John Thune focused instead on Alaska, Maine and Michigan during a donor meeting hosted by the Senate Leadership Fund. Georgia never came up.
The omission comes as Collins waits for promised outside help. Big-money Republican groups once signaled plans for nearly $60 million in Georgia, but only a fraction has so far materialized. And ad trackers show little future spending for Collins reserved in the state.
Collins told Politico he would welcome more help: “Listen, we’ll always make a case for more money.” Meanwhile, his allies are urging national GOP groups not to count him out yet.
A new political committee tied to President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC is investing in Collins’ campaign.
We reported in Thursday’s newsletter that the No Going Back super PAC had begun reserving ad space in Georgia. The amount is up to $2.1 million and specifically for the effort to unseat Ossoff, according to The New York Times.
But No Going Back still is spending far more on other battleground Senate races, such as Michigan, New Hampshire and Ohio.
Fraud hunt
The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to Raffensperger and officials across more than two dozen states last week demanding they preserve 2024 election records amid the Trump administration’s hunt for voter fraud.
Eric Neff, acting chief of the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section, wrote that failure to preserve the records “may constitute spoliation of evidence, which may subject you to civil and criminal sanctions.”
It’s unclear what the department is investigating. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Civil Rights Division, said in a social media post on Thursday that the DOJ sent the letters to “ensure these states do not destroy election records related to our ongoing lawsuits.”
“This is standard litigation practice, not a ‘threat,’” she wrote.
The Justice Department has sued 30 states seeking their unredacted voter rolls. They’ve lost nearly two dozen of those cases.
A Raffensperger spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The letter is the latest salvo in an escalating pattern. In July, the DOJ threatened to prosecute state election officials for knowingly allowing noncitizens to vote — something that’s already illegal and rare. And last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security demanded voting records for 13 voters. More than 8 million voters are registered in Georgia.
Help wanted
Four years ago, roughly 200,000 voters cast ballots for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a phenomenon known as “split-ticket” voting. These voters could play a big role in Georgia’s 2026 midterms.
Are you one of them? If so, we’d love to talk with you for an upcoming story. Click here to email reporter Sophia Eppley.
Old shots
Former state Sen. Jason Esteves endorsed Keisha Lance Bottoms shortly after she defeated him to win the Democratic nomination for governor. But an Instagram post reinforcing that support gave Republicans an opening to revisit just how sharply Esteves attacked her during the primary.
Bottoms said Esteves, the runner-up in the May primary, was backing her “because he knows what Georgia needs in this moment: a leader who will fight for every Georgian to have an opportunity to succeed.”
Republicans were ready with the receipts.
Jackson’s campaign circulated seven examples of Esteves criticizing Bottoms, including attacks on her handling of Atlanta’s 2020 protests and her decision not to seek a second term as mayor.
The sharpest was an accusation Esteves made last year, when he called Bottoms “a former mayor who abandoned the city at a time of crisis, and decided not to run for reelection.”
Listen up
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More coastal cash
Two television industry powerhouses hosted a fundraiser last night in Los Angeles for U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff and James Talarico, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee in Texas.
Shonda Rhimes, the producer and writer behind “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Bridgerton,” co-hosted the event with Damon Lindelof, who helped bring “Lost” and “The Watchmen” to the small screen. Lindelof’s wife Heidi was also a co-host.
The New York Times reported that the lowest-priced tickets, which were $1,000, sold out days ahead of the event. But other tiers went as high as $27,000.
Ossoff was a late edition to the event that initially featured only Talarico. As a result, the ticket price doubled.
The Collins campaign posted the flyer on social media and nodded to his frequent criticism that Ossoff is more concerned about serving donors in California than voters in Georgia.
“Hope Jon Ossoff enjoys his fundraiser in Los Angeles tonight,” the post said. “It’s always good to see a politician visit his actual constituents every now and then.”
Today in Washington
Some happenings:
- Today is the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon in Washington. Trump and first lady Melania Trump will participate in a 9/11 ceremony at the Pentagon. Later, the president will depart for Ireland where he will spend the weekend.
- The House and Senate return Monday.
Shoutouts
Today’s birthdays
- State Rep. Katie Dempsey, R-Rome.
- Former state Rep. Lauren Daniel.
Upcoming birthdays:
- State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, R-Marietta (Sunday).
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
Answers to today’s news quiz:
- D) A dedicated state funding source for MARTA. The system relies on local sales taxes and federal grants. Candidates for governor have historically been hesitant to back state funding for the agency.
- A) $607 per day. Georgia has 531 troops deployed to D.C. At current funding levels, that would cost taxpayers $117 million per year.
- A) To help people stay on their private insurance plans. Jackson would need permission from the federal government to implement what he is calling “intelligent Medicaid expansion.”
- A) Reject plans for a database of registered voters. The officials did not say whether Trump’s plan was legal. They argued there was no time to implement it before the election.
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.